Multi-cultural, Early Childhood Education Center Expands to Serve More Children in South Seattle

SEATTLE — The Denise Louie Education Center (DLEC), which has provided pre-school education and family services to low-income, immigrant families since 1978, has launched a $1.9 million capital campaign to renovate the center, expanding its service capacity by 30 percent, in order to provide services for 140 children daily.

Looking toward a September 2005 completion date, the DLEC has secured funding from the City of Seattle Community Development Block Grant, Head Start, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Seattle Foundation, the Medina Foundation and the Joshua Green Foundation. Additionally, the DLEC staff has pledged more than $12,000.

The renovation plans include four classrooms, several offices, a kitchen, playground, storage space, meeting space and therapy room. The expansion will allow the DLEC to serve 140 children in full-day and part-day pre-school. Currently, the DLEC is forced to refuse 50-70 applications each year due to lack of space. This new facility will replace the current Beacon Hill site, which DLEC has to move out of by the lease expiration in August 2005.

Named in honor of a young Chinese-American community volunteer who was killed tragically in 1977, the DLEC began its service in 1978 from the basement of the old Chinese Baptist Church, and has since become a mainstay of the refugee and immigrant communities in Seattle, serving more than 181 children annually, between the ages of three to five, from a variety of diverse backgrounds including: Asian, Pacific Islander, Latin American, South American, and East African.

In order to promote success in school and community, the DLEC provides quality, multi-cultural early childhood education services to children and their families who live in the International District, Beacon Hill, Mt Baker and Rainier Beach communities. DLEC’s client population is very diverse with over 80 percent of parents speaking a language other than English at home. The DLEC creates custom curriculum for each child based on the unique strengths, interests and needs of each child, information gathered from parent/teacher conferences and home visits conducted by family service staff. 

“Many of the children at Denise Louie Education Center are English language learners and the children in each classroom learn at least one to two languages other than their home language. This diversity of languages and cultures makes it a unique early childhood setting,” says Director of Child Development Nancy Spurgeon.  Parents note that bringing their children to DLEC ensures they grow up proud of their home language(s) and culture(s) and they are in an environment where differences are viewed as strengths. The DLEC’s teaching team’s advanced cross-cultural and tri-literacy skills have been highlighted in the book Soy Bilingue: Language, Culture, and Young Latino Children by Sharon Cronin and Carmen Sosa Masso.

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As Denise Louie Education Center has just celebrated 25 years of service to children and families, we want to strengthen ties to our namesake.  A group of friends of Denise Louie has been formed and meets monthly. To find out more and to participate, contact Maxine Chan at [email protected].