Did You Know?

The Issaquah Schools Foundation was founded in 1987 by John & Maureen Shaw and 8 board members.  At the time, approximately 7,000 students attended ISD schools. This small but mighty group identified funding gaps in their own students' schools and mobilized the community to help close them. 

From its inception the Issaquah Schools Foundation has passionately supported teacher grants. The Foundation believes that the world changes quickly and so do the needs of students, making innovation an essential part of educational excellence. ISF is proud to provide funding to explore and implement new ideas in the classroom. These grants allow teachers and administrators to test new methods, improve and adjust, and scale those solutions across other schools, multiplying the benefits to students for years to come. 

In 2004, ISF founded the Voice Mentor Program, matching community mentors with students across ISD schools. That year 12 mentors served 15 students. Today VOICE supports nearly 500 ISD students!

In 2009, an idea to bring Computer Science professionals into high school classrooms was brought to ISF, which funded a pilot program at Issaquah High School. Today that program, TEALS (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools), is run by Microsoft Philanthropies and serves 10,000 students at 455 high schools in the US and British Columbia.  

The Issaquah Schools Foundation funded the founding of the WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) program across middle schools, giving students leadership opportunities and teaching them how to make all students feel welcome in their school.

The Issaquah Scholars program, which supports struggling students on their transition from middle school to high school, was started by the Issaquah Schools Foundation.

In 2013 the Issaquah Schools Foundation started the Fine Arts Fund, which has now provided over $600,000 in funding to ISD secondary arts programs.

Recognizing the changing cultural makeup of the Issaquah School District and the challenges faced by families from outside the U.S., ISF started the Cultural Bridges program. Cultural Bridges helps connect families from diverse cultures and languages with the ISD and the broader Issaquah community with publications distributed in 8 languages!