Some students in limbo after learning class won’t count toward graduation

After Axel Reynolds gets out of class at Shadow Ridge High School where he takes an advanced computer science class, he teaches coding to elementary and middle school students.

But despite his now high level of computer proficiency, Reynolds, a senior at Shadow Ridge, was told earlier this week that he may not be able to graduate in the fall because of a class he took in sixth grade.

He’s just one of the potentially hundreds of Clark County School District students who are now impacted after taking a half-credit class at Leavitt Middle School that the district now says was inaccurately used to meet a computer literacy requirement needed for graduation.

Reynolds’ father, Paul Reynolds, and other Valley parents are questioning the district over the mistake and the proposed solutions that they say are unfairly punishing their students.

“Everybody recognizes that it’s a stupid requirement, or somebody made a stupid decision, but nobody is willing to take ownership or try and fix it or tell me who can fix it,” Paul Reynolds told the Review-Journal.

Melissa King, whose daughter is a junior at Northwest Career and Technical Academy, said she was told by Centennial High School Principal Keith Wipperman that approximately 600 students – including her daughter – are impacted by the situation.

Wipperman was the principal of Leavitt Middle School when the impacted students took the computer class and addressed a letter to parents earlier this week apologizing for the mistake, according to a copy of the letter provided by King.

“As a Clark County School District administrator, my goal is and always has been to help students be successful,” Wipperman wrote. “I am sincerely apologetic for the inconvenience this places on students and their families.”

The Clark County School District did not answer questions about when the issue was identified or how many students were impacted, and instead provided a copy of a letter sent by Wipperman.

Wipperman outlined several options that are now available to students to accrue the necessary half-credit, including attending face-to-face instruction for one semester at their zoned high school, taking the credit during summer school or taking the class through the district’s online school.

But King said that the solutions offered by the district aren’t adequate remedies for a mistake that was not her daughter’s fault.

Wipperman was briefly removed from his post at Centennial High School earlier this year. At the time, parents and community members suspected that the credit issue could be related to his removal.

After parents and students pleaded with the School Board to have him reinstated, Wipperman later returned to his position at Centennial.

King and Reynolds described Wipperman as a great person and an approachable and helpful leader.

But Reynolds said parents are still lacking transparency and clarification about how the district arrived at its latest decision to nullify their students’ computer literacy credit.

“Clearly a mistake was made. I’m not interested in pointing blame or speculating about where this came from,” King said. “I just want to get a remedy that is going to have the least amount of negative consequences for my daughter.”

Contact Lorraine Longhi at 702-387-5298 or llonghi@reviewjournal.com. Follow her at @lolonghi on Twitter.