Aging Clark County schools slated for upgrades
Rainwater streamed down the inside of a classroom wall with one of the few electrical outlets available for about a dozen computers.
More rainwater pooled against the outside wall, threatening to seep in.
For two days, the air conditioning didn't work, causing classrooms to heat to the mid-90s.
And that was just last week at the 57-year-old Lincoln Edison Elementary School in North Las Vegas, Principal Jennifer Newton said.
She discovered Tuesday that her building woes may be over.
Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones announced that two campuses, Lincoln and Bell elementary schools, are slated for $20 million replacements.
"Your zip code shouldn't matter. All kids deserve to go to a quality school," he said at 49-year-old Bell Elementary School, near Sahara Avenue and Interstate 15, where 85 percent of students live in poverty. About 90 percent of Lincoln's students live in poverty.
While Bell also deals with its share of leaks and air-conditioning outages, it's over-enrolled and relies on 22 portable classrooms to teach its 880 students. That is a third more students than the school's capacity.
Newton and Bell Principal Jaymes Aimetti tried to temper their excitement Tuesday.
While district officials have picked the schools for replacement buildings, it's not up to them to pull the trigger on construction. It will be up to voters, who would foot the bill with a property tax increase now on the November ballot.
If the tax increase doesn't pass, the schools will remain as they are.
If voters approve the ballot question, these two school replacements would be the first of up to $720 million in projects to mostly renovate aging schools and retrofit them with new equipment, such as air conditioners. The ballot question is being challenged in court by the Nevada Policy Research Institute.
The district wants to raise the property tax rate, which stands at 55 cents for schools, by about 21 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. Homeowners with a residence assessed at $100,000 would see an increase of $74.20 annually, for six years. Taxpayers are still paying off the district's 1998 bond at a rate of $194 a year for the average home assessed at $100,000.
"It's literally a Starbucks a month," Newton said.
School Board President Linda Young also emphasized the cost was just $6 a month and would benefit 41 schools, improving learning environments for 43,000 students.
"We have to ask voters," she said, noting that the district is being "frugal," paying as it goes and incurring no debt. "We feel it's a fiscally responsible plan."
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.
ADEQUATE PROGRESS
Superintendent Dwight Jones announced Tuesday that 163 out of 385 Clark County schools, including charter schools, made adequate yearly progress under the federal requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
But in reality, under the education accountability law, only 118 schools made adequate progress.
The federal system requires schools to meet its requirements for "two consecutive years" to earn that designation, demonstrating that the schools are consistently improving and it's not just a fluke year. But, Jones and the Clark County School District included schools that met requirements for just one year after failing the previous year.
Ken Turner, special assistant to the superintendent, acknowledged the rule requiring two consecutive years to change a school's designation, equating it to the carpenter's adage, "Measure twice, cut once."
Nevertheless, the 45 schools in question showed improvement last year and should be given credit for that improvement, he said. They made "progress" and met the bar, if just for a year, he said.
"The district errs on the side of giving schools the benefit of the doubt, that they're improving," he said.
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