In honor of our 10 year anniversary, a special blog post from Principal Mike Williams:

Where does the time go? It seems like we just started Wylie East High School, but we are starting our 10th year. Of course the first group of students in 2007 graduated from Wylie High. We did not have a lot of time with them and half of the students in 2008 moved over to WHS. The other half of the students were the Alpha Class of Wylie East, The Class of 2011!! I will not forget those four years. What a special time as we all were trying to learn how to be a high school. The first two years we started with about 900 freshmen both years. Our staff was made up of about 70 teachers and 10-15 para staff members and administrators. Each year we would see additional growth until we added the senior class in 2011. At that point we had about 1400 students and around 100 staff members. This year we will see our student numbers go to somewhere around 1900. Now we have about 110 teachers and other 150 total staff members.

What about the changes in the buildings? Our football teams dressed in the basketball and PE dressing rooms and were happy to have a place they called home. The coaches offices were a classroom. When it rained during football season they practiced on grass fields that became so muddy that someone could have gone missing in the muck.  During the cold mornings in off season you had to be careful as you walked down the main hall because Coach Lepsis or Coach Olford would have kids running because they could not miss a workout. This made our kids tough and hungry. We had success in most sports, even making the playoffs the first year we had seniors.  Class of 2011, remember what happened in the Crosstown Showdown that year? 63-7. You laid a great foundation in all areas and we owe you a great deal of praise for suffering through the challenges and obstacles we faced. If you look at the school now, it looks a lot different than it did those first few years. We now have one of the best field houses around and this year we got an awesome indoor workout area, wonderful fine arts areas, a great band hall, black box and theatre area and CTE classrooms that are some of the best around.

Now when we say Wylie East High School, we say it with pride! We are Raider Nation!! We have the 2015 State Champion Lady Raider Soccer Team, the Undefeated district championship Raider Football Team, the National Champion Sapphire Drill Team, district champion baseball team, a number of all state band and choir students, National Merit Finalist Scholar, National Merit Semi Finalist scholars and recognized scholars. I could go on and on about the great and wonderful things that have come from the hard work of our staff, students and parents. A school is only as good as those who are willing to invest their time and energy in the lives of kids. Thank you all for your support in our first 10 years. Let’s make the next 10 more memorable than the first 10.

And always remember, it is a great day to be alive and a great day to be a Raider!! #RFL

Mike