East Grand Rapids High School (EGRHS), or simply East High, is a

public high school for grades 9-12 in Kent county of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The school is centered within an area called Eastown. This area is one of the
wealthiest in Michigan, and the least diverse. This predominantly white,
upper-middle class neighborhood is a close-knit community (City-Data.com,
2013). Parents and community organizations are frequently intertwined with
school activities, and the community as a whole functions to keep the area
unified. This sense of closeness comes from the fact that all the local public
schools around Eastown flow into East High. While the school does receive a
few students who transfer into the area, most have been involved in the
community since elementary school. The community itself seeks to positively
influence these students by providing local volunteer groups, sports
associations, and community events such as Streetfair, a community hosted
art and food festival (ECA, 2015). This influence is particularly notable at
sporting events where thousands of spectators, especially from the local
community, come to support their athletes.
The school itself is a large building with many facilities. Boasting
multiple gyms, auditoria, a sports fields with seating for thousands, and a
pool, the infrastructure of the school building is rather expansive. The
population of the school illustrates the makeup of the community. Of the 985
students that go to East High, 890 of them are white. Furthermore, this
school is not Title I, and has enough teacher to average about 20 students
per teacher (NCES, 2013-14). However, it is worth noting that even though

the school is very affluent, about fiver present of the student body is
economically disadvantaged. This lends itself to the offering of free-andreduced meals in the cafeteria. Standardization, on another note, appears to
be a non-factor for the world language faculty at this school, for there is no
standardized curriculum or tests for at least the Latin program. However, the
textbook for the intro to Latin courses have come to be very influential. The
program used to follow one of the teachers personal sequencing strategy,
but now it follows closely the patterns laid out by the Cambridge Latin
Course 5th Edition.
The actual students of East High have been described by their teacher
as college-bound and grade-focused. These kinds of descriptions lend
truth to the idea that East High is an academically centered school. Ranked
as one of the top ten schools in the state, and even in the top one hundred
nationally (EGRHS, 2015) East High has a rigorous program that aims to
challenge, and a student body that meets it. With above average state
tested reading proficiency and average math scores (EGRHS, 2015) East
High has a high graduation rate, and a high percentage of students going on
to further education. Based on the schools testing scores language
proficiency is strong at East High, and since they are not a Title I school they
do not receive any supplemental educational services. However, about four
percent of the student body is special education, and there are special
education faculty on staff to assist them. So, the students of East High are
not entirely one-dimensional. When interacting with them it is clear that they

are academically minded and integrated deeply into the various

opportunities of the school, but at the same time it is clear that they have
their own interests and passions as well, and this can be seen in the over
forty clubs, many student run and founded, that are offered at East High.

References
City-Data.com (2013). East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retrieved from
http://www.city-data.com/city/East-Grand-Rapids-Michigan.html
Eastown Community Association. (2015). Eastown Community Association.
Retrieved
from http://www.eastown.org/
East Grand Rapids High School (2015). Student Performance. Retrieved from
http://egrhs.weebly.com/student-performance.html
East Grand Rapids High School (2015). Who we Are. Retrieved from
http://egrhs.weebly.com/
U.S. Department of Education (2013-2014). National Center for Education
Statistics. Retrieved
from http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/sch_info_popup.asp?
Type=Public&ID=261248004961