Napa Valley Language Academy, formerly Westwood Elementary School, was founded in 1949. In 1989, NVLA began offering bilingual instruction. Since 1995, NVLA has followed the Two-way Language Immersion model and is one of approximately 300 such schools in the United States. NVLA became a California Charter School in 1998 in order to continue offering its unique educational model in the aftermath of the passage of Prop. 227