Student & Family Handbook 2026-27

We value students’ attendance and engagement in our school community. Research shows that missing even 1 day a month is correlated to a lower probability of graduating from high school.  When your student is absent, they are missed!  Please contact our office (206-631-4800) before 8:30am to report an absence or late arrival or complete our online absence reporting form (found on the Family Resources section of our website). There may be times your family faces a barrier to attending school regularly. Please reach out to us so we can partner together to support your student.  

Sample Mon-Thurs Schedule (Kindergarten) 

Seahurst offers free breakfast and lunch to all students. Students will need to enter their student numbers at lunch time, but all students will receive a free meal.  We encourage students to decide when they are full after a meal to build on healthy eating habits. 

We encourage families to support students as they choose clothing to wear to school that allows them to move comfortably throughout the day, including highly active times such as recess and PE. Clothing must be free of messages or images that promote drugs, alcohol, tobacco, violence, sexual messages, or intolerance or hate of any group of people. Wheeled shoes may not be worn at school as they can create a safety hazard and may cause damage to our facilities.  Our younger (preschool & kindergarten) students are encouraged to come to school with a change of clothes in their backpack, especially on rainy days! 

We ask that students keep their personal items at home, including cell phones. The school is not responsible for lost or missing items that were brought to school. 

The use of cell phones at school has caused problems between students with texting and social media. If you would like to be able to reach your student at school, you are welcome to call the school office and we will relay the message. 

Staff are unable to be responsible for recovering lost/stolen items. If you do choose to send your child to school with a cell phone, phones need to remain in backpacks and silenced until students are off campus.  If a student is using a cell phone on campus, they will be reminded once to put it in their backpack.  If it is seen again, it will be locked and stored in the office until a family member can come and pick it up. 

We have a lost and found on the ground floor. Ask your child to check often for missing items - it tends to fill up quickly and we always want to reunite lost items with their owners! 

Highline Public Schools uses ParentSquare as our main family communication tool. ParentSquare allows teachers and school staff to email & text families, and also has its own app where families can log-in to receive information. Families, please visit the Highline website for information on how to create a ParentSquare account and download the app! 

At Seahurst, we are STARS, which means we are Safe, Thoughtful, Accountable, Responsible Stars.  Throughout the year, we reinforce what it looks like to be Safe, Thoughtful, Accountable, and Responsible throughout our school.  Some examples can be found below. 

Elementary students are learning about their emotions and developing social skills. At Seahurst, we believe in teaching skills around behavior and emotions the same way we teach academics, and offering teaching and support to students who need it. If expectations are not met, staff use the following approaches:

Kindness and empathy are core values at Seahurst. When a student or family member reports an incident of bullying, an administrator will investigate by interviewing students and staff. Calls to families of any involved students are made. Staff follow through to support students to repair and restore relationships.

Seahurst values family partnership - you are your child’s first teacher! There are many opportunities for two-way communication year-round. You are invited to reach out to your child’s teacher to schedule a time to ask about your child’s progress, celebrate successes, or share concerns. 

There are regularly established timeframes when teachers communicate student progress and grades with parents.  Report cards & grades are shared with parents via the ParentVUE app (different from ParentSquare!).  Click here for information & to download. 

We welcome volunteers at Seahurst! Families can get involved at school by reading with students, helping teachers with projects, volunteering at special events, welcoming new families to the school, and more! If you are interested, speak to the front office to obtain volunteer forms.

Seahurst is fortunate to have an amazing PTA who supports the school in a variety of ways, including offering family events, supporting teachers and classrooms, and offering Seahurst spirit gear for purchase.  You can join the PTA here! 

Seahurst uses Highline’s district wide Standard Response Protocol for emergencies.  We conduct monthly safety drills that teach students about 5 different types of emergency responses: 

• Hold - Stay in your room; clear the halls 
• Secure - Get inside; lock outside doors 
• Lockdown - Locks, lights, out of sight 
• Evacuate - Move to a specified location 
• Shelter - Use a safety strategy for the emergency (e.g., drop, cover, and hold in an earthquake) 

Prior to each drill, we provide instructional resources for teachers to let students know why we complete drills and answer any questions.  If you are visiting the school during one of our drills, please follow the drill procedures along with our students and staff. 

For the safety of our students and staff, all outside doors are locked at all times.  During morning arrival, we have staff at the main cafeteria doors to let students in.   

If you are visiting Seahurst, please use the main entrance.  Ring the doorbell on the side of the building, and our office staff will buzz you in.  Proceed straight to the office to sign-in and receive a green visitor tag.  Non-school staff in the building without a green tag will be directed to the office to sign-in. 

