Friday, Nov. 26, 1999 | 11:04 a.m.
Children in crisp blue and white uniforms ride bright red tricycles around the playground at the Hebrew Academy in Summerlin, their tiny feet furiously pumping the pedals as if they are really going somewhere.
Inside the academy, second-graders quietly glide out of their classroom and sharply turn into the hallway single file with almost military precision. Down the hallway pupils make computer screens rapidly change color and form as they work on projects in the computer lab.
Whether it's academics or conduct, things are not done by chance here. That's not the way of private schools.
Some parents are willing to pay thousands of dollars for private school tuition because they believe their children are getting more. For them "more" means holding students to high academic standards and receiving individualized teacher instruction. It also means greater safety because private schools can closely screen and monitor students.
The Columbine High School massacre that killed 15 last spring in Littleton, Colo., was more than enough to make parents across the country wonder whether private school tuition might be a good investment. Private schools in the Las Vegas Valley report an increase in inquiries after violent outbreaks in public schools.
But parents generally don't turn to private schools strictly for safety, experts say. They turn to them for academic reasons.
It goes beyond higher expectations for academics and behavior for Hebrew Academy Principal Natalie Burman.
"It's like a family here," she says of the school's 275 pre-kindergarten through eighth grade population. Tuition at the school is approximately $7,000 per year. "Everybody here has a chance to be a star. We know the students. They are not just a number. And we are interacting constantly with parents."
To find every advantage that private schools offer, simply look inside the smaller classrooms. Staffers and parents say the low teacher-to-student ratio allows students more individualized attention, and that plays a primary role in improving academic performance.
Private schools in Clark County report having class sizes as small as four students but no larger than 18. Depending on the subject, average class sizes for Clark County School District middle school students range from 28 to 30 and from 28 to 29 in high school. Elementary school class sizes are smaller, ranging from 16 to 24, according to the grade level.
Enrollment in private schools here, just like public schools, is steadily growing.
Last year private schools represented about 5.2 percent of the kindergarten through 12th grade population in Clark County. According to Nevada Department of Education figures, 10,681 students attended private schools in 1998-99, compared with 203,777 in Clark County public schools.
Nationally about 12 percent of all school-age students are in private schools, a figure growing by about 1 percent to 2 percent every year, said Pearl Kane, a professor at Teacher's College of Columbia University in New York City who specializes in private school research.
Unlike at some public schools, most private school students show up for their classes eager to learn. That's partly because private schools can accept or reject students.
Public schools can't.
Robert and Janet Jones turned to a private school because they felt their children were not being challenged in public schools.
They even had concerns that the work was substandard when their daughter came home with a list of second grade words that were misspelled by her teacher. And their son was bored with the gifted and talented program he was in.
Robert Jones, a retired security professional, and Janet Jones, a stay-at-home mother, decided the financial sacrifices are worth it.
With a tuition tab totaling some $20,000 a year, they send their two children to The Meadows School, a private pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school in Summerlin with a student enrollment of 760 students. Tuition at Meadows ranges from $6,000 for preschool to $10,850 for high school.
"It's worth every penny," Janet Jones said.
But before parents open their checkbooks, they usually want to check private schools' test scores.
Eric Sief, a counselor at Bishop Gorman High School, a Catholic school in Las Vegas, said test scores are the one thing parents always ask to see.
"It's one of the most frequently asked questions I get, even moreso than anything about curriculum," he said.
Private schools operate independently and are not required to administer the tests the Nevada Department of Education mandates for public schools. Yet one test used by all private and public schools is the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). In general private school students perform better on the SAT than their peers in public schools and than state and national averages.
But Sief admits that comparing SAT scores between private and public schools might not be fair. He notes that private schools can specialize in college preparation courses and choose who they admit to their schools, while public schools have to accept and test all students.
Another area where private schools outpace public schools is curriculum, according to private school advocates. Private schools concentrate on "advanced placement" classes designed for high-achieving students.
"My son has taken a cultural anthropology class and Asian history," Robert Jones said. "You can't get that in a public school. Last year he asked if he could start a creative writing club. Now they are putting together a literary journal."
Learning to read, working on computers and studying Spanish all are required of Kindergarten students at Meadows, and those requirements continue through eighth grade. Latin is mandatory for sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
"When you walk through the lower grades and see all of the different kinds of reports and projects they have done, you realize they are in a different level of education," Robert Jones said. "The first graders have a vocabulary that is unbelievable."
Private schoolteachers have the advantage of working with students who want to learn and the disadvantage of earning about 20 percent less on average than their unionized public schools counterparts, Kane said.
A survey of private schools in Las Vegas showed a typical starting pay for a teacher with a bachelor's degree from $24,000 to $27,000, compared with $26,000 in Clark County public schools.
Sue Strand, president of the Clark County Classroom Teacher's Association, said some private schools have asked her to meet with them about how public schools compensate their teachers. In some cases, she has found they are starting about three or four years behind what the Clark County School District pays.
Art Nagle, chairman of the English Department at Meadows, said he doesn't mind sacrificing the salary increases and job security offered by public schools.
Private schools are "a lot saner," said Nagle, who has worked in both environments.
