About Bush
Welcome From Head of School
Welcome from Head of SchoolSarah Smith
Welcome from Sarah
Greetings Bush community,
I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve as the tenth Head of School at The Bush School and deeply humbled by the support and confidence shown in me by members of this community in making this appointment. My love and respect for this wonderful school and campus took hold over twenty years ago when Bush’s eighth Head of School Frank Magusin invited the fledgling Rainier Scholars program to spend summer sessions here. In this place, we found inspiring natural beauty, warm and welcoming human beings, and a school which was deeply committed to being accessible to all in the Seattle region, a “private school with a public purpose.”
Fast forward a decade to when the time came for my wife and I to choose a place for our own children to learn, grow, and thrive. We toured numerous schools throughout the region but there was always only one hope: that our son (and later our daughter) would be admitted to Bush. It was evident in every interaction we had as part of the application process that this place offered the exact combination we were looking for in balancing the growth and development of both mind and heart in our children.
My own high school alma mater, an independent boarding school which I attended in the 1980’s as a full-scholarship student and love as fiercely as our Blazer alums love Bush, was founded on the idea that goodness and knowledge united together create the surest foundation for humanity. I have carried with me ever since a deep belief that nurturing the intellectual capacity, curiosity, and critical thinking skills of our students, alongside the essential heart work of developing kindness, compassion, and respect for the experience and perspective of others is indeed the moral imperative of schools in our society.
As a prospective parent in the spring of 2012, I believed that I saw these elements alive and thriving at Bush. As the parent of a senior in the Class of 2025 standing on the precipice of graduation, I know this is true in the deepest fiber of my being. We could not be more grateful for the exceptional faculty and staff who have partnered with us to help both of our children grow into the students and people they have become. What we sought and found for our own children is what I will strive tirelessly to cultivate and ensure is a reality for everyone’s children at Bush: to be a community in which every child who learns here experiences the right mix of challenge, support, and sense of unconditional belonging to become the absolute best possible version of themselves.
It has been an honor to work and learn alongside this community in an array of capacities over many years, and will be the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your next Head of School. There is so much to look forward to in the years ahead as we build on the remarkable tenure of Percy Abram’s leadership and all that has been accomplished during his eleven years as the ninth Head of School. We will blaze new trails by building a new Center Campus and Middle School to cultivate community, inspire learners, and provide dynamic learning environments. Our plans for the Methow Campus will build on our historical belief that “students learn best by doing”, and renew our commitment to experiential and place-based education which our founder Helen Taylor Bush sparked in our earliest students.
We will continue to provide an exceptional academic experience in which students are pushed to explore diverse perspectives while keeping an open mind to ideas that challenge their own. Above all, we will continue to ground all of our work in a commitment to building a community which values, celebrates, and supports every student, faculty, staff, and family member on campus, for it has always and forever will be that our greatest strength lies in the quality of the people gathered here at Bush. Together may we nurture and steward this beloved Blazer community and the larger community of which we are a part for all the days to come.
With gratitude,
Sarah Smith
Head of School
Head of School, Sarah Smith
I want to ensure the school thrives in a way that reflects its incredible history and stays true to the focus on experiential education and community. Not just our own, but the ones beyond the school's walls.
Sarah's Bio
Since 2021, Sarah Smith has served The Bush School as Assistant Head for Academics. From 2000 to 2020, she helped to launch, build, and lead Rainier Scholars, a community-based educational organization that seeks to support the academic and leadership potential of low income, underrepresented students of color grades 5 to 12 in the Seattle area. Over the course of twenty years, Sarah served as Academic Director, Associate Executive Director, and Executive Director, and led internal, external, academic, and operational efforts. Earlier in her career (1996-2002), she taught Humanities and coached soccer at Nathan Hale and Rainier Beach High Schools in Seattle. While teaching and coaching, she also coordinated a youth leadership program for the Center for Ethical Leadership, coordinated teacher training for Strategic Education Centers in Swaziland, and developed World History curriculum for TeachFirst Incorporated. Sarah currently serves on the Boards of Rainier Scholars and Rainier Prep Public Charter School. She is a past Board member of Strategic Education Centers and Exeter Association of Washington. Sarah earned her B.A. from University of Virginia and her M.A. from Stanford University. In her free time, Sarah enjoys reading, backpacking, running and any other activity which gets her outside in the beautiful mountains of the Pacific Northwest. She is a lifelong sports fan who revels most in watching her own children, Benjamin (17) and Lucy (14), compete in running and soccer, and long ago gave up being able to keep up with either of them in those endeavors. Sarah and her spouse of 25 years, Katie Hester, met at summer camp a long, long time ago and have called Southeast Seattle home for nearly three decades
Message from Head of School Sarah Smith
The Bush School is an independent, coeducational day school located in Seattle, WA enrolling 735 students in grades K–12. The mission of The Bush School is to spark in students of diverse backgrounds and talents a passion for learning, accomplishment, and contribution to their communities
3400 East Harrison Street, Seattle WA 98112 (206) 322-7978
The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment, recruitment, admissions, or administration of any of its programs on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. In addition, The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment on the basis of age or marital status