Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we are pleased to share a Contributor Column from Julie Kennedy, the Executive Director of Excellent Schools Washington, which invests in a portfolio of high-quality public charter schools across Washington State.
We provide a bio for Julie below.
Julie leads statewide efforts to expand access to high-quality public education. Her career began in the classroom as a middle school science teacher—an experience that continues to shape her deep commitment to serving students and families through excellent teaching.
Over the past 25 years, Julie has worked to elevate the role of educators and improve school systems. At Uncommon Schools, she served as a founding principal and later as Managing Director, helping expand a network of high-performing schools. She also held leadership roles at Relay Graduate School of Education and the Charter School Growth Fund, supporting teacher development and scaling impactful school models. Julie holds a BA in Chemistry from Willamette University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
There’s a Window Opening in Washington State
Not too long ago, I told a colleague that I wouldn’t touch Washington State’s charter sector with a ten-foot pole.
Today, I see the same sentiment whenever I share with folks nationally that I work in Washington State. There’s a grimace usually followed by a “Yikes! That is hard!”
I share that because the story of where we are in Washington today doesn’t make sense without understanding where we’ve been. Washington has had its dark days: policy setbacks, funding structures that treat public charter schools as second-class institutions, and a political environment that tested the patience of even the most committed believers in this work. There were real reasons to be skeptical.
But something has shifted. And I think it matters, not just for the kids and families in our schools, but for everyone watching to see whether high-quality public charter schools can survive and grow in a state like ours.
And we are on the other side now.
Washington’s primary charter authorizer is boldly leading to create opportunity for students by restructuring charter renewals for closing or recently closed schools (following some of NYS’s playbook for re-issuing dormant contracts). This means that new, talented leaders have the chance to use those contracts to run the schools Washington’s families have been waiting on for over six years.
Excellent Schools Washington is supporting four exceptional entrepreneurs who bring national leadership and expertise and deep local community roots to that work. We are aiming to grow our portfolio of high-quality public charter schools 25 percent in a single year. We are building a broader political coalition, working in genuine partnership with our authorizer, and recruiting exceptional school leaders from across the country to build great schools here.
The window that seemed sealed shut has opened, and we are running through it.
The question worth sitting with is: why does this matter beyond our state’s borders?
Because Washington is not supposed to be a place where this works. It is a blue state with highly-organized opposition, a complicated and highly regressive funding landscape, and a long memory of political battles that didn’t go our way.
And even with that, we’re writing the playbook of how to break through those barriers in service of kids. We are showing what is possible in Washington, which means we are showing what is possible in any state.
What gives me confidence is not just the policy environment or the fundraising momentum, though both are real. It is the schools themselves.
At Rainier Prep, a school with no gymnasium, no staff lounge, and a student body that is 80 percent low-income and 90 percent students of color. Rainier Prep students are more than twice as likely to be on grade level in Math and ELA relative to their district peers. At Rainier Prep, every student is expected to go to college, and the school is built around that expectation.
At Impact Public Schools, which serves more than 1,200 students across Seattle, Tukwila, Tacoma, and Renton, students at Puget Sound Elementary outperform their local district by 21 points in math. At Impact: Commencement Bay Elementary in Tacoma, students are outpacing the district by more than 17 points in math.
These are not accidents. They are what happens when a school is relentlessly focused on outcomes and does the daily, unglamorous work of executing on that commitment.
These schools exist in the same state where I once said I wouldn’t touch the sector. That gap, between the darkness of a few years ago and the evidence accumulating now, is the whole story.
Washington is writing a playbook- day by day. We are showing what it looks like to come out the other side of a hard stretch, to rebuild trust with authorizers, to recruit leaders and launch schools with intention and care, and to grow a sector in a place where growth was supposed to be impossible.
We know that windows open and windows close. Nobody stays green forever. What we are learning in Washington, about how to create opportunity, how to build political cover through quality, how to move through an open window before it closes, is a lesson the sector needs. It is a roadmap for what the next chapter can look like anywhere initial enthusiasm stalled.
The work is not finished. The state funding structures still treat charter students unequally and the political terrain still requires navigation. But the leaders running our schools are exceptional,the families choosing them are committed, and the evidence of what is possible is harder and harder to explain away.
I believe Washington has the talent, the models, and the momentum to build something durable. And I believe, more than I did even a year ago, that we will.
But building it requires the right people. Washington needs talented, smart, fearless leaders who are ready to be on the ground for this next chapter. If you have been watching from the sidelines, wondering whether this is the moment to plant your flag somewhere that actually needs you, the answer is yes. It is now. It is here.
We are looking for entrepreneurs ready to have a conversation about launching a network of schools in Washington State. If you’re intrigued, reach out to us at julie@excellentshoolswa.org. Washington’s kids are worth betting on. Come help us prove it.