Disrupting Educational Access: How Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle is Redefining High School Success
On a recent episode of The Day With Trae, host Trae Holiday welcomed two educators who are reshaping the academic and professional landscape for youth in the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Nadia Guy, the principal of Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle School, and Katie Seltzer, the Vice President of the school's Corporate Work Study program, joined Holiday to discuss how their unique model is creating unprecedented pipelines to success for local students.
Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle is the 40th school to open within a highly successful national network of 42 schools that has operated for over 30 years. The Catholic, Jesuit institution is open to students of all faiths, exclusively serving youth from underrepresented groups and limited economic backgrounds. By pairing rigorous college preparatory academics with a pioneering Corporate Work Study (CWS) program, the school ensures that its students graduate from college at two and a half times the rate of their peers.
East Coast Expertise Meets Pacific Northwest Needs
Both guests brought extensive East Coast educational expertise to Seattle, motivated by a shared desire to close systemic gaps in educational equity.
Dr. Guy previously served as the managing director of a charter school network in Brooklyn, New York, and had a proven track record as a turnaround principal, notably raising one school's math proficiency from a staggering 10% to 80%, she said.
Dr. Guy explained that she was drawn to Cristo Rey Seattle after reading the feasibility study authored by Seltzer. "I thought, what if you could just do it right the first time for Black and brown kids?" she said. "What if you didn't have to turn it around?"
Seltzer, who previously spent six years working at a Cristo Rey school in New York City, moved her family to the region from Portland, Oregon, in 2022. Her move followed the social upheavals of the pandemic and the national racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, a period when communities were actively wrestling with deep fissures in educational access. Seltzer spent months pitching the school's blueprint to regional churches, families, and corporate partners.
The Power of Corporate Work Study and Soft Skills
What sets Cristo Rey apart from traditional high schools is that its students don't wait until their late teens or college years to secure professional experience; they start on day one of the ninth grade.
Through an entry-level professional placement process combining a specialized matching algorithm and staff insight, 14-year-old corporate study participants are placed directly into law firms, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies. Prominent founding regional partners include PACCAR in Bellevue, Washington and Costco Wholesale’s corporate headquarters in Issaquah, Washington. Seltzer noted that these global giants recognized the school's program as a perfect alignment with their own diverse talent pipeline goals.
To prepare students for corporate environments, the school hosts a mandatory summer program called Montserrat. The program bridges heavy academics with essential professional "soft skills.”
"How do you shake a hand? How do you do water cooler talk?" Dr. Guy said, emphasizing that teaching these minute interactions builds invaluable social capital.
A Covenant Promise
The school's admissions process is as deliberate as its curriculum. Cristo Rey Seattle is uniquely strict about interviewing every single applicant alongside their family to establish a "covenant promise.” From the first interaction, educators instill the baseline expectation that the student will go to and through college.
According to Dr. Guy, the ultimate goal is to fuse high academic expectations with an unwavering belief in the students' innate worth. "Cristo Rey isn't coming to save them," Dr. Guy beautifully stated. "We are giving them the tools to empower themselves."
For families across King County considering alternative, exploratory, and highly impactful high school options, Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle represents a shift in regional education. To ease accessibility barriers for families outside the immediate city center, the school even provides dedicated bus transportation serving South King County communities, including Federal Way, Kent, and Auburn, Washington.
Interested families and prospective corporate partners can learn more by visiting the school's official website, following their active social media platforms, or reaching out directly via email at admissions@cristoreyseattle.org
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