Youth leaders were the center of a day of learning for Seattle’s arts educators.  The 2025 Creative Advantage Institute kicked off with passionate speeches from Speak with Purpose scholars seeking to raise awareness of students with disabilities.

Sam Martin, a 7th grader from Aki Kurose Middle School, spoke directly about what they wanted teachers to know about ADHD and how they can support students like them in their classrooms:

Did you know I have a disability? Well, I do. Do you know what ADHD stands for? It stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. But it’s not a ‘disorder’ it’s more than that. It’s how our brains are put together, maybe we are different. but we are one of a kind… In the US there are 6.5 million kids diagnosed with ADHD And there are 15.5 million adults. Up to 10% of our population is dealing with ADHD – I bet in this room there are many of you who are dealing with ADHD directly or have a close family member or friend who has ADHD.

Shea Lawson, a 7th grader from Washington Middle School had a message for the president: 

Your decision to dismantle the Department of Education is concerning because it impacts the rights of those with disabilities to an appropriate education. Before these rights were established in 1975, over a million children with disabilities were excluded from public schools … Please do not exclude me from the chance to change the world.

SAM’s Youth Programs Manager, Cristina Cano-Calhoun, facilitated a panel including representatives from the new Seattle Public School Youth Arts Collective and SAM’s Design Your Neighborhood Program. The high schooler panelists reflected on a variety of questions about ways art has surprised them, the role it plays in their life and community, and how they see art as an antidote to the challenges in the world that we inherited. Their responses touched on ways the arts have helped them find self-acceptance, agency and creative community, as well as epiphanies about how everything we experience had to first be imagined by artists, designers or architects, how just living life can be a creative pursuit.   

I want to make sure more Seattle Public School students have access to arts opportunities and that they understand how the arts can empower their lives.  I also want to celebrate and show the community the amazing things youth are making. – Kamryn Sienkiewicz Seattle Public School YAC