Puget Sound Coalition

Group Photo of Puget Sound Coalition

Puget Sound Coalition for College and Career Readiness is comprised of superintendents, community and technical college presidents, and educational leaders, working to create more equitable and seamless transitions between high school and college. The Puget Sound Coalition is committed to addressing racial inequity and improving success rates for historically underserved students. The Puget Sound Coalition’s measures of progress include:

  • Increase high school graduate rates
  • Increase college-going and persistence rates
  • Decrease number of students having to take non-credit-bearing college courses
  • Increase college graduation and job placement rates with particular attention to family-wage jobs

The Puget Sound Coalition is guided by the Regional Compact.

Regional Compact

Members include:

K–12 Districts

Alan Spicciati
Auburn School District

Dani Pfeiffer
Federal Way School District

Susan Enfield
Highline Public Schools

Israel Vela
Kent School District

Damien Pattenaude
Renton School District * Co-Chair

John Welch
Puget Sound Educational Service District

Brent Jones
Seattle Public Schools

Flip Herndon
Tukwila School District 

Career and Technical Colleges

Gary Locke 
Bellevue College

Suzanne Johnson
Green River College

John Mosby 
Highline College

Warren Brown 
North Seattle College

Kevin McCarthy
Renton Technical College 

Yoshiko Harden 
Seattle Central College

Shouan Pan 
Seattle Colleges

Steve Hanson
Shoreline Community College

Rosie Rimando-Chareunsap 
South Seattle College * Co-Chair

Contributing Partners

Bernadette Merikle  
Community Center for Education Results

Michaela Miller 
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

Patricia Loera 
University of Washington

Since its inception in 2008, the Puget Sound Coalition has achieved several significant accomplishments. In 2017, the Puget Sound Coalition began an intensive design effort to develop a model for more comprehensive support systems to increase postsecondary enrollment and completion for students of color and low income students in the region. The planning process resulted in the development of the King County Promise, a proposed college scholarship and supports program for King County guided by the Puget Sound Coalition for College and Career Readiness.

The Puget Sound Coalition is staffed by the Puget Sound College and Career Network, which is housed at the Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD).