About
Madrona Elementary School
Located in the heart of one of Seattle’s most historic and vibrant neighborhoods.
A public school has been in this location in Seattle since 1890. From humble beginnings in 1890, the property has undergone many changes over time to become the present day Madrona Elementary School, culminating in a renovation to our current facility in the 2000-2001 school years.
Our facility is in excellent condition and is one of the gems of the Seattle Public School System. It’s design incorporates state of the art science labs, a regulation size gym, a spacious library, a stage with sound system, a computer lab, learning garden, art room with kiln, nurses station with full-time nurse, and full service kitchen facility where breakfast and lunch are served daily throughout the school year.
“We are academic achievers, respectful and caring of ourselves, our school, and our community.”
School Community and Focus
The staff, families, and community of Madrona Elementary are committed to a structured, student-centered school environment where the focus is on each individual student’s learning needs. We encourage every child to develop academic skills and goals focused toward the future, to appreciate diversity, and to reach his or her potential intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Because we have students from the beginning of their schooling through their entry to high school, we are able to truly know them and their individual needs.
School at a Glance
- We are a small elementary school located in the Madrona neighborhood
- We have a full day, special education pre-kindergarten program on campus
- All students wear uniforms (black polo and khaki pants)
- Madrona has been a designated pilot school for the Columbia Teachers College “Writer’s Workshop” Program
School Culture
Madrona Elementary is a community. We are a community made up of students, faculty, staff and families who are all tied together by the common bond of dedicating ourselves to ensure that every child achieves success. Madrona Elementary has developed many structures to provide our students with the best possible school culture which will allow them to achieve their dreams and reach their full potential. We build school culture primarily through structures that develop students’ academic and social skills and unite us all as a school community.
Vision for Excellence
Madrona faculty and staff work with students to help them become thinkers, problem solvers, and young professionals. We do this by instilling the vision for excellence of being Professional, Attentive, Thoughtful and Hardworking (PATH). This vision for excellence is the foundation of what it means to be a member of the Madrona Elementary community on the PATH to achieving excellence.
Madrona defines the vision for excellence as following the Panther PATH:
The Panther PATH
Professional (P)
- Be and stay organized
- Be in uniform
- Use complete sentences
- Be on time and prepared when you come to school and class bring supplies, uniform and the right attitude
- Follow all procedures and directions
Attentive (A)
- Demonstrate good listening skills, eye contact and posture
- Be committed to your studies and to learning because it will make you smarter
- Read all directions, participate and ask insightful questions
Thoughtful (T)
- Be nice – treat others as you would like to be treated
- Be community-oriented and help others whenever possible
- Show respect to yourself, classmates, teachers/staff, families and the school
- Always use Please, Excuse me, Thank you, Sorry and You’re Welcome whenever possible
Hardworking (H)
- Set high goals for yourself and do what is needed to achieve and exceed them
- Do your homework
- Persevere –stick to it when things aren’t going your way
- Have PRIDE – Personal Responsibility In Demanding Excellence
At Madrona, we have high expectations for the kind of people our students will grow to be. We believe that students who demonstrate our core values and expectations will be empowered and be prepared to enter and be successful in the best high schools in Seattle and be prepared for college. We set high expectations for our students and so believe that they each can reach high academic standards, enjoy learning, achieve success and contribute actively to their communities.
In order to maintain a school culture that nurtures students to develop in such a manner, our school-wide behavior system is a prevention-based model, focused on modeling our core values, helping students reflect upon their behaviors (both positive and negative), and teaching them to make positive choices.
We set high expectations for students’ behavior, and reinforce positive choices in the classroom and school-wide. We provide students multiple opportunities to demonstrate our core values and expectations and to learn to embody those they may be struggling with, by explicitly teaching students what we expect and providing appropriate reinforcement. Every adult in the school models the core values for students in their work habits, professionalism, and interactions. Our expectations for students are evident in the relationships we build with students, our partnerships with families, and the quality of instruction in our classrooms.
When students make poor choices, our behavior management system holds them immediately accountable to their behavior, helping students recognize that their behavior is a choice – positive choices will be rewarded, while poor choices will be addressed with appropriate consequences. The behavior management system supports students’ development in our core values and beliefs by always returning to a focus on our belief in children’s capacity for positive choices.
Madrona’s commitment is to educate all children. We use solution focused discipline to build a powerful learning community that models mutual respect and supports academic excellence. In order to achieve this goal, all students will be held to a high standard of behavior. These expectations are clearly shown in the classroom and shared with families at the beginning of the school year.