Dear Mercer Island Community,

Many of you know this about me already, but for those who do not, a career in education is not what I dreamt about as a kid or even sought in my early years at the University of Puget Sound. Twenty six years later, I can’t imagine having committed my professional life to anything but impacting communities through dedicated work with students, families, and fellow educators. During my two and half decades of service the sources of personal learning have come from successes, failures, and surprises. With three years as the proud superintendent of our school district (2022-2023 to 2024-2025) behind me, I have a large enough body of work to do a quick reflection of the road we have traveled together and imagine where we might be in another three years.

I cannot emphasize enough what a team effort it is to lead the district and do the most important work, educating our students. The administrators, educators, community leaders, and parents who I am privileged to work alongside each day to positively impact kids are the reason I have stayed in MISD for 16 years and hope to continue for years to come. Together, we have so much to be proud of and look forward to in 2025-26 and beyond.

McREL International, an educational research laboratory dedicated to improving teaching, learning and leadership, influenced my early years as an elementary principal in Colorado. One of their models breaks school and district leadership into five parts - Leadership, Students, Staff, Families, and Operations. McREL’s framework guides the way I try to prioritize my time, set goals, and lead. These five lenses also serve as a useful reflection tool, which I use to frame both successes and shortcomings over the last three years. We know we have things to improve, which is why we remain committed to continuous quality improvement. 

Student Focus

They say you should save the best for last, but when it comes to students, they should always go first. The young people our community sends us each day impress me every day. It is a privilege to be a small part of their accomplishments. Over the course of the summer we will be sharing “Did You Know’s?” via social media and email to showcase even more points of pride, but here are some highlights from the past three years.

Graduation rates (based on cohorts of students who enter in 9th grade and graduate four years later with adjustments made for new students) dropped following COVID but have grown since.

• 2021-2022 - 92.3%
• 2022-2023 - 94.1%
• 2023-2024 - 97.2%
• 2024-2025 - Rate is calculated in October
   

Students taking Advanced Placement classes have increased dramatically since 2012, evidenced by the volume of tests taken by students. It is important to note that at MIHS we do not force students to take the AP test for every AP class they take, so even more students are accessing AP classes than these numbers indicate.

• 2022 - 1,031 exams taken 
• 2023 - 1,117 exams taken
• 2024 - 1,420 exams taken
• 2025 - 1,450 exams taken

Results are not back from this year’s tests, but here are some highlights from 2024:

• 91% of students tested received a score of 3 or higher which is a rising trend in comparison to previous years. This score now matches pre-pandemic numbers.
• 64% of exams taken received a score of 4 or higher (8% increase).
• 29% of exams taken in 2024 received a score of 5 (the highest score possible) a 3% increase compared to 2023.
   

National Recognition has been garnered by IMS students taking part in New York Times education contests. For two consecutive years an IMS student has received recognition in the Times’ Tiny Memoir Contest. This year eighth grader Lola Melian Lafinur received an Honorable Mention Award for her memoir titled “Mi Nombre”. In the 2023-24 school year eighth grader Abigail Nissim received a Runner-Up Award for her memoir titled “Stuck”. In 2023-24 eighth graders Alice Liang and Kavya Muralidhar received Honorable Mention Awards in the Times’ How To Writing Contest and appeared on Studio 13 Live on FOX 13 with their language arts teacher Taylor Gall to talk about their How To submissions. 

Enrollment

Student enrollment continues to be a topic of conversation across our region and in our school district. Birthrates in King County started declining in 2016 and the trend continues. This, coupled with multiple years of minimal housing inventory on Mercer Island, has negatively impacted kindergarten numbers. Since starting as superintendent, I have met with realtors four times each year to discuss trends.They consistently report two things: one, the number one reason people move to Mercer Island is the schools, and two, they have more buyers than there are sellers. This spring and early summer are showing promise with an increase in the number of houses coming onto the market.

The smaller kindergarten classes replacing our larger senior classes will continue to cause an overall decline in enrollment for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, we are enrolling students in the middle grades (first-eleventh) at a higher rate than those leaving, helping to shrink the deficit between kindergarten and twelfth grade. I would like to share some recent enrollment data to help illustrate these points.