"It's kind of a trade-off," Nagle said. "Overall public schools tend to pay a bit higher, and benefits are generally better. But here we have no more than 75 or 80 students (per subject), and in the public schools you can have upwards of 130 students. When you get over 20 kids in a classroom, it really turns into crowd control rather than teaching."
Smaller classes means less paperwork for private schoolteachers, too.
"As an English teacher, I can't imagine trying to get 130 papers back to students in a week," Nagle said.
Having motivated students also pays off for teachers.
"The bottom line is that our students are here because their parents want them to be, they want to be, or a combination of both," Nagle said. "If there are kids who don't want to be here, they are a small percentage. And at least they understand the importance of being here."
Because teachers aren't hired on the same massive scale as in the Clark County School District, private schools here don't have as hard a time attracting qualified teachers.
"When I need to hire someone, I do a national search," Nagle said. "There are three or four different job fairs nationally and a bunch of different placement services that will match up school openings with candidates."
Not having tenure or yearly contracts is not as scary as it sounds, said Nagle, who believes that tenure doesn't matter if teachers are doing their job.
"I have to keep my end up," he said. "Tenure removes the ability for someone to ask a teacher to move on if they are not doing their job."
At The Meadows teachers and students cannot return for another year unless they are invited back.
Carolyn Goodman, the school's founder and president of the its board of trustees, said that isn't a problem because of the in-depth screening processes for teachers and students.
Even supporters of private schools admit they have shortcomings. In her analysis, Kane said, the biggest disadvantage is cost.
Factors like enrollment and school location can influence tuition costs, Nagle said. Tuition at private schools in the Las Vegas Valley range from $3,500 to $11,000.
"The main drawback is that it's expensive," Kane said. "And they usually aren't as diverse socioeconomically and racially as most public schools."
Private schools here, however, offer scholarships and other incentives to try and maintain diversity.
In addition to tuition at private schools, students and families may be asked to conduct fund-raisers or make additional donations to cover costs.
At least parents can save on school clothes. Uniforms, not expensive jeans or designer clothes, are the norm in Clark County's private schools.
Administrators say uniforms keep the emphasis on students' personality and on learning without the typical peer pressures to wear styles by the fashion designer of the moment.
Another criticism of private schools, particularly the religious ones, is that tuition money goes to areas other than the classroom.
And being able to pay the price for private schools doesn't guarantee admittance. Depending on the school, there can be personal interviews with parents and students, entrance exams and reviews of public school academic or discipline issues.
Merryhill Schools, which operate six pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade schools here, has a fairly open admittance policy. Yearly tuition starts at about $7,500 per year, and Merryhill enrollment ranges from 130 to 300 per school.
"We don't have that air of being restrictive," said Don Parker, principal of the Durango Drive Merryhill School. "That is not what our philosophy is all about. Students don't have to take a test in order to get in."
Vouchers -- using public dollars to send children to private schools -- have been discussed by Nevada lawmakers, but currently is not an option available for parents who want to send their children to private schools.
Not everyone likes the idea of vouchers, either -- including some private school administrators.
"We are a Christian school first," said Crystal Van Kempen-McClanahan, principal of Mountain View. She opposes the concept of allowing anyone with a voucher into a religious school.
Clark County Schools Superintendent Brian Cram does not support vouchers, because he dislikes the concept of using public dollars to fund private schools, especially religious schools.
"It goes against the separation of church and state," he said.
While public schools work hard to keep religion out of the classrooms, there are private schools working just has hard to include it. How they include religious studies is left entirely up to them.
At Mountain View, Bible studies are incorporated into everyday lessons and time is set aside during the week for religious services.
Van Kempen-McClanahan also said academic expectations are very high at her school, which has an enrollment of 685 in grades pre-Kindergarten through high school. The average tuition at the school is $3,500.
Two students at Mountain View said the religious values taught at the school create a caring atmosphere. They also said they like the emphasis on academics.
"The kids are very academically oriented, and the school has very high standards," said Laura Nett, a junior. "There is a lot of encouragement, and people really care for each other."
James Pedrick, a senior, said he likes the use of religious examples in the teachers' daily lessons.
"All of the teachers incorporate lessons of Christianity into their everyday studies, and time is specifically set aside for it, too," he said.
With an enrollment of more than 1,000, Bishop Gorman High School is the only Catholic Diocesan high school in Southern Nevada. Tuition at the school averages about $3,500.
Whether or not students are Catholic -- and about 20 percent of them are not -- everyone participates in studying religion, Principal Connie Gerber said.
State regulation of private schools is held to a minimum, if any at all. If private schools are licensed by Nevada -- it isn't a requirement -- that gives Holly Walton Buchanan of the state standards, curriculum and assessment team the option to walk in and visit.
"They have to be relicensed every two years," she said.
Cram thinks that difference is unfair to the public schools.
"If they are going to give them special regulations then they should give them to us to, so the playing field is leveled," Cram said.
But Walton Buchanan said she doesn't have any real concerns about private schools.
"Generally, private schools hold students to a pretty high standard," she said. "I think we should just leave them alone."
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