The RVLA Difference

​Rainier Valley Leadership Academy is a public, tuition-free, charter school, providing an anti-racist collaborative community and rigorous education, while providing access to civic leadership and college success for all scholars in Seattle.

RVLA is a 6-12 public charter school serving the Seattle Community. We respect and celebrate the wealth and vitality of the ethnic and cultural traditions that thrive in our neighborhood. Our mission is to put every child on the path to success in college and career, leadership, and life.

We integrate college and career-ready and hands-on instruction to expose all scholars to a variety of authentic experiences. Our teachers use data driven collection to meet scholar needs and differentiation. We use common planning time and collaborative team time to analyze data to inform instruction. We provide a teacher mentor for every scholar, and focus on personalized learning.

RVLA boasts a highly-qualified and diverse faculty and staff that not only have excellent educational credentials, but also bring to their classrooms many years of dedication to scholar success and passion for our mission. Our small school community allows adults to know each and every scholar by name, strength and need. We pride ourselves on building and maintaining close relationships with scholars and families.

Our academic model is based around a college going culture with high expectations and high support, including acceleration and intervention. Technology and art electives will also be included for all scholars in grades 9-11.

Every scholar will also receive a teacher mentor responsible for overseeing and supporting their academic and personal growth.

We look forward to sharing more about how we put your child on the pathway for college and career readiness.

​RVLA History

RVLA opened in August 2017, starting with our first sixth grade class, and has recently grown to a full 6-12th grade school.

In 2018 we welcomed our first 9th grade class and became a middle/high school.

In 2020, RVLA officially became an independent charter school and moved forward with a new brand, mission, and pillars.

At full capacity we will serve 6th - 12th grade scholars.

​In 2022 we were officially granted our charter school renewal for another 5 years.

​Panther Habits

Perseverance

We set goals and do whatever it takes to accomplish them. We never give up. If we fail, we start again and learn from our mistakes, doing better than before.

Responsibility

We are responsible for our actions, our words, our belongings and our community.

Integrity

We do the right thing, even when no one is watching; we acknowledge and honor ourselves and those who came before us.

Drive

We are assertive and proactive in the pursuit of our dreams. We are self-motivated and ambitious. No dream is too big to go after.

Excellence

We bring our best to all we do by digging deep to learn more about ourselves, others and the world; we are excellence.

Our Pillars

​Collaborative Community

Anti-Racist

Leadership

​Collaborative Community

RVLA is designed for the community, by the community. We honor our past and present by celebrating the voice of our community, and we exceed what is possible by using our collective strength. We focus on positive affirmation, helping scholars uniquely assess, engage, collaborate, and improve their communities with what they’ve learned at RVLA.

  • We provide multi-directional feedback opportunities, giving our scholars multiple opportunities to learn
  • We help scholars participate in decision making by including relevant and relatable social issues
  • We incorporate the diverse experiences and cultures from our community’s leaders
  • We build a sense of belonging and encourage supportive relationships

Anti-Racist

We continuously address racism with urgency and action by decolonizing and dismantling systems of oppression to empower our community. We support our scholars by giving them a sense of belonging, self-advocacy, and supported the skills needed to better critically assess systems and improve their communities through equity, justice, and community change.

  • We decolonize curriculum and tip the balance of power through equitable practices
  • We educate, speak up, and call out racism and microaggressions
  • We teach our scholars to recognize unconscious bias in historic and current events, and to rigorously question the status quo
  • We cultivate social emotional skills and we celebrate neurodiversity
  • We recognize that power systems have historically and currently been developed to marginalize specific groups

​Leadership Focused

Leadership goes beyond positions of power and comes in many forms. We elevate the voice of our future local and global leaders by teaching critical thinking, advocacy for self and others and challenging our scholars to speak out and ask questions. We help them build skills in emotional intelligence that can be translated to the future career choices.
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  • We embed both long- and short-term leadership opportunities and projects throughout a scholar’s day, with practice opportunities expanding each year
  • We challenge our scholars to act with integrity and know when to step up and step back
  • We promote community partnerships, entrepreneurship opportunities and internships, providing opportunities and cultivating scholar leadership
  • We support scholars in setting their own goals and making the plans needed to reach them

RVLA Commitments

​Commitments provide a clear vision for how to engage in relationships by defining a community’s shared relationship values. Our commitments are relational agreements that guide how we aspire to be with one another.

