Lakeside School

Image: Seattle School Board, T.J. Vassar ’68 (back row, second from left), circa 1980s. Photo courtesy of the Vassar family.

When I ran for the School Board, one of the first people I talked to was Mako Nakagawa. She was the program manager in the Ethnic Cultural Heritage Program usually just known as Rainbow. She helped crystallize a lot of my thinking about diversity and cultural pluralism. One of the hottest issues at the time was desegregation, bussing. I was a clear proponent of bussing for racial balance in schools. I was also a proponent of increased rigor. I wanted all of our schools to be effective schools. — June 2, 2010, T.J. Vassar ’68 autobiography