School Board Votes to Discontinue High School Program
July 19, 2024
Dear Eastland Prep Families,
We wish to inform you of an important decision that was made for our school community at the school board meeting this past Wednesday. After much analysis and deliberation, our school board voted to discontinue high school at Eastland Preparatory Academy (Grades 9-12).
When parents approached us three years ago with the request to open a high school, our hope was to build a full EK-12 school system that would be engaging for Eastland students and convenient for Eastland families. The school board agreed to pilot a high school program, however, lower than expected student enrollment has caused financial challenges. As you can imagine, operating a full high school program with robust student activities, school traditions, and extracurricular programs requires more funding than it does at lower grade levels. For this reason, the school board decided to discontinue the program at this time.
At the school management level, we support the decision to operate as an EK-8 school starting this fall despite having mixed feelings. On one hand, our Eastland Prep faculty and staff will miss our high school students. On the other hand, we recognize that this is the right decision for our students who deserve the best possible programming. We are confident we can operate a sustainable, elementary and middle school at Eastland Prep with thriving curricular and extracurricular programming for our EK-8 students.
On the heels of this decision, our administrative team is now transition-planning which includes the following:
- We will host a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, July 23rd at 6pm to support high school families with this transition. To join us on Microsoft Teams, click here & use Meeting ID: 282 043 523 910 & Passcode: wP45WZ
- For high school students wishing to stay in our network of schools, ACCEL Schools is offering priority admissions assistance at the following schools:
| Columbus Arts & Technology Academy | Conveniently co-located with Eastland Prep | columbusata.org/apply (614) 577-0900 |
| Cornerstone Academy High School | 6005 Nacot Place New Albany, OH 43054 | cornerstoneacad.org (614) 948-0560 |
| Pathfinder Career Academy | Virtual, Career Tech | oh.pathfindercareeracademy.com (866) 531-6035 |
| OHDELA | Virtual | ohdela.com (866) 509-3099 |
| Gateway Online Academy | Virtual, Credit Recovery | ohio.gatewayonlineacademy.com (216) 539-8865 |
- Eliminating high school grade levels does not have an employment impact on our staff. All current staff members will continue their employment at Eastland Prep
We thank you for your patience and consideration during this announcement. If you have questions or concerns, we invite you to please contact our school office to arrange a time to meet with a member of our leadership team.
Sincerely,
Dr. Natalee Long
Superintendent
