Eastside Preparatory School

Eastside Preparatory School is a non-religious independent day school in Kirkland, Washington, serving grades six through twelve. Enrollment runs between 500 and 700 students, and every class is capped at 18. That cap is structural — it shapes how teachers spend every hour.

Small classes let faculty track how individual students think, not just whether they passed. The inquiry-based model asks teachers to build lessons around questions rather than fixed lecture outlines. Students argue, revise, and create. A lesson plan from last year rarely transfers unchanged, which keeps the work demanding in a way that experienced teachers tend to value.

The campus sits on the Kirkland-Bellevue border, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. Faculty live off campus and maintain clearer boundaries between work and home than residential colleagues at boarding schools. That separation, combined with access to Seattle's job market for working spouses, is a real benefit that a salary figure alone doesn't capture. Housing costs in Kirkland also run lower than in Seattle proper.

With net assets above $62 million and annual revenue near $34 million as of 2023, Eastside Preparatory School carries strong financial footing. Fundraising grew by more than 115 percent in a recent period, signaling active donor investment in faculty resources and facilities. Spanish is part of the program, reflecting sustained language instruction across grade levels.

Teaching jobs span core subjects at both the middle and high school levels, with periodic openings in administration and support roles. Because the faculty is relatively small, each hire shapes curriculum and culture in ways that larger schools rarely allow. Candidates who want to influence how students learn — not just deliver a fixed syllabus — tend to find a strong fit here.