Concord Community Schools celebrate back to school with first day festivities

ELKHART, Ind. -- Back to school time is here and today Concord Community School students had their first day back. 

Concord Westside Elementary School celebrates their first day festivities, where the staff emphasized the success of their pre-k program. The school has a very diverse student body and wants to empower students no matter their background.

Maggie Bronkema, Concord Community School's K-6 curriculum coordinator tells ABC57 "Westside is one the highest populations of English learning students in Indiana, and our teachers here at Westside really love and own those students. They view that as an opportunity to really deliver instruction that is excellent to those students, and we've worked really hard to help those students have the same opportunities as everyone else."

This year is the second year of the pre-k program at Westside and school leaders say there was a significant increase in I-Read scores over the past year. The scores went up from 60 percent to 88 percent.