(WSB photos)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

It’s all about reading right now at Tilden School, an independent secular elementary in West Seattle.

Reading is always big at the small-but-mighty Home of the Owls, but right now there are two bonus reasons, both open to community participation: The annual Read-a-Thon, and a Book Fair. More on those later in this story.

Overseeing it all is Tilden’s first-year head of school, Andrew Gustav, himself a Tilden alum, “graduating” in 2002. He’s also the son of a teacher who was at Tilden for 15 years. Tilden educators tend to go by their first names, so former students might remember her as Fran. Gustav says he’s still trying to get used to going by his first name, though “Mr. G” works too.

Gustav’s mom retired just before the pandemic, an event from which many schools’ enrollment has not yet fully recovered, Tilden included. It has 67 students now and room for 33 more.

Asked for the one-line description of his school, Gustav offers, “We are the liberal-arts college of elementary schools in West Seattle.” Tilden’s roots go back 40 years to founder Whitney Tjerandsen wanting to start the kind of school she wanted her child to attend. “It’s really a service community,” suggests Gustav, teaching kindness as well as academics. Specialties include science, art, history, social skills, and music (which Tjerandsen, despite having technically retired four years ago, leads every Thursday).

Tilden students’ art was shown during last week’s West Seattle Art Walk (as reported here). It also adorns the Tilden hallways (their building north of The Junction is co-housed, but not affiliated, with First Lutheran Church of West Seattle).

The hallway displays are one of the things Gustav says he loves about the school – “walking down the halls covered in art, covered in stories. We encourage students to express themselves, to be who they are … to understand that individuals have differences and there’s value in that.”

Writing can celebrate that, and so can reading. March is National Reading Month, Gustav notes, adding, “Tilden has always had a strong culture of reading,” and that’s why the Read-a-Thon is their biggest fundraiser of the year. “Students commit to a certain number of pages, and sponsors support that reading” – in a variety of ways, as shown here. “Knowledge is the one thing that can’t be taken from you.” But reading doesn’t just apply to words, Gustav adds – “if they just want to read graphic novels, that’s OK too.” He sees it all as “creating a better tomorrow.”

And that’s what he’s hoping to do for Tilden itself – after 40 years, “maintaining some of our traditions and adding to them, improving them.” Traditions include a Thursday morning gathering where he offers a prompt for the students to use as writing inspiration. The week before our interview, he had suggested they write “about something they were celebrating, an achievement or victory or accomplishment.” The inspirations varied – a martial-arts tournament, a game on the playground; “We’re asking students to be a little vulnerable and talk about their own lives a bit … a good writer is a good communicator. (That is) one of the most important skills we have,” no matter what career you eventually take on.

In addition to program improvements, Gustav’s goals for Tilden School (a WSB sponsor) also include an expanded community presence – they’ll likely be involved with the Kids’ Zone at West Seattle Summer Fest again this year, for example – and pursuing accreditation through the Northwest Association of Independent Schools (a regional organization whose headquarters happen to be in West Seattle). That’s a major move requiring the school to examine its practices, policies, and financial plan, among other things. They’re also evaluating community needs and trying to “remove barriers to entry … working on an endowment so we can offer families financial aid,” which will help with the goal to “find ways to diversify our school and expand enrollment.” Participation in NWAIS, he adds, will enable more networking.

Before we wrapped up our conversation, we asked for more about Gustav’s background. He came from the Eastside – the Lake Washington schooldistrict, where he taught middle-school history for seven years before becoming Dean of Students at Timberline Middle School. His administrative experience there helped him learn “how to best address students’ needs” while helping them work on behavior that’s best “for society” as well as for them. That experience dovetails with social- and life-skills work at Tilden, among other things: “How can we build capacity for making a mistake and learning from it? How can we build their resilience (by stressing) ‘you are going to mess up, make a mistake, that’s where the growth happens …”

And then there’s the fun stuff about leading a school. When we talked, he was still mulling ideas for additional Read-a-Thon rewards – maybe a pie in the face for him, if they hit a certain page goal. But the job itself is fun, as it brings him “full circle” from his Tilden student days: “We’re excited about what the future holds.”

For prospective families, know that most of their current openings are in the higher grades; kindergarten and 1st grade are “pretty much full.” (A side note about the lower grades at Tilden: “We don’t believe in one-to-one screens before third grade. We’re teaching students to respect the computer, and then do things away from it.”

Operations administrator Jennifer Trise adds, “We greet the kids every morning and they’re running into the building! I think that’s a testament that we’re doing something right.” She says that includes the change at the top: “We’re delighted to have Andrew – the energy shift is massive.”

P.S. You can support Tilden’s Read-a-Thon here, or contact Gustav at andrewg@tildenschool.org to “set up becoming a grade-level or day sponsor, committing to specific donations for total pages read.” (The goal is 23,200 pages – about a thousand more than last year’s total!) And if you’re planning on buying a book soon for your own reading needs, a Book Fair is happening right now – through Sunday (March 23) – at Paper Boat Booksellers (4522 California SW); just mention Tilden when making a purchase.