Eastside Transitional School was built in 1994 to alleviate school overcrowding at Newton High School due to the rapid growth of Newton County in the early 1990s. The school opened that same year to grades 6–9.
Each year, the lower grade was dropped and a higher grade was added, until 1997 when the school became a 9–12 high school, Eastside High.
The first graduating class graduated in May 1998.
In 2002, a new addition was built onto the school to help accommodate more growth.
In 2006, the school had an enrollment of 1,441 and a staff of 100 teachers. This number decreased slightly with the opening of Newton County's third high school, Alcovy High School, in the fall of 2006.
It was announced in March 2019 that Eastside would move to a new location that would open at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.[2] Eastside's old facility would become home to the Newton County Theme School at Fiquett, a K-8 school also located in Covington, Georgia. Due to construction delays, Eastside instead moved into its new location at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, and the Newton County Theme School, renamed the Newton County STEAM Academy, moved into the former Eastside building at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year.