It is our primary responsibility to keep students safe during an emergency. In the event of a school-wide emergency, we will communicate with families as quickly as we are able via ParentSquare alerts.  Please follow the procedures below for picking students up after a school wide emergency such as a fire or earthquake. 

If students are in the building, report to the office to check your child out of school.    

If students are outside, they must wait with their class on the blacktop. Family members must check in at the Student Release Station on the blacktop to pick up their student. 

Students may need to take medications at school. For safety reasons, all medications (including over the counter medicines, eye ointment, eye drops, ear medications, nose spray, and cough drops) are distributed through the office as authorized by your family doctor. Families will need to drop off the medication to the office along with a letter of authorization signed by a doctor. 

The school staff is trained to administer first aid for minor injuries. In the event of a severe injury, 911 will be called. Families will be notified as soon as possible of a severe injury. 

If a student becomes ill, we will call parents/guardians. If we are unable to reach you, we will call the designated emergency contact and keep your child in the health room until someone can be reached. 

If your child experiences symptoms such as fever, vomiting, or diarrhea within 24 hours before school, please keep them home to be monitored until the symptoms have passed. 

Check ParentSquare (you will receive emails, texts, and robo-calls) and/or the Highline Public Schools website in the morning if it has snowed to see an update on whether school is delayed by two hours or canceled.  In the event of a canceled school day due to weather, an additional day will be added in May and/or June as needed.  If school is delayed, a makeup day is not needed. 

On the Highline webpage, there is a link to insert your address and look up your child’s bus number, anticipated pick-up time and location, and the anticipated drop-off location in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we are unable to control when buses will arrive at your AM bus stop and when they will arrive at school in the afternoon to bring students home. Highline is currently experiencing a bus driver shortage, and driver absences can result in drivers needing to do double runs. If we know in advance that there will be a bus delay, we will notify families via ParentSquare alert (text message). 

Students are well-supervised after school on campus and there is an adult at every bus ensuring students have the correct colored bus tag to enter. Please help us keep your child safe by ensuring their bus tag remains tied to their backpack.  If you have a bus rider, remind them to head straight to their bus at dismissal! 

School bus service is provided for students living more than one mile from school. Students are responsible to be at their assigned bus stop on time. Those who ride the bus should observe the following safety guidelines:

• Arrive at the bus stop no more than 5 minutes before your bus time
• Stay off private property and away from the road
• Respect others at the bus stop
• Keep a safe distance from the bus when it pulls up
• Only cross the road in front of the bus.
• On the bus, stay in your seat, keeping your body to yourself
• Use a normal low talking voice so you can hear the bus driver’s directions
• Show respect to your driver and to all students

Students are expected to follow the safety rules above. We will notify you if your child is not meeting these expectations. Several instances of not following the rules will result in a 2-week suspension of bus services.

For student safety, plan to arrive at school after 8:20 am. Prior to that time, staff are unavailable to supervise students. Drivers use the main parking lot on 14th Ave. SW. for drop-off and pick-up. 

The parking lot entrance is a one-way single lane - if you are dropping your child off, please line up in the right-hand lane and remain in your vehicle.  The left-hand lane should be used for through traffic.  Please do not get out of your car in the car lane!  If you’d like to walk your child into school, please park and use the crosswalk to come on campus. 

For students being picked up by car, families should wait in the right-hand lane and remain in your vehicle while staff assist with loading.  Once your student is safely in the car, use the left-hand lane to exit. Families need to remain with their vehicles so traffic can move quickly. If a parent needs to speak with a staff member, we ask that you please park in the lot and then walk in so pick-up traffic can keep moving. Please drive slowly and be patient. 

If you are parking and coming into the building, please use the crosswalk to ensure family and student safety. 

It is important that families call the office if transportation home will be different than normal, on any given day. Students are often mistaken when they report they are to wait for a family member, but it turns out this was not the case, and the bus has left without them. We rely on a call to the office to notify us of any changes, or we must send students home by their normal mode of transportation.  

Students cannot be left at school after dismissal time. Should you have a rare emergency, please call the office to let us know. We do not have adequate staffing to watch children after school. There are meetings and trainings staff need to attend. Thank you for picking up your child promptly at 3:15 PM Mon.-Thurs. and 1:45 PM on Fridays.

Seahurst has a partnership with Right At School to provide before and after school care to families.  Before care begins at 6:30 AM, and after care runs until 6 PM.  To learn more and/or sign-up, please visit the Right At School website (www.rightatschool.com) and select the Highline district & Seahurst school.