• All districts experience a certain amount of attrition from year to year due to families moving or choosing other options. The following information reflects just the MISD students who did not return from one year to the next dating back to pre-COVID, but it does not account for the students who moved in to replace the loss.
  • February 2019 to September 2019- 198 students (4.5%)
  • February 2020 to September 2020- 304 students (7%)
  • February 2021 to September 2021- 309 students (7.7%)
  • February 2022 to September 2022- 210 students (5.3%)
  • February 2023 to September 2023- 126 students (3.2%)
  • February 2024 to September 2024- 150 students (3.8%)
• Stated above, the strong demand for people to move and enroll their children in our schools is buffering the impact of our delta between graduating seniors and incoming kindergarteners. 
  • 357 Seniors graduated in spring 2024
  • 217 Kindergarten students enrolled in fall 2024
  • This difference of 140 students plus the 150 K-11th grade students who left between spring and summer last year would have resulted in a 290 student loss. However, we gained 315 new students, meaning we actually slightly increased our enrollment between 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
• Last year, we allowed open enrollment in our district for 8th to 12th grades. Demand was greater than we allowed based on careful decisions about where we felt we had space. In the end, 44 students joined our school district in 2024-2025 or just over 1% of our total school population. The largest population of students in the district through open enrollment come from staff members’ children and another handful from City of Mercer Island staff members. Both groups of students are permitted to enroll based on state statute or School Board policy respectively. In total, about 3.5% of the district’s population is made up of students who do not live on Mercer Island.
   

Compared to where the demographers predicted we would be, I am extremely proud of the current state of enrollment. We will likely experience fairly flat numbers for the next few years, giving us the predictability and stability to not only improve our financial position but, more importantly, maintain the excellent array of options for students in and out of the classroom.  

Leadership Focus

During my coursework to earn my Master’s in leadership and principal certification, the curriculum never covered the part about how hard the transition from assistant principal to principal would be. In fact, going from teacher to assistant principal was far easier. Conveniently, Seattle U left this out of the superintendent credential program as well, forgetting to inform us how exponentially more difficult it was to move from assistant superintendent to superintendent than school leader to assistant superintendent.

To say I have done any of the great work over these three years alone would be unequivocally false. As challenging as serving as superintendent is, it is made easier and more rewarding because of the educators, leaders, parents, and community members supporting our schools. What could be a really lonely job is not because of the people with whom I work with each day on behalf of students.

Staffing Changes and Development

Organizational change is ongoing, a critical part of the improvement process, and often involves changes in staff. We have had to say goodbye to some very talented educators and leaders, but in each circumstance my goal has remained the same: select and hire the very best people we think can come into MISD and make a positive impact on learners. While sad to see people go in any year, I am excited about the new members of the team joining us, including the fantastic candidates they have selected for their schools and departments. Change and transition can be challenging but also an opportunity to grow.

This brings me to professional growth. Part of my job is to help people grow and develop, reaching goals they set for themselves or achieve things they never thought possible. Others have done this for me, evidenced by the opportunities afforded me since first joining MISD as the Lakeridge principal. Thus, I have worked to put people in new positions as a way to better utilize their strengths or fulfill their aspirations. This is certainly true with people like Nick Wold at MIHS, Julie Newcomer at Northwood, and our two long-time co-principals at IMS, Mary Jo Budzius and Aaron Miller.

Staff Focus

We continue to attract and retain fantastic educators who support students in classrooms, on school buses, through therapeutic intervention, while performing on stage, in the athletics and fine arts realms, and across the globe participating in various competitions and activities, as highlighted below.

• At the start of this past school year Elysse Forester took her Marine Science students on a sailing trip aboard the Schooner Adventuress, the second tallest sailing ship on the West Coast, helping to collect data around plankton tows, marine debris, and microplastics while also learning about climate impact due to ocean acidification.
• Though a student accomplishment, nine Mercer Island Destination Imagination teams competed in Global Finals in Kansas City, Missouri this year. This does not happen without dedicated teachers who coordinate the program like West Mercer fifth grade teachers David Baxter and Julie Langley, along with the incredible volunteer parent coaches and chaperones.  
• MIHS girls swim coach Chauntelle Johnson has positively impacted her athletes' lives in and out of the pool, as chronicled by Andy Nystorm with the Mercer Island Reporter. 
• MIHS Broadcast Media teachers Joe Bryant, Natalie Woods, and Michael Ketchum were recognized by the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System at their 2025 Awards. Bryant and Woods received the Best Radio Faculty Advisors of the Year Award and Ketchum received the Best Video Faculty Advisor of the Year Award. These recognitions are so well deserved because of all they do to help students broadcast their voice. 

