They’re the Tops : Westlake Hills Principal Credits Dedicated Staff

Tucked into a well-landscaped housing tract in Thousand Oaks, Westlake Hills appears to be a cookie-cutter suburban school: beige buildings connected by walkways and surrounded by a neighborhood park.

But the nondescript exterior is deceiving.

The elementary school is a powerhouse for fund-raising parents who bring in about $100,000 a year, and it attracts students from as far as Oxnard and the San Fernando Valley.

On Tuesday, the campus of 590 students won another distinction.

Westlake Hills School posted the highest scores among elementary schools in Ventura County on the California Learning Assessment System test given last spring.

The school’s fourth-graders performed better than their peers in the reading, writing and math portions of the test, just ahead of students at Wildwood School in Thousand Oaks, according to test results released by the state.

Based on a scale of 1 to 6, 63% of Westlake Hills students earned better than a 3 on the reading test. In writing, 74% scored 4 or better. And in math, 78% scored at least a 4.

Principal Everett W. Eaton credited the high scores to a strong writing program, a heavy emphasis on problem solving and a dedicated staff.

“Everything is meaningful at this school,” he said. “We don’t just teach it to teach it. We teach it because it relates to something.”

Eaton said the school’s success is a natural outcome of its teaching approach.

Westlake Hills School, like others in the Conejo Valley Unified School District, has closely aligned its curriculum with guidelines set by the state, the same guidelines on which the CLAS tests are based.

Unlike traditional standardized exams, the CLAS test asks students to explain how they arrived at their answers on math problems and write short essays related to passages they have read.

At Westlake Hills, Eaton said, subjects such as math and science are blended and students are asked to apply what they have learned to new situations.

Fourth-graders at Westlake Hills not only read about Paul Bunyan, they write their own three-paragraph stories about the fabled figure. And in geometry, they learn the formula for a cylinder, then study the shape in the limbs and trunk of a tree.

And by the sixth grade, students are expected to be familiar enough with a computer that they can type 20 words per minute on the keyboard.

“We can’t get all the subjects in in the amount of minutes in a day,” Eaton said. “So we do a lot of integrating of the subjects.”

Fourth-grade teacher Joni Simon said parents of Westlake Hills students are eager to participate in the education of their children.

“The kids come to me and they’re motivated,” Simon said.

The school’s 590 students are drawn from Westlake Hills, Hidden Canyon and the affluent North Ranch neighborhood.

Students say the time spent reading, writing and revising their compositions in Simon’s class made them feel more comfortable writing.

“I like to take the ideas of 10 books and squish them together,” said 11-year-old Alex Wisotsky.

Said 10-year-old Katie Krieger: “When I was younger I didn’t like to read. But now if I get into a good book and it really turns me on, it gives me ideas for a story.”

In Simon’s class, pupils learning basic math skills work at their own pace. That, said the students, helps them solve harder problems later.

While the CLAS test is only one academic measure, Westlake Hills students also have performed well on other assessment tests.

But that has not always been the case.

In 1981, Westlake Hills students ranked in the 57th percentile on the statewide Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. Those scores improved steadily through the 1980s.

After Eaton became principal in 1987, he encouraged aggressive fund-raising efforts to buy new computers and updated teaching materials.

“In a way, it was exciting,” Eaton said. “There was plenty to work on.”