Eastgate Elementary School
Eastgate Park is a 14.4 acre park with a playground area, two basketball courts, four soccer fields, two youth softball fields, .3 mile of asphalt trail, picnic facilities and twenty four horseshoe pits. Located in the city of Kennewick, county of Benton, this park is adjacent to Eastgate Elementary School, the home of the Panthers.
Eastgate Elementary is in a mid-sized city setting, operated by the Kennewick School District education agency, listed as a primary, regular school, offering Kindergarten to Fifth Grade. With approximately 500 students and 29 teachers, the student-teacher ratio is 17:1. Hispanics, Caucasians, Asians and African Americans comprise the school’s population.
Eastgate Elementary covers an area of 17 acres. The facilities are utilized by a variety of school and community groups for activities like city league basketball, scout meetings, PTO meetings, musical programs, bilingual classes, parenting classes and summer school programs year-round.
Focus in Eastgate is in the areas of reading and writing, applying the Open Court Reading program along with the Consortium of Reading Excellence (CORE), wherein the staff has been through extensive trainings. Open Court Reading is a research-based curriculum grounded in systematic, explicit instruction in Phonemic awareness, comprehension skills and strategies, inquiry skills and strategies, and writing and language arts skills and strategies. This program creates a literature-rich environment that instills a passion for reading and love of literature and the written word. CORE, on the other hand, serves as a trusted advisor working in cooperation with educators to support literacy achievement growth for all students. Eastgate students also have access to an English-Spanish bilingual program in Kindergarten to Second Grade.
Integrated into the daily routine of the students are other literacy programs like Accelerated Reader, a computer program that allows students to take a comprehension quiz on a book they have just read; Darla Woods/Walters writing techniques, Excellence in Writing strategies and the Academy of Reading.
Special programs such as Title I, ESL, special education/speech/occupational therapy and ECEAP, intramurals are also available to all students based on assessment criteria. Title I is a federally-funded program designed to help students achieve grade-level performance in school, subjects of which are Reading, Language Arts and Mathematics. ESL stands for English as a Second Language offered to non-native speakers of English in reading and writing. ECEAP or Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program is a “whole child”, comprehensive, family-focused preschool program designed to help three and four-year old low-income children and their families prepare for and succeed in school.
“Discipline with Love and Logic” strategies have been adopted at Eastgate, as well as the No-Tolerance policy toward violence and harassment. This philosophy supports the idea that all students have the right to come to school feeling safe. The Peace Pledge curricula which has also been adopted deals with alternatives to violence, positive choices, and decision-making skills.
Eastgate encourages the cooperation of the parents, staff, the community, and the students as it is vital to the goals of achieving the best education possible for every student.
Eastgate’s mission- Every child will be empowered to reach his highest academic and social potential in a safe and nurturing environment.