All About Westgate...
Mr. Kern, Principal
At Westgate Elementary, our students bring the world to Westgate. We have the privilege of teaching children from diverse backgrounds. This year we will serve students who are native speakers of over eleven different languages! This variety is part of what makes Westgate great! Our kids continue to make tremendous gains on academic assessments, setting the school district record in the kindergarten and first grade, and achieving an amazing 90% of our third graders reading at grade level!
Westgate has the highest level of poverty of any school that has met the 90% goal in Kennewick. Additionally, our fourth and fifth graders set all-time high scores on the WASL test last year. We attribute this success to the hard work and dedication of the teachers at Westgate, along with the focused effort from our students and parents. Other factors that helped us achieve excellence include our School Improvement Plan (SIP), and the focus it provides on student learning improvement. Some of the goals of the SIP that have been particularly helpful include the implementation of Response to Intervention in our reading blocks, use of DIBELS as an ongoing assessment of student learning in Reading. We also use the Waterford Early Reading Program to help our low readers, and English language learners develop reading skills.
Westgate has adopted Imagine It! as our new reading program. We also use Math Connects and Step Up to Writing as our core programs. Our teachers do an amazing job of using these curricula to help our students accomplish more every year. In addition to our curriculum, Westgate teachers have the luxury of using ‘Smart Boards” in all primary rooms, and document cameras in every classroom.
Many of the items mentioned above are available to Westgate due to our status as a ‘school wide’ Title I school. This means that we receive federal funds to help students who may face some serious challenges at school without smaller classes, rich technology, and specialized programs we provide.
We are looking forward to another record-setting year at Westgate, and with our outstanding staff, students, and parents, we’re counting on it!
Dale Kern
Principal, Westgate Elementary
We Encourage Your Support
Anyone who has children of their own, or has worked in schools knows that education is a team sport. We rely on the help of our community and parents to make Westgate kids the successes they are. We’d love your help! Please call the school to volunteer or to join our PTO. Together, there’s not limit what we can achieve!
Special Programs
Westgate has a number of special programs providing the children/parents more opportunities for educational growth.
- Math Help - Students participate in math block which helps reduce the class size during Math instruction
- Reading Students participate in reading block for two hours. This includes focus on comprehension, fluency, phonics, writing, and reading strategies.
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Waterford Computers and serves up to 60 students per day. “Read Naturally” is also used to help fluency.
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E.S.L. (English as a Second Language) serves children from Mexico, Russia, Asia, Bosnia, etc., and is designed to help ease the transition from their native language to English (grades 1-5).
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Monolingual kindergartners attend all day classes.
Facilities
Our original building was constructed in 1952 and intensively remodeled in 1984. The grounds are 16 acres and the building square footage is 40,676 sq. ft. Within the building are 18 classrooms, a music room, a gym, a kitchen, and a library.
The school grounds and building itself is used heavily for sports and various groups throughout the year for meetings.
Ongoing updates to the building are done as required by advances in educational technology. A new phone system was installed and wiring for computers was laid during the summerof 2003.
