Mission and History

OUR MISSION
Westmark School is a creative and supportive college preparatory school dedicated to educating, empowering, and celebrating students with distinct learning styles, providing the tools necessary to achieve successful and fulfilling futures.

OUR HISTORY
Throughout its incarnations over nearly  forty years, the mission and educational philosophy of Westmark has remained the same: to enable students who live with language-based learning differences to successfully pursue their dreams.

In 1983, Landmark School of Massachusetts opened Landmark West in Culver City as a West coast extension of their school. The Landmark Foundation purchased the Encino campus in 1994. In the fall of 1997, Landmark School was purchased by a nonprofit corporation, Learning with a Difference, Inc., to provide local control over the development and implementation of the program. These leaders renamed the school Westmark.

In 2002, Westmark began its expansion and over the next decade, added a Science, Technology and Media Building, a new classroom wing, an upgraded sport court, and a new Fine Arts building.

Westmark continued to transform itself with changes in its mission statement, curriculum, and administration. In March of 2005, the decision was made to become a fully independent school with the goal of having greater flexibility to implement more individualized programming to better serve its students.

Westmark also added a Student Life program to enhance the activities related to student life for the whole school, and integrated both service and experiential learning programs into the curriculum.

In 2013, Westmark School was granted a six-year accreditation term from the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS). Westmark is the only school of its kind to receive full accreditation from CAIS.