• The 95 Percent Group, started in 2005 with a vision to help schools and districts provide every child with the literacy instruction they deserve, recently highlighted the tools used by MISD staff, and the educators that implemented the tools, in our Access For All pilot reading program. I am so proud of the inclusive and determined approach from our educators to help all our learners.
• Retiring IMS robotics teacher Sarah Olson is such a passionate educator. Whether she is taking her robotics class to the Ash Grove Cement Factory in Seattle to see ‘Spot’, a robotic dog at the factory that checks air quality, temperature, and other measurements or creating an E-sports team at the school two years ago populated by students who have never been on a team before, she provided great opportunities for her students to engage, learn and build community. We will miss Sara at IMS but I am confident all our teachers will continue to develop unique ways to engage students in learning.
• During the 2023-24 school year, IMS Orchestra teacher Sarah Hart collected and submitted recordings of 7th and 8th grade orchestra performances to nominate her students as a Concert Hour Exemplary Honor Group for the 2025 National Association for Music Education’s (NAfME) All-NW Conference. Sarah’s foresight paid off as the students were selected as a Honor Group and travelled to Spokane in February to perform at the NAfME conference. 

• The MIHS band directors have provided their students with opportunities like marching in the 2023 Macy’s Day Parade and the upcoming 2026 London New Year’s Day Parade. The amount of work they do to submit application materials, engage with their families and the broader community, and develop fundraisers so all students can take part is exemplary.
• Lakeridge fourth/fifth grade teacher Amber Bobst did a unit with her students on the electoral college in November prior to election day. I really like Amber’s creativity to connect her teaching to significant national events.
• I want to recognize Instructional Tech Coach Kara Millsap for the annual unit she does on coding with second graders at Island Park. I enjoy hearing about how Kara showed students how to make robots dance and the hour of code Kara’s colleague, Julie Langley, does with upper grade students.
• Our elementary schools were recognized in May by the Washington School Recognition Program for supporting students' growth and academic achievement as measured by the schools Washington School Improvement Framework (WSIF) performance during the 2023-2024 school year. This recognition only comes about through the great work of all our elementary educators. 

• Three years ago West Mercer principal Megan Isakson rolled out a focused, small-group learning initiative called Wolfpack Block at the school. Wolfpack Block has proven very successful because of the dedication of West Mercer teachers and paraeducators to provide targeted instruction in math or literacy in a small group setting. Northwood has developed a similar program and Island Park and Lakeridge educators visited West Mercer this school year to see Wolfpack Block in action. 
• In partnership with the MIHS Counseling team, Christy Kenyon and our MIHS leaders launched the College and Career Center at MIHS last school year. Feedback from students and parents has been fantastic. The team gave a report in May to our School Board.
   

Family and Community Focus

MI Phone-Free Schools

Our principals and staff, backed by the community, led the way in our region this year, with MI Phone-Free Schools, becoming one of the first districts in the state to move to a cell phone free school day. While the student response has been less enthusiastic than parents and staff to no cell phones in classes, our EES data indicates MI Phone-Free Schools has been very successful and is a program we are excited to continue in the 2025-26 school year. This initiative shows how our schools and community partner to do what is in the best interest of students.

Strong Partnerships with Our PTAs and MISF

Our PTA’s and Mercer Island Schools Foundation (MISF) continue to set the standard for school and district support across the region and state. We would not be the district we are without these two family backed groups. From supporting curriculum adoptions to organizing school science fairs, MISF and our PTAs are valuable partners. In 2022-23 and 2023-24 MISF raised over $1 million dollars each year. An official announcement is coming next week, but in a conversation earlier this week with Tammy Shoop, Executive Director of MISF, she shared that MISF surpassed their goal of $1.2 million for 2024-25, hitting a mark they have not hit in six years. Thank you Mercer Island families and community members for your support and investment in our schools. As I shared earlier in the month, we are adding staffing into our schools because of this.

Educational Effectiveness Data Points

We are grateful for the tremendous support from our community, something we do not take for granted. I want to share some data from our annual Educational Effectiveness Survey (EES) to show some points of pride, as well as areas for improvement, and what we have planned.

• Just 8% of families have a negative response to the statement, “The school communicates effectively with my family”. However, when asked to respond to the prompt, “I am encouraged to collaborate with my student's teachers about my student's learning,” the percent negative jumps to 28%. This is a 10% improvement since last year, but we still feel we can and should do better. Thus, next year, we will launch a new communication platform called ParentSquare, making two-way communication between teachers and families even better.
• In the EES question category around High Standards and Expectations, the percent positive grew on average of 8% year over year. However, we have work to do in this area. Overall, we are right at or slightly under the average score of other districts across the country, meaning compared to other districts our families do not regard their child’s academic preparation as high as other communities. Using our advisory councils, PTA partners, and other opportunities for engagement, we will continue to seek a better understanding of our community’s expectations and steps we can take to meet these.
• Though consistently high, parents had a 90% positive response for the first time in several years to the prompt, “My child feels safe at school.” We want this to be 100%. Next year, we will be moving to a new safety and security system called Raptor. We currently use this in our front offices when community members and outside guests check into the school. We will now use more of their suite of safety solutions to assist us with internal safety systems related to communication with law enforcement, building security, and reunification with families in the event we need to evacuate a school.  
     

