Students entering ninth grade this year can go fishing for a new approach to learning with the Highline School District’s new Maritime High School.
Opening this September, the school intends to educate students through a maritime lens with a mixture of classroom instruction, mentorship opportunities, and hands-on, paid internships.
The school — located in Des Moines — is a collaborative effort between Highline Public Schools, Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, Northwest Maritime Center, and the Port of Seattle, said Tremain Holloway, who will be the school’s principal.
Holloway, who has previously served as the co-principal at Highline High School and assistant principal at Raisbeck Aviation High School, said the school came about for two reasons — to give students more educational choices and because of the community in which the district is located.
“I have to give kudos to Dr. [Susan] Enfield [district superintendent] — she’s very innovative and creative — and I think she wanted to make sure that students in our community, the Highline community, had a choice,” he said. “I also think it’s a combination with the community as well. The maritime industry in and of itself is an industry that we’re pretty much surrounded by.
“It’s also an industry that I don’t think our students know much about. There’s some very lucrative opportunities there in terms of jobs and economic development, and there’s a lot of turnover that’s happening now because a lot of folks in the industry are beginning to retire out.”
The school has been a team effort all the way through, Holloway said, naming individuals with the Cleanup Coalition, Maritime Center, and Port of Seattle that have played an important role in getting the school up and running.
“It’s really just a lot of kudos to our distinguished partners,” he said. “Paulina López with the [Cleanup Coalition], she’s played a big role in making sure the school started; Port of Seattle Commissioner Ryan Calkins, this was kind of his vision, in terms of having a school that would be able to allow students throughout our community to be a part of something like this; and the Maritime Center with Stephanie Burns and Jake Beattie running the ship over there.”
Holloway said he wasn’t planning to become the school’s principal.
He first started talking with Dr. Enfield about the possibility of opening a maritime high school in March 2020, he said, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to pause any plans for the school.
“It kind of got put on the back burner,” Holloway said. “People were just trying to survive during that time. I didn’t think much of it, I was under the impression it would be pushed back another year.”
Last September, he said, a design review committee was created with members coming from the Port of Seattle, Cleanup Coalition, Maritime Center, and Highline Public Schools; he was invited to be a member and help start putting plans for the school back together.
“I remember talking with Dr. Enfield and telling her ‘I think this is a great opportunity, I’m really excited and thrilled to know that I’m a part of this committee, but I will say that if we really want to ensure that this school opens successfully, we’ve gotta start now,’” Holloway said. “Little did I know that conversation would lead to me talking myself into getting the job.”
The school will focus on three main areas, he said.
“Our school will focus on the landscape of maritime, with the three programs of maritime construction, of vessel operations, and an area that we’re calling marine resources,” said Holloway. “Really, marine resources will encompass the marine sciences — marine biology and oceanography — as well as water conservation and the environmental science piece as well, but those are the three main programs that our school will offer.”
The school won’t be like a typical public high school, he said. Students will spend time outside of the classroom getting hands-on experience in the fields they’re interested in.
“We’re going to be doing a lot of interdisciplinary work,” Holloway said. “Our teachers will work collaboratively together to ensure that kids are hitting all of their standards and mastering all their concepts, but a lot of the learning will be encompassed within the projects that they’re doing. Every quarter students will be working in groups, doing some sort of project in regards to the maritime field and the industry.”
Students will also have mentors who help them find internships, he said.
“Every student their junior and senior year will have a mentor and they’ll also have the opportunity to have internship opportunities within Port of Seattle, [Cleanup Coalition, Maritime Center, and hopefully more by then because that’ll be two years from now,” said Holloway.
He said his goal is for students to get out into the field at least twice a week, but knows that might not always happen.
“It doesn’t mean every day or every week kids will be at Port of Seattle or out in the field – there will be times where some direct instruction needs to happen to adequately prepare them for the projects they’ll be doing, but the goal is to get them out as much as we can into the industry,” said Holloway.
He said as principal, he’s bringing a set of core values to the school.
“First and foremost, I’m committed to equity,” he said. “I make every decision that I have with an equity lens in mind. I’m also dedicated to excellence. Not necessarily just academic excellence or performance, but I’m also talking about high expectations of our scholars. I expect the best from our scholars because I want the best from our scholars, and they deserve the best. And then last but not least, I value entrepreneurship, maybe not from the perspective of having the business mindset or being in the corporate world, but I truly believe that we as individuals are the CEO’s of our lives.”
Holloway said he also hopes to uplift youth of color, helping them reach opportunities in the maritime industry they may not otherwise have had access to.
“I didn’t necessarily have the background in maritime, but I’ve always wanted to be a conduit for folks of color, more specifically Black and Indigenous people of color,” he said. “I want to be able to help students who walk like me, talk like me, look like me, and want to lead how I lead, to have these opportunities in this industry.”
He said over time he hopes to create change and increase diversity in the maritime industry.
“I know that the maritime industry isn’t as diverse as we would like it to be, so I want to be that conduit that helps change the tide with that narrative about maritime, ensuring that the industry becomes more and more diverse in generations to come,” Holloway said.
Another way Holloway said he wants to help support students of color is by hiring staff who look like them.
“I’m actively and aggressively looking to hire folks of color on staff, because I want our students to be able to see themselves in the educators; I think that will be another conduit to ensuring that we get a more diverse array of students in our population and also in the maritime industry,” he said. “One of my favorite quotes is from a book called Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, where the main protagonist says, ‘How can I be like you when I don’t see me?’ That always just sticks with me, so that’s why I’m actively and aggressively looking to hire folks of color on our staff so our students can see themselves in this work.”
Looking ahead, he said he has high hopes for the future, and explained how many students may be enrolled at the school at this time next year.
“This year we’re only taking 45 students in the inaugural ninth grade class; we’re starting small because we’re doing a cohort model, but in years beyond we’ll take 100 every class,” Holloway said. “So if we’re thinking a year out, we’ll have 145 students with hopes that they’ll be able to be connected to a mentor that can help prepare them for internship opportunities — paid internship, let me be clear about that — and then also just some higher-level courses that will be offered as well.”
He said he hopes to give students the chance to earn college credit through the University of Washington’s UW in the High School program as well.
Holloway said he has a promise to his students.
“Our promise is to ensure that every student has an opportunity to choose the future they want and learn in the context of maritime,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’ll graduate and go into the maritime industry or have a job in the maritime field, but the goal is to really give them an experience where everything is kind of immersed and they learn through a maritime lens.”
Holloway said there are still seats available for fall, and applications will be accepted until they reach 45 students.
If you’re interested in learning more about Maritime High School, click here, and if you or someone you know wants to apply for enrollment, click here.