High School Credit Courses
When possible, students are encouraged to take courses for high school credit while in middle school.  Westwood offers six high school credit classes. We offer Geometry Honors, Algebra Honors, Algebra, HOPE, Computing for College and Careers,  and Spanish I.  Students may also enroll in any Alachua eSchool course for high school credit.

Cambridge at Westwood Middle School
As a Cambridge International Center, Westwood Middle School is the only middle school in Alachua County that offers a standards-based curriculum. Westwood Middle School supplements the Florida Standards with the Cambridge Secondary 1 Curriculum. This curriculum encompasses a variety of international learning standards for children 11-14 in preparation for Cambridge Checkpoint Examinations. 

ESOL
Westwood Middle School is proud to serve as the center program for students in the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) program. Our ESOL students receive intensive English and reading instruction in a separate class where oral communication is stressed.  Students then attend regular classes with other students, allowing them to meet many different children. Our whole school is committed to providing rigorous academics, promoting community involvement, and delivering quality services to all students including English Language Learners and their families. 

Advancement Via Individual Determination
AVID is a program dedicated to helping students achieve their goals of going to college by preparing them for the rigors of advanced placement coursework in high school while in middle school. The AVID elective class provides support, academic monitoring and tutoring. AVID serves students that are enrolled in advanced courses who might be underachieving, underserved in the college system, or first generation college students.

READ 180
READ 180 is a comprehensive method of instruction designed to reach the struggling reader. It is a highly prescriptive system of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development proven to raise reading achievement for struggling readers in grades 4–12+. Designed for any student reading two or more years below grade-level,READ 180 leverages adaptive technology to individualize instruction for students and provide powerful data for differentiation to teachers. Our data shows that students who participate in READ 180 consistently improve performance on standardized reading tests. Our ultimate goal is to identify each student’s unique reading difficulty in order to provide an individualized program aimed at closing learning gaps.

Document Based Questions (DBQ’s)
DBQ’s focus on critical thinking skills and ask students to make comparisons, draw analogies and apply knowledge to the given data. They ask students to take positions on issues or problems and support their conclusions. They require students to examine issues from multiple perspectives while interpreting primary and secondary sources, evaluating sources and using historic evidence. These DBQ’s are intellectually stimulating as they challenge students to answer real world questions that explored by contemporary historians.