Overview King County Promise (KCP) is a public-private partnership engaging King County K12 districts, Community Based Organizations (CBO), and Community and Technical Colleges (CTC) to develop a comprehensive student support model, supporting historically underserved young people to obtain postsecondary credentials. Since 2017, the Puget Sound College & Career Network (PSCCN) has co-developed KCP with hundreds of King County students, parents, educators, and systems leaders, based on the national College Promise and local South Seattle College 13th Year Scholarship models.

Timeline and Funding King County Council awarded KCP with an investment of $112.4 million, over 2021-2038, from the Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account (PSTAA). Initial phase KCP programming will launch in 2022.

Students Served KCP is designed to provide postsecondary advising supports to King County students of color, students who are first generation, and students who are impacted by poverty, in high schools and CTC’s, and Opportunity Youth up to age 26.

Impact goals King County Promise is grounded in two impact goals:
  • Student-level goal. Increase postsecondary attainment of youth served by KCP to 70 percent, with no gap in attainment rates between prioritized young people and their peers.
  • System-level goal. King County K-12 districts, postsecondary institutions, and CBOs collaboratively create a cohesive, equity-focused P-16 educational system supporting postsecondary transitions and success for young people.
Design Elements Over the span of implementation, King County will build on and develop regional postsecondary-focused best practices to:
  • Provide Racial Equity, Student And Best Practice Informed Enhanced Postsecondary Advising, Transition & Navigation Supports – CTC, K12 Students and Opportunity Youth will receive:
    • High Touch Student Case Management and Programming Support from collaborative K12, CTC, and CBO advisors.
    • Yearly Equity Stipend: $1000 non tuition for Promise-enrolled CTC students engaged in Promise advising services.
    • High Quality Postsecondary Readiness and Completion Curriculum, student, and educator co-developed, providing culturally and postsecondary success grounded content and strategies delivered across Promise partnerships.
  • Foster Cross-System Improvement & Alignment- K12 districts, CBO’s, CTC’s, and other partners will identify and address system level improvements, supported by PSCCN’s capacity-building support, including:
    • Collaborative Promise Partnerships of K-12 districts, CTC’s, and CBOs, co- designing and implementing racial equity grounded KCP partnership service delivery plans, targeted to support KCP students, aligned with existing postsecondary focused strategies
    • Engaged KCP Partnership staff teams, represented by KCP advisors participating in ongoing KCP professional development opportunities, and KCP partnership designated staff collaborating oversee activities within KCP Partnerships.
    • Systemic Student and Equity barriers identified and addressed enhancing student transition including streamlined course placement practices, alignment and communication of career pathways, data-sharing and more.
    • Collaborative design and adoption of a regional data-sharing framework, equity informed, reflecting current practice and outstanding needs, tracking key postsecondary enrollment and completion student milestones, real-time and data-driven interventions, adopting of needed data system tools, and supporting data sharing between Promise organizations.
  • Ensure Sustainable Continuous Improvement - PSCCN will collaborate with stakeholders to ensure KCP is a sustainable regional model, able to demonstrate the programming, evidence-based practices, and staffing levels needed to achieve high postsecondary enrollment and success rates statewide through:
    • Phased implementation to ensure KCP investments will support all King County CTC and K-12 districts at full scale. Initial KCP Partnerships and regional programming will test KCP strategies and inform future program structure and growth.
    • Partnership Fundraising & Financial Commitments, geared to align the PSTAA public investment as leverage for existing public dollars, and attract other regional, local, private and government funding, to sustain KCP strategies and outcomes
    • Continuous Improvement to guide program evolution, through ongoing assessment of strategies, professional development and regional learning and sharing opportunities, to identify and adopt best practices, track implementation and alignment of Promise strategies within existing regional strategies and respond to acute and persistent needs and challenges.

To learn more and become a supporter, visit psccn.org

Ways to stay engaged with us:

Click here to signup for King County Promise Mailing List.

Click here to signup for PSCCN Newsletter

Get in touch with us: Mollee Shultz - mshultz@psesd.org or KingCountyPromise@psesd.org