The school became the first independent day school to surpass $8 million in Annual Giving donations at the end of last year, Head of Annual giving Eli Goldsmith said.

With contributions from families, alumni and faculty and staff, donations reached a total of $8,004,323.

In addition, a record was set for parent participation, which reached 94.1 percent, a total of 3,049 alumni donated and faculty and staff giving reached 100 percent for the eighth year in a row.

The community attained this number through the help of parent phonathons, trustee leaders and an alumni relations team lead by Susan Beeson ’96, Goldsmith said.

Harvard-Westlake verifies these statistics through surveys led by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. The Trinity School in New York City is the only other independent day school that reached similar numbers to those of Harvard-Westlake, according to CASE surveys for the 2015-16 school year. Trinity finished the year raising just over $6 million.

“Harvard-Westlake was the first day school to surpass $5 million, $6 million, $7 million, and now $8 million—we have been a leader in Annual Giving at independent schools for many years,” Goldsmith said. “The challenge is keeping up the very high standards here at HW.”