The overcrowding even with just local students was so severe that the Grand Island school board demanded that 16 rural school districts in Hall and Merrick counties that, at the time, sent their high school students there consolidate with it or find somewhere else to educate their high school-aged students.

In 2020 an English teacher working at Northwest, Brian Mohr and a student, Max Rookstool, was arrested for possession of child pornography.

Rookstool also had additional charges: Two counts of human trafficking, Two counts of Human trafficking of a minor, First-degree sexual assault, 11 counts of “Visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct”, Unlawful distribution of images or videos of another person's intimate area.

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the school.

Although the lawsuit was dismissed due to a student's having graduated, Judge Gerrard wrote: "school administrators would be wise to remember that policies and decisions to restrict speech in student newspapers ... may run afoul of the First Amendment if they 'reflect an effort to suppress expression merely because the public officials oppose a speaker's view'.