Principal's Message

Dear Lakewood Students, Staff and Parents,

 

Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year!  I am very excited to serve all of you in my fifth year as your principal and I am happy to welcome a new Vice-Principal, Dr. Tomika Romant, an experienced high school administrator, who will be working alongside me to lead our school this year.  We are lucky to have her joining our administrative team to replace the Co-Principal position, which was restructured at all LBUSD comprehensive high schools last year. In addition, we are fortunate to have Miruna Lascar and Chris Thompson joining Jonathan Hayes to create a new, yet experienced, team of Assistant Principals this year.  Another exciting change is the structure of our administrators as Pathway Principals with each of us serving as an autonomous leader for each of our Pathway communities. Together, we would all like to welcome you to the new year and thank you for the opportunity to serve as your school administrative leadership team!

 

Last school year was another successful year for our school in many areas and we once again received a Silver Medal designation for being one of the “best high schools” in the nation by US News and World Report! As great as the last school year was for Lakewood, the 2019-2020 school year provides the opportunity for us to embrace the Lakewood philosophy to “better our best” and make this year surpass last year’s achievements. To do this, your continued help, leadership, teamwork, and support will be needed to keep our outstanding high school moving forward to better reach our shared vision of success for all.

 

Looking back at our previous school years we have much to celebrate and be thankful for! Our staff, students and parents helped our school to earn a six-year accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). This was a six-year effort by our school community and we are so proud to have earned this distinction for our school this past year! 

 

Our staff continued to engage in the review and revision of our instructional programs with the implementation of single-subject integration and systematic student support systems as part of a long term goal to receive Linked Learning Certification in all Pathways. This goal to restructure around the Linked Learning framework will lead to all students performing at the higher levels in the classroom, while better meeting the demands of the 21st Century high school graduate, who must be college and career ready to succeed. Last year, our Pathways were acknowledged by our WASC Visiting Committee as an area of strength thus providing a solid foundation of success to build on to provide even better student outcomes in the future.

 

So far, the growth of our Pathways has definitely paid off as we have had over a 12% growth over the past three years in the percentage of students meeting the state criteria for college and career ready, a new state measure for student success.  Lakewood can also be proud of last year’s graduation rates above 92% which exceeds state averages by nearly 10%! We will take this data and celebrate our students’ success and continue to look for areas to increase student achievement in the classroom. 

 

The 2018-2019 school year was also very successful for both athletics and activities. Some of the highlights of last year’s athletes include a Varsity Moore League Champions in Boys Volleyball and Softball and over 15 of our athletic teams qualified for the CIF Academic Team Awards for having a team GPA of 3.0 or higher – our athletes are truly student-athletes. Our LHS Dance won 19 awards along with a Division Championship, and two Grand Championships. Our Lakewood ASB did an outstanding job of starting the year with tons of school spirit and continued to encourage our Lancer Nation Pride by planning events, dances, rallies, and campus fairs. I also am proud to say that our Lakewood students, parents, and staff were very involved in our local community with participation in a fall Blood Drive, Project Sheppard Food Drive, and many other local charitable and community events.  We can all be proud of how our Lancer Pride shows in athletics, activities and the community!

 

In the 2019-2020 school year, we eagerly look forward to building upon our successes in academics, athletics and our efforts to be a positive influence in the community. During this school year, we will be focusing on our WASC Action Plan, continue to review data and to refine our programs to ensure success for all of our students. In addition, we can all look forward to the completion of the Measure E classroom HVAC project this year and enjoying the benefits of the newly air-conditioned classroom space along with updated audio-visual systems.

 

Thank you to all of our staff, students, and parents who supported our outstanding achievements last year. I am looking forward to another amazing school year in service to the Lakewood High School community. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping it good in the Wood,

Principal Abbate