Tempers flare over ATA

Teresa Hinds

Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

After heated testimony and two lengthy recesses called to calm flaring tempers, the Clark County School Board voted to study the possibility of turning the Advanced Technologies Academy into a comprehensive high school.

Board member Susan Brager submitted a motion Tuesday night that directed school district staff to study the feasibility of expanding ATA into a comprehensive high school without losing its magnet component.

Brager asked that several viable options be submitted to the board within the next month.

The motion came after 20 speakers, including four children and state Sen. Joe Neal, spoke in favor of expanding ATA.

West Las Vegas activists, who have sought unsuccessfully to get a high school in the predominantly black neighborhood for years, believe ATA could be the answer. The campus is on Vegas Drive east of Rancho Drive.

Three speakers, two parents and the student body president of ATA, spoke against the proposal.

The first recess was called after School Board President Larry Mason and speaker Deborah Jackson got into a disagreement over how long Jackson could speak.

According to school district rules, each speaker is given two minutes to speak before a warning buzzer sounds. Once the buzzer sounds, it is Mason's custom to tell the speaker to "Please sum up."

Jackson took offense at Mason's repeated requests for her to wrap up her testimony, and told Mason, "I don't like your attitude. You keep on interrupting me."

Mason warned Jackson he would call a recess if she didn't finish her testimony, and made good on his threat. The board recessed for 25 minutes.

Mason called a second recess, this one lasting 15 minutes, during testimony given by Marzette Lewis, president of the Westside Action Alliance Korps-Uplifting People.

When the two-minute buzzer sounded during Lewis' testimony and Mason asked her to sum up, Lewis replied, "I'm not going to do it, Mr. Mason. I have sleeping bags in the car and a case of pop. I don't care, we can stay here all night long and party. I'm not sitting down. I paid my taxes and paid my dues to stand here tonight."

School district police were at ATA this morning in response to suggestions at the board meeting that supporters would shut down the campus if they don't get a commitment for a full-fledged high school.

"We were there just in case they had any problems stemming from last night," said Officer Ken Young "There was very possibly going to be a protest today."

No one showed up, he said.

An ATA secretary said police were on campus at 6:50 a.m. for the start of school and as students unloaded from the buses.

At the board meeting, Lewis had threatened to have the doors blocked and the school closed today, school district spokesman Ray Willis said.

Those opposed to the school's expansion maintained students all across the valley have an equal opportunity to attend the science and technology magnet school.

Rose Ann Peterson, who has a son attending ATA, told the board she thought it was "inappropriate" to consider expansion of ATA.

"Any student in this community can go to this school if they do the same thing my son has done," she said. "He has applied himself and worked hard."

ATA's student body president, Neha Dagley, said: "We realize what a wonderful opportunity and privilege it is to be at ATA. The idea of expanding Atech into a traditional high school is a very scary thought to all of us.

"You don't need an exceedingly high IQ to get into Atech, all you need is the will and determination. Please do not turn something positive like Atech into something totally negative."

But one speaker in favor of the expansion of the magnet program, Judi Lynn, pointed out that there are 800 applications for 200 available seats at ATA.

Those in favor of ATA's expansion came armed with placards. One sported a slogan that said, "They don't really care about us."

They spoke in favor of community-based schools, and argued that West Las Vegas deserves its own high school.

Lewis and other speakers urged the School Board to vote to use the recently purchased land where Faith Lutheran High School is located, just adjacent to ATA, for the school's expansion.

But Len Paul, assistant superintendent for secondary education, explained that Faith Lutheran has leased the property back from the school district for one year, and possibly a second. "If that happened, my staff was thinking we had plenty of time to work with this after we got school under way," Paul said.

Because of the time frame, Paul said there "has not been a real significant planning effort for what we would do at the Faith Luthern school site."

Faith Lutheran is in the process of building a new school site and will continue to occupy its current site until the new one is built.