School Board pitches ideas to fix crowding

Opening elementary schools consisting entirely of portable rooms.

Adding portable classrooms to existing schools where the fields are already packed with as many as 20 portables.

Moving fifth-graders to under-used middle schools and full-day kindergartners to high schools.

Changing some schools back to year-round calendars to pack in more students.

These options and others were put before Clark County School Board on Thursday to address a pressure building in many elementaries – overcrowding.

"Nobody wants any of this, but something must be done," said board member Rene Cantu, who advocated "rational decisions" that would have the least effect on student achievement, not just placate upset parents.

Districtwide, enrollment is 9 percent over capacity for Clark County’s 217 elementary schools. At nearly 40 elementary schools, though, staff members are teaching a quarter more students than their buildings can hold, relying on portable classrooms and even portable bathrooms to do so.

Senior board member Carolyn Edwards emphasized that the problem is not going away, but she called some of the "out-of-the-box" options such as portable schools unacceptable.

"Portable campuses. Wow. Parents won’t do this," she said.

Campuses will soon split at the seams in the southwest Las Vegas Valley, where five elementary schools already teach more than 1,000 students in an area that is adding 600 students every year, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler said.

Forbuss Elementary School, near Blue Diamond and Fort Apache roads, is 51 percent over capacity with more than 1,100 students and 16 portables.

"All of this will ultimately come back to you for a decision," said Superintendent Dwight Jones, who presented board members with a similar report on overcrowding last year that resulted in no changes being made. "I need clear direction pretty quick."

Jones advocated against a year-round calendar and major rezoning, which would have the widest effect and be fought by parents.

Edwards represents the southwest valley and was the most vocal board member on the subject.

She agreed that immediate action was needed but disagreed with Jones about taking year-round calendars and rezoning off the table to affect the least amount of students. "I don’t like year-round. Parents don’t like year-round," she said. "But we do it well. It has to be considered."

Another option is to construct new elementary schools at a cost of $26 million each, but the district is strapped for cash, with no money coming in for capital projects after voters rejected the district’s $669 million property tax increase last month. To fund new schools, money would have to be taken away from many aging schools that were already promised replacements for their frequently broken air conditioners.

"I don’t know how you justify taking that," Edwards said.

Board President Linda Young said it’s about priorities. If parents want their children to stay in their community, they will need to move to a year-round calendar, with more portables and some minor rezoning.

"People live where they do because of their school," she said.

While Young and Edwards seemed to generally be in agreement, that couldn’t be said for the whole board.

Board members Deanna Wright, Chris Garvey and Lorraine Alderman supported portable campuses.

"There are consequences for not voting for the property tax increase," Garvey noted. "We said it all along."

A portable campus is better than a crowded one and costs one-third of constructing a traditional new school, said Alderman, who recalls having to hold lunch five times a day as a principal just to fit all the students in to the cafeteria.

Wright then stunned the room by putting her own suggestion on the table: a "district reset," erasing all zoning lines and redrawing the maps. "We have to redo everything," she said. "This is not working."

The numbers seem to support her argument. While many campuses are well over capacity, about 20 schools are under capacity by 10 percent to 29 percent.

In the end, the board could all agree on one thing: They will present all the options at a community meeting in early January to see what is palatable to the public. The board would reconvene Jan. 9 to make a decision.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.