Westside Elementary School - Norfolk, NE

Westside Elementary is one of seven K-4 public elementary schools in the city of Norfolk, Nebraska. Westside has around 215 students. Most of our students are similar to every other student in America. What makes our school unique is that we also house both an Emotional Disorder program and a "High Needs" Special Education program, as well as Title 1, English Language Learners (ELL), Special Education (Resource), and High Ability Learners programs. We feel our school is truly a representation of all types of learners, and we absolutely love that.

Having a diverse population of learners presents some major challenges. One of the best ways we have been able to serve this population is through Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). Our MTSS team meets every 6 weeks to review data and make recommendations on our struggling students. That data guides us as we work through our interventions. Likewise, the unique way we use our small group intervention time is critical to our success. During small group Reading and Math, all students are put into specialized groups. We also stagger our intervention times so we can focus on one grade level at a time. By designing our schedule in this way, we are able to organize our students into groups between our classroom teacher, Title 1 teacher, Resource teacher (SPED) and paraprofessionals. It is because of our unique groupings that we are able to zero in on student needs and take the data from those interventions back to our MTSS meetings for evaluation. In addition to our MTSS process and intervention schedule, Westside Elementary is privileged to have excellent teachers, support staff, parents, and students.