"After going to Explorer West, my first year of high school was a breeze!"

Our Core Values

At Explorer West, we believe it is possible for each of our students to be a math expert and a connoisseur of poetry, to play a violin and to throw a Frisbee.  Before they decide what they can't do, we want our students to discover what they can do, opening their imaginations and broadening their horizons.  We expose every one of our students to a challenging array of ideas and disciplines.

The middle school years mark a particularly impressionable period in a young person's emotional, social and intellectual growth.  Students who are successful at Explorer West are motivated and hard-working, and they value their education.  Parents of successful Explorer West students are involved in their children's education, active in the school community, and ready to let their children begin to take on more responsibility and independence.

Explorer West is dedicated to the greatest enrichment of these formative years.

Community Service

At Explorer West, we expect our students to respect and care for one another.  It is a simple extension of this basic value that leads us to make community service a part of an Explorer West education.  All students, guided by faculty, take part in community service projects which reflect school values and are integrated with what students learn in the classroom.  Community service teaches students the importance of giving back to the community that sustains them.

Sports

Explorer West encourages all its students to embrace a life of health and fitness.  Goal-setting, individual pursuits, and teamwork all figure prominently in our physical education and sports program.  Physical education classes co-ed and multi-age, emphasizing respect and good sportsmanship.  Explorer West offers volleyball, basketball, track and field, Ultimate Frisbee and tennis.

Advisories

Advisories are a community-building piece of the Explorer west experience.  Each advisory is made up of one teacher and a group of girls and boys of mixed grades.  The advisory provides all our students with a teacher who comes to know them well, assists them with academic and personal issues, and acts as liaison between other teachers, parents and student.  A child's advisor will check in with parents periodically and any time there are issues or concerns to discuss.  The advisory may be spent on all sorts of social and academic issues, on tutoring, on games on sharing a potluck lunch or simply on getting to know one another well.  Over the year it becomes a close-knit group, important to every middle school student.