By: Lauren Nehorai ’20 and Lindsay Wu ’20

This year marks the start of Harvard-Westlake’s 25th anniversary.  Various celebrations and surprises for students and teachers will be announced to honor this milestone throughout the year.
To celebrate the school’s silver anniversary, banners and posters have been hung throughout the school, and a new anniversary logo has been placed on school supplies and apparel sold in the Bookstore.
Additionally, for the first of the commemorative activities, students have the opportunity to find a ribbon placed around the Middle School, which can be turned in for a 25th Anniversary souvenir.  Students can also find a special ribbon and give it to a teacher to claim a prize.
The school’s origins date back to the early 1900’s, with its parents being Harvard School for Boys and Westlake School for Girls.  The two schools merged in 1991 and have since been united in coeducation.
“We took a lot of time to ensure that the transition would be a smooth one.  We hired professionals to work with families, students and faculty of both schools to eliminate gender biases and work out any issues that the families had regarding the merger,” Harry Salamandra, current Senior Alumni Officer and former Head of Upper School and Head of Harvard Boys School, said.
Both schools agreed that merging would be beneficial educationally and financially to get to where they wanted to be in the future.
“These past 25 years have been the best of my whole career because I really like having boys and girls together on one campus. I really loved the girls’ school too, but having a coeducational school, to me, is the ideal,” Elizabeth Gregory, current Director of Admission and former teacher at Westlake School, said.
Today, the community takes part in many traditions from the two individual schools. Students at the beginning of the merger were highly involved in selecting which traditions to continue.
Students still participate in opening Convocation from Harvard School and the Senior Ring Ceremony from Westlake school.  The school has also adopted its colors from Harvard School and its motto, “Possunt Quia Posse Videntur,” from Westlake School.
“I think it is exciting to think of what we have accomplished in such a short amount of time, and to think about where we are headed and what we will accomplish in the future,” Head of Middle School Jon Wimbish said.
Many other surprises will continue to be revealed regarding the 25th Anniversary.
“I am really excited to help celebrate the 25^th Anniversary, and I am honored to be a part of such an incredible community,” Jake Schroeder ’20 said.