Operations and Process Focus

Financial Health and Improvement

Financial stability and sustainability were two top priorities for the MISD School Board when I started as Superintendent on July 1, 2022. The District had spent down the fund balance during and coming out of COVID, even needing a $2 million interfund loan from the Capital/Technology levy to the general fund to cover operating costs in the spring. Here is a three-year look at fund balance under the direction of our Executive Director of Finance and Operations and me. 

• 2022-23
  • Beginning fund balance on September 1, 2022 $1.75 million or 2.5%
  • Remember, we owed ourselves $2 million dollars to repay the Capital/Technology Levy, meaning we actually started in the negative.
  • Ending fund balance on August 31, 2023 $2.6 million or 3.7% 

• 2023-24 
  • Beginning fund balance on September 1, 2023 $2.6 million or 3.7% 
  • Ending fund balance on August 31, 2024 $2.78 million or 3.8%

• 2024-25 
  • Beginning fund balance on September 1, 2024 $2.78 million or 3.8%
  • Anticipated Ending fund balance on August 31, 2025 $3.6 million or 4.6%

We remain committed to growing the fund balance in a way that gets us back to 8-10%, but I want to ensure we restore it in a way that limits impacts on our students.

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) recently released their annual district financial health report, using four indicators and a 4-point scale with four (4) being the highest: Fund Balance to Revenue Ratio; Expenditures to Revenue Ratio; Days Cash on Hand; and Months/Years with Negative Fund Balance. The average score for districts (Bellevue, Issaquah, Lake Washington, Northshore, Renton, Riverview Snoqualmie Valley, and Tahoma) we are most commonly compared to in 2023-24 was 2.51. The score we received last year was 2.6. Over the course of the past four years (two of which were while I was superintendent) 2020-21 to 2023-24 we have averaged a 2.18 (1.9, 1.9, 2.3, 2.6). Given our financial prediction, we expect to improve again when the 2024-25 data is released.

Financial Audits

For the third consecutive year, we received a clean federal and state audit, which included financial and accountability measures. Community members can read our most recent audit on our website. I believe our business and finance team is one of  the best in the state, evidenced by their focus on putting students first, making progress to steady our finances in a time when state school funding continues to lag, and the requests they continue to receive from WASBO (Washington Association of School Business Officers) to present to and support others districts. 

Categorial Program and Assessment Audits

This year, our Learning Services teams also engaged in audits with OSPI; one for assessment practices and another for our categorical programming i.e. Title I, II, III, IV; CTE; McKinney Vento; Career and Technical Education and Private School Participation. Additionally, the audits inspected the associated budgeting, expenditures, and implementation practices for all programs. This process was robust and occurred across the entire year. 

Learning Services staff provided evidence of effective practices and implementation of each of the required monitoring categories and met with State reviewers to ensure that they had what they needed to adequately analyze our practices. All of our categories came back with a clean audit and no corrective action needed. In other words, the State views our activities, expenditures, and practices to meet or exceed the state and federal standards for these programs. 

For the first time in my time in Mercer Island we were selected for an assessment review as well. This review consisted of answering a series of questions in preparation for the live meeting with staff. During the live meeting, Learning Services was asked to provide evidence of assessment compliance. This review also came back clean, with notes of excellence in our practices of State testing. Both of the aforementioned reviews required a great deal of staff time to complete, but were meant to ensure that we are meeting both federal and state expectations of compliance; which allows us to receive both federal and state funding on an ongoing basis. 

Reducing Energy Consumption

Our school district was third in the state and the largest district to date to meet the Clean Energy Compliance across all buildings. Under the leadership of Director of Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation Tony Kuhn, we reduced energy consumption and improved efficiency. This resulted in several hundred thousands of dollars in rebates from PSE as well.  

Closing

Upon being hired for my first principalship in Colorado, a veteran principal colleague shared with me, “Fred, you will have three core constituents- staff, parents, and students. You will never be able to keep all of them happy and supporting you at the same time. The key is to always have at least two of the groups in your camp.” I took this to heart. Ever since this conversation I made it my personal mission to prove this colleague wrong. Staff, families/community, and students are the reason I show up and put forth my best effort each day. 

The 2024-2025 school year has been exceptional, exhilarating, and at times exhausting. While I certainly need a little time to rejuvenate over the summer, I assure you, the 500 staff members and I will come back stronger than ever in late August, ready to meet the needs of our students, your children. Until then, I wish all of you a very safe and happy summer break.  

Sincerely, 

Fred Rundle