Our focus on school culture and “Servant Leadership” ensures students feel valued and connected. Our leadership students work to build school spirit and a sense of community that resonates throughout the school. They also incorporated their credo in all their actions and activities.

Student Credo
"Here at Eastlake, through intentional actions, we can create an environment where students and staff can safely fail, feel appreciated and feel loved. This is Eastlake. This is home. This is family. WSPS.”

In addition to the efforts of our leadership students, our coaches remain committed to providing an incredible experience for students in the pool, on the course or between the lines on the court. Our club advisors also commit themselves to providing an amazing experience for students, allowing them to learn while pursuing their passions. These activities also educate, teaching life lessons about effort, teamwork and perseverance, important concepts in our Eastlake Values.

Teachers also make an intentional effort to create a positive, personalized and inspiring culture. We work as a staff to consistently show up with a positive demeanor. We learn strategies for developing quality student relationships and how to establish a classroom belief in growth mindset, where students understand that intelligence is fluid not fixed, where they believe that with practice and perseverance they can learn to draw or be good at math.

Teachers also understand that quality relationships improve student learning. That’s why they stand at their doors to welcome students prior to class. That’s why they smile, ask students questions about their lives and honestly listen to the answers. That’s why they use names when they call on students in class.

It’s all these little things that allow big things to happen. That’s how we try to make every student feel like school is just an extension of home.

The Eastlake Mission outlines our efforts to develop both the intellectual strengths and character in students. We want students to know the quadratic formula and understand the lessons of history, but we also want them to learn how to think critically, creatively and independently. To translate our mission into action, we challenge and engage students in well-designed instruction. We want students to transcend strategic compliance and become authentically engaged, where they perceive their schoolwork as interesting, important and relevant. Where they don't just go through the motions and play school, but rather get fired up about issues and fascinated by the complexities of our world around them.

We also want to challenge students in the right way, where we focus on depth and complexity and not just content coverage and factual regurgitation. Where we differentiate appropriately to push students past their comfort zone, but not overwhelm them to the point of exhaustion or frustration.

Finally, we want to design lessons that align to how students learn. Our teachers create a student-centered environment through instructional strategies such as Problem Based Learning and Socratic Seminars.

Our teachers understand that incorporating movement into instruction helps students learn. Our teachers understand the brain science of attention spans and use this knowledge to inform their lesson pacing and transitions.

At Eastlake, we have a relentless focus on the culture of school and the quality of instruction inside the classroom.

Eastlake has a holistic perspective on education, where we not only teach students to think but to act and interact in a healthy and helpful manner. We want to help students conduct themselves responsibly and with integrity. We want students to understand the importance of personal wellness, where ambition and competition are not at the expense of each other, or one’s own mental health. We want to not only put students in groups to learn, but teach them to learn as a group.

Research suggests that performance character such as work ethic and the ability to persevere through challenge are more predictive of long term success than GPA and SAT, so we help students form habits, that will then form them for the rest of their lives. In Grade 9, we leverage the AVID WICOR strategies to teach skills such as organization and note-taking. These students also learn time-management and the importance of goal setting, progress monitoring and reflection, because we know that sometimes it’s about working smarter, and not just harder.

Through classroom content and instruction, students learn the importance of civic engagement and social justice. Students also learn about the biology of the teenage brain and how it connects to learning and decision making.

We make a plan, and take intentional steps to help students become better people and more productive citizens.

Eastlake has also established school systems that personalize education and address the needs of all students. To provide students with the necessary time and support to learn, Eastlake offers student interventions during the school day in Math, Science, Literacy and World Language. Eastlake also offers a flexible time (Wolf Time) in our schedule to meet the various needs of all our students. Wolf Time allows students to access extra support from their teachers during the school day, as well as make up missed labs, assignments or tests. Wolf Time can also mitigate stress and help students balance their busy lives by providing academic work time during the school day.

Through our High School and Beyond Plan, we provide a lot of guidance and resources that help students become future ready. In Grade 9, students become more self-aware through personality, learning style and interest inventories. Throughout high school they then have an opportunity to update this information and use it in their college or career exploration.

We use a program called Career Cruising to support this work. We hope all of this helps students make thoughtful decisions as they choose classes, and begin to determine their future ambitions. This also provides Eastlake staff with valuable information that we can utilize to determine college visits, career speakers, and even course offerings here at Eastlake.

This SIP reflects, in part, our overall quest at continuous improvement and the contributions from administrators, instructional leaders and all teachers. We have worked as an entire staff, and in teams, to reflect on both qualitative and quantitative data, including perception data, in order to inform the direction of our school and the instruction in our classes.