Principal welcomes challenge at Chaparral

McPartlin urged Wilson “to tear him down” in his interview with Clark County School District officials.

Wilson, now principal of Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite, could not do that to a friend. He also did not think it was merited. McPartlin “was taking the school in the right direction,” Wilson said Wednesday.

Chaparral, near Flamingo Road and U.S. Highway 95, is one of five district schools undergoing reorganization for the 2011-12 school year.

Leadership and staff changes are among the conditions of federal School Improvement Grants sought for the schools, which include Mojave and Western high schools and Hancock and Elizondo elementary schools.

The shakeup was greeted with outrage at Chaparral, where students and staff have rallied on campus and at a School Board meeting in support of McPartlin and teachers who will have to reapply for their positions.

The conditions of the School Improvement Grant required the district to replace principals who have been in place for three or more years. As the next principal of Chaparral, Wilson will only be allowed to keep up to 50 percent of the staff.

“When I look at these teachers who are told there’s not a place for them, my heart goes out to them. I’ve been there.”

Wilson and his wife, Karen, started as elementary school teachers in the district in 1991. “Five weeks after I came here, I was surplused,” he said.

Because district enrollment was less than expected, the Wilsons, as rookie teachers, were among the first let go. They soon found other employment in the district, but it was stressful.

“When you’re not sure of where you’re going and what you’re doing, that’s gut-wrenching,” Wilson said.

He wants to preserve many of the programs championed by McPartlin. That includes block scheduling, which allows students to take as many as eight classes per semester instead of the usual six.

The flexibility in scheduling also allows the school to reduce class sizes, so the impact can be “huge,” said Wilson, 48.

The grants are expected to provide $850,000 per year for three years to each of the five schools. At Chaparral, the grant is intended to mitigate the loss next year of $1.5 million in federal stimulus funds and private donations.

“I live, eat and breathe education,” said Wilson, whose mother, Susan, was a first-grade teacher. His father, Alfred, recently retired as a professor of education at Kansas State University.

As a graduate student at Kansas State, Superintendent Dwight Jones took classes in educational leadership from Wilson’s father. When Jones told Wilson those were his hardest classes, Wilson responded, “Welcome to academic rigor.”

Wilson, a principal for 11 years, is well acquainted with academic challenges.

“When I went to Virgin Valley, the parents felt disenfranchised, particularly the Hispanics. I spent my Sundays at every church in every denomination.”

As an educator, “it’s my job to go out to them,” he said.

He is meeting with Chaparral parents this week. Like Virgin Valley, Chaparral serves a large population of Hispanics and English language learners.

While he does not speak Spanish, Wilson is fluent in a sister language, Italian.

“It’s not Spanish, but if a parent comes in and speaks to me, I know 95 percent of what they’re saying,” he said. “My problem is communicating back.”

While he was principal at Lyon Middle School in Overton and at Virgin Valley, both schools were classified as showing “adequate yearly progress,” under No Child Left Behind, the federal school accountability law. Virgin Valley reached “high achieving” status last year, he said.

Proud of achieving one of the highest graduation rates in the district –89 percent for Virgin Valley’s class of 2009 — Wilson said he has ideas for improving Chaparral’s graduation rate, less than 60 percent for at least the last four years.

To help students pass the state-required math proficiency test for graduation, he wants to offer both geometry and algebra to freshmen to prepare them to take the test as sophomores.

Because Chaparral has a high student turnover rate of 45 percent, Wilson wants to academically assess students who come to Chaparral midyear so they can be placed in the right classes.

Wilson is also a big believer in athletics and extracurricular activities.

“You have to hook kids into the school so they want to participate,” he said. “I need to make them Chaparral Cowboys.”

Wilson realizes the challenges of following a popular principal. “Kids were invested in Kevin,” he said.

Destiny Carmona, 16, a junior, said everyone is talking about the new principal. “I haven’t met him, but I’ve heard things,” Carmona said. “Don’t judge him until he’s done something.”

Veronica Covarrubias, 16, said she is “worried for the new principal. I have no idea how he’ll be.”

But Wilson said he knows how to win over students. During a recent evaluation for the accreditation of Virgin Valley, “95 percent of the students” gave him the highest mark.

In exchanging Virgin Valley for Chaparral, Wilson is leaving one of the district’s smaller high schools with 680 students for a large city school with more than 2,000 students.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.