 Directors and other staff members who were connected with the school in those first years, planning, operating and teaching in the school, were Michael Levien, Mike Bettinger, and Bob Lefcourt.By the mid 1970s the population of the school was about 125 students, which grew to 325 in 1980, and to 500 by the 1990s.In the 1970s, West Side High was an experiment in several philosophies of educational thinking.