The Unique Value of a PS-8th Grade School

As one of the few independent Christian Preschool-through-8th-Grade schools in the Seattle area, Eastside Christian offers our families a truly special environment. Ample evidence—supported by thorough research and our own lived experience—shows that a PS-8 school program fosters meaningful learning, strong social relationships, deepening confidence, and vibrant happiness.

PS-8 Schools celebrate and strengthen childhood
You love your child. You want to protect them, but not shelter them. You want them to build resilience through adversity, but not crush their confidence. You want them to grow and develop, but at the right pace and the right time. PS-8 schools are built to walk the journey of childhood with parents. Instead of leaving childhood behind at a vulnerable age and navigating the complex world of secondary education, our students continue to discover God’s plan for them in the loving, stable, and exciting community that they’ve known since they were young.

PS-8 Schools cultivate leadership in students
You know your child’s gifts and you want to see them use those gifts as a leader. As our students step into Middle School, they naturally become leaders of our younger students by their words and actions. Our ACTS spiritual formation program specifically places middle school students in a leadership role with elementary students. Instead of navigating the challenges of a campus filled solely with middle school peers or starting as the youngest on a 6th-12th grade campus, Eastside Christian middle school students are uniquely positioned as the oldest in our Preschool-8th grade community, actively providing leadership and spiritual mentoring to their younger peers every day.

PS-8 Schools enjoy freedom and independence to live their mission
We know: high school life comes with lots of excitement. But it also takes all kinds of attention away from what the rest of the school may need. It takes time and money to support of those high-profile athletics, performance spaces, college application processes, and Advanced Placement classes. It also brings other organizational relationships, outside groups who have an influence on the how the school operates. As a PS-8 school, we are focused on our young students, with complete independence, agility, and freedom to invest our time and attention in them.

PS-8 Schools prepare students to step into high school at the right time
There is a reason middle school holds the place it does in pop culture—part comedy, part tragedy—and why so many people recall their middle school years with terror. Children are at a vulnerable developmental stage, with tremendous physical, cognitive, and emotional changes occurring, and it is precisely at this time that they need stability, familiarity, and confidence. They also need challenge and change, which our middle school program provides, along with so much more. Above all, this is an age when they need just a few more years in the community they love before graduating as Eagles, ready to soar into high school as young adults.