​I COMMIT TO
DISRUPTING RACISM.

This commitment represents our fundamental belief in anti-racism, disrupting the original ideas of colonialism and racism with action and urgency. This commitment invites us to be disturbed by racism and to make anti-racism actionable. Each RVLA community member is responsible to speak up and take action when confronted with acts of racism.

​I COMMIT TO
KEEPING MYSELF AND OTHERS SAFE.

​This commitment embodies our deep belief that learning and growth can only happen when we feel safe. As members of the RVLA community, we expect everyone to commit to being physically and emotionally safe, to living lives to integrity, to being thoughtful with regard to our actions and their impact on others, and to being actively protective of our own and others' well being. Working collaboratively to define an autonomous space.

I COMMIT TO
LEAVING NO COMMUNITY MEMBER BEHIND.

This commitment embodies our belief in the South African principle of Ubuntu - that our individual well being and success is connected to the well being and success of the community as a whole. This commitment means being compassionate, and being connected to a vision and purpose that is larger than our own.

I COMMIT TO
SEEKING DIVERSITY OF PERSPECTIVE.

This commitment represents our fundamental belief in and commitment to diversity. This commitment asks us to be curious, to be open-minded, to be flexible in our thinking, to be inclusive, and to be multi-storied in our self- and other -understanding.

I COMMIT TO
SPEAKING TO THE PERSON, NOT ABOUT THE PERSON.

This commitment represents our belief in the power of transparency and protect us, as a community, against the poison of gossip. This commitment reminds us to be direct, to be conscientious, to be reflective, to be prudent, to be supportive, and to be courageous in our communications in order to build strong positive relationships.

I COMMIT TO
SPEAKING FROM MY HEART, BUT USING MY HEAD.

This commitment embodies our core belief that everything can be done with kindness and reminds us that while it its important to access and express our thoughts, feelings, and needs, that the most effective and wise way to do this is in a manner that will ensure that our communication can be heard and understood.

I COMMIT TO
WORKING THE COMPASS.

This commitment embodies our belief in working hard, in participating, and in striving for excellence. It also reminds us to stay in balance and to attend to all of the dimensions of our growth.

I COMMIT TO
WALKING MY TALK.

This commitment represents our belief in transparency as a foundational aspect of a strong community and calls us to be honest and open, living with integrity, and ensuring that our actions and their impact align with our promises.

I COMMIT TO
SHOWING UP WITH P.R.I.D.E.

This commitment embodies our belief that it takes great courage to grow and reminds us to take calculated risks daily, to be vulnerable, to bring an open heart into all situations, and to live out our purpose with excellence.

Do you want to know your next steps?

Take a look at why RVLA is different from other schools. Go to RVLA Difference
​RVLA is an anti-racist school.
What does THAT mean?
We continuously address racism with urgency and action by decolonizing and dismantling systems of oppression to empower our community.
​
​RVLA calls students…scholars.
That’s different…
Students are typically defined as individuals who are learning at a school or in a teaching environment, whereas a scholar is often described as a learned person who has exhibited accelerated learning competencies and/or possesses high content knowledge of a particular subject.
YUP!
​RVLA is a collaborative community.
What?
​RVLA is designed for the community, by the community.
​RVLA develops leaders.
​
Leadership goes beyond positions of power and comes in many forms. We elevate the voice of our future local and global leaders by teaching critical thinking, advocacy for self and others and challenging our scholars to speak out and ask questions.

Schedule a campus visit. Campus visits are held on Thursday mornings and afternoons 10am and 1pm. Click here to schedule your next campus visit.

RVLA Community Partners & Funders:


Rainier Valley Leadership Academy

6020 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118

(206) 659-0956
[email protected]

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