Exonian Profiles
|
Sarah Smith ’88: ‘Creating Educational
Opportunities’
Having experienced about the best education has to offer, Sarah Smith ’88 is working hard to pass on that gift to children who may not even know where to find it. As the academic director and cofounder of Rainier Scholars, based in Seattle, Smith recruits children largely from minority and disadvantaged economic backgrounds, whose parents often have not attended college themselves, and prepares them for top schools around the country. “ To increase the number of students of color on top-notch college campuses, you start building the foundation 10 years before,” she says. “You help them learn how to access the opportunities that are out there.” Now in its fourth year, Rainier Scholars recruits about 60 fifth graders a year and puts them through a very rigorous academic preparatory regime in which they spend two consecutive summers as well as a day and a half each week during sixth grade learning advanced writing, math and science. “It’s an academic boot camp of sorts, with lots of love and support,” she says, noting that the children read Shakespeare as well as learn the basics of biology, physics and chemistry. It may seem a bit much for 11-year-olds, but as Smith astutely points out, “That’s what they’re going to have to be comfortable with. We put them through the paces so they’re not intimidated by Homer or a physics lab that asks them to make sense of Newton’s three laws.” Smith is, in a sense, doing for others what others once did for her family. Her father, Reverend John Smith ’55, was one of “Hammy’s boys”—a scholarship student who came to Exeter largely through the work of Hamilton Bissell ’29, the Academy’s first director of scholarships, who sought out boys “long on brains and short on cash.” “My dad was a paperboy in West Virginia,” Smith says, noting that his decision to come to Exeter had a profound impact not only on his life, but his children: in addition to Sarah, her siblings Doug and Katherine, both class of ’83, attended Exeter as well. “ So much of educational access is inherited,” she observes. “If you have parents who went to Exeter or to college, they have a sense of what a quality school is, having participated in one themselves. You have to know that you want something better for your child to begin to think about accessing that.” It was at Exeter that Smith realized she wanted to be a teacher. “I came to believe that my mission was trying to level the playing field and create more educational equality, to address social injustice through education. And I do attribute part of that decision to wanting to return that gift that Exeter gave to my family.” Smith spent eight years as a public school teacher, an experience that taught her that “this kind of change happens one child at a time, one opportunity at a time.” Now with Rainier Scholars, her students are attending—and excelling at—the highest track public and private schools in Seattle. “The preparation we give ensures they’re ready for that level of work. Once they’re there, we provide ongoing support and mentoring through high school and beyond that. We don’t want kids to get in and slide by; we want them to really make it.” With private school students posting average GPAs of 3.5, Smith rightfully boasts, “Our students are establishing themselves as leaders in all facets.” Smith says she is very pleased that five Rainier Scholars have been admitted to Exeter Summer School. “It’s a special joy to have some of our students go to Exeter,” she notes. “I realize how much opportunity going to Exeter opened up for me, and I would love to see my students access that.” —
Susannah Clark ’84 |
