Curriculum
Design
How to take an idea from rough sketch to something people can use: layout, typography, color, and the reasoning behind visual choices.
Programs
Real skills,taught in person.
ESSA programs span design, computer science, STEM, engineering, business, and financial literacy, alongside civic service days and community events. Join the next scheduled workshop, or bring a program your community needs.
Featured workshop · Financial literacy
Registration openMoney Smarts
Personal Finance for Kids and Teens
Earn it · Save it · Spend it wisely · Share it
Students work through short, hands-on activities on earning, saving, spending, and sharing money. Along the way they practice building a simple budget and making informed choices in situations drawn from everyday life, at a level that fits their age.
A parent or legal guardian registers each participating student. This is a drop-off workshop: students are checked in with an ESSA representative, parents do not need to remain at the library, and every student must be picked up by an authorized adult promptly at 1:00 PM.
Register a Student
Free · Limited to 15 students
- Date
- Saturday, July 25, 2026
- Time
- 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time
- Format
- In person · Drop-off workshop
- Location
- Sammamish Library
825 228th Ave SE
Sammamish, WA 98075 - Ages
- Students ages 8 through 15
- Cost
- Free
- Capacity
- 15 individual students
What we run
What we teach.
ESSA teaches across six curriculum areas and pairs them with community work. Every area is taught the same way: in person, hands-on, and built around something real to make or do.
Curriculum
Computer science
Programming fundamentals taught through working projects, including our full-stack development and cybersecurity workshops.
Curriculum
STEM
Science and math taught through experiments and real data, building the habit of testing ideas before trusting them.
Curriculum
Engineering
Designing, building, and testing physical things that have to work, from simple mechanisms to basic electronics.
Curriculum
Business
How organizations actually run: planning, budgeting, pitching an idea, and what it takes to start something of your own.
Curriculum
Financial literacy
Earning, saving, spending, and sharing money wisely. Money Smarts, our workshop for ages 8 through 15, is the first session in this area.
In the community
Learning that leaves the building.
Service
Civic service
Road cleanups and community improvement projects organized around a clear local need and a concrete day of work.
Community
Community events
Local gatherings that bring participants, volunteers, and partner organizations together around useful work.
Next up
The first workshop is on the calendar.
Money Smarts runs Saturday, July 25, 2026 at the Sammamish Library. Other events are announced here once the date, location, and format are locked. ESSA does not publish tentative dates as confirmed events.
- Registration open
- Money Smarts: Personal Finance for Kids and Teens
Saturday, July 25, 2026 · 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time · Sammamish Library, Sammamish, WA 98075
- In planning
Full-stack development workshop
Schedule to be announced.
- In planning
Cybersecurity workshop
Schedule to be announced.
- In planning
Community service day
Schedule to be announced.
In development
What comes after the first workshops.
- Summer programs
- Longer workshop sequences designed for the summer calendar.
- Online classes
- Remote sessions for participants who cannot attend locally.
- Clubs
- Ongoing groups that continue learning between workshops.
New formats are added only when ESSA is ready to schedule and support them.
Bring a program to your community
Host your own workshop.
You bring the topic, the audience, or the local need. ESSA brings the structure, the materials, and the support to run it well. Tell us what you want to organize.