Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Booker students earn respect, receive patience in classroom

Mary Schnider gets respect at Booker Elementary School.

The 49-year-old single mother of six -- three are high school graduates and now have children of their own attending Booker -- says that hasn't always been the case at other schools.

"When I go to Booker, I'm greeted with respect. They don't look at me like I'm crazy or something. They say 'Hello, Ms. Schnider,' and 'How are you doing, Ms. Schnider?' At the other school (Doris Reed), I had a problem. I didn't appreciate how they used to talk to me."

Schnider says the people at Booker also respect the needs of her children, who have attended the school near Lake Mead and Martin Luther King boulevards over the past 23 years.

"At Booker, my kids get better schooling than anywhere else," she said. "They take the time and make them learn, not just push them through (to middle school)."

The Carey Arms resident can walk to the school and feel welcome. She frequently sits in on classes to observe and help out, an opportunity she couldn't afford when her children were bused to outlying schools.

She said Booker hasn't always been so inviting, but "they really have a good team of people over there now."

Phil Thompson agrees. The president of Booker's PTA has a second-grade gifted and talented student attending the school on a zone variance. The boy's grandmother lives within walking distance and cares for him after school.

Thompson said he didn't have any reservations about sending his son to the school located in a high-crime area. He grew up in the nearby Gerson Park public housing project and says he knows how to discourage his son from adopting bad habits.

"The most important ingredient in a child's education is what happens at home," said Thompson, director of the Doolittle Community Center a few blocks from Booker. "I take my son to school every day and walk around campus and I work with him every day at home. He knows school is important."

He credits Booker Principal Beverly Mathis and her staff with reaching out to parents. But he says it will take time to truly make a difference.

In the meantime, Thompson is concerned that the school lacks integration. The student body is 99 percent black.

He believes that segregation "stymies the social growth of not only these children, but those at (predominantly) white schools."

As part of a desegregation plan adopted by the Clark County School District, no one is zoned to attend Booker, but neighborhood students have the option to attend there.

Outside students who want to attend Booker can get a zone variance -- nine have done so -- but there is no bus transportation available.

Pamela Holman, a single working mom, likes her choice. She disagrees with busing for integration's sake.

She said her daughter hasn't suffered from a lack of interaction with other ethnic groups or from Booker's reputation for low test scores.

"I was worried about the low test scores, but I work with her every day and I don't see a problem," Holman said. "I think the problem is that a lot of parents don't do that."

Theresa Jackson and her husband, three-year residents of Gerson Park, said their goal is getting the seven children under their care out of the neighborhood. Until then, Booker is their choice.

Jackson can look out her door and watch her children walk onto the campus and into class. But the lack of integration does bother her. If the neighborhood improves, she believes it will become more appealing to different socioeconomic groups.

But she's not holding her breath for any immediate changes.

Jackson has to shoo vagrants from urinating on her doorstep, guard her car, which has been stolen numerous times, and keep her children away from the drug dealers and junkies making transactions at every corner of the complex.

"I'm not on welfare. I'm comfortable and happy with what I have and I'm happy with my kids. I always tell them, 'Don't be like me, be better than me,'" Jackson said.

"At first, I didn't want them to go to the school in the area, hanging around the same kids all the time and getting into trouble. But as long as they learn, it doesn't matter where."

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