High school jam

Terry Webster

Monday, Feb. 21, 2000 | 11:29 a.m.

It's rush hour at Silverado High School. Better fasten your seat belt.

Bumper to bumper, students inch out of classrooms and into hallways, creating a scene that rivals a traffic jam on U.S. 95.

A wrong turn and students are late for their next class. A wrong move and they slam into someone. Students stand in place, waiting for others to pass by. They simply cannot move.

"It's the same frustration as being in traffic and not being able to get where you need to go," Leonard Paul, Clark County School District assistant superintendent for secondary education, said. "It's a problem when you get a kid in a bad mood pushing through the halls. The analogy would be road rage."

Families and school officials are frustrated, too, grappling with whether the overcrowded school will undergo an attendance zone change or be placed on double sessions next year. The Clark County School Board will decide the school's fate, along with other school zoning issues, on Feb. 29.

Silverado is not alone.

The school's fast pace is just one scene in a county and school district caught in a whirlwind of rapid growth. Growing by about 1,000 students a month, the Clark County School District -- the nation's eighth largest -- can barely build schools fast enough.

Once they are built, the schools rapidly fill to capacity -- and beyond.

"Look at Lied and Silvestri," Paul said of the two newest middle schools. Open in 1997 and 1998, they already are 27 and 23 percent over capacity, respectively. "And there are going to be others before we really catch up with the growth. We have to have one-way passing in the halls. We've had to set up food delivery stations so kids can eat in areas other than the cafeteria."

Silverado's own growing pains are at the breaking point. Its student population has more than tripled since it opened in 1994.

Brimming with 3,648 students and 25 portable classrooms, Silverado, located in southern Las Vegas, is now 42 percent over capacity. The school could expand to 4,000 students by next year if some form of relief is not provided.

The largest school in Nevada, Silverado also ranks among the biggest senior high schools in the country, according to the National Association of Secondary School Principals in Reston, Va. Of the nation's 15,100 senior high schools, only 32 percent have 1,000 or more students.

"There aren't many high schools in (Silverado's) range," Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the principals' group, said.

New York City, the country's largest school district, has some high schools with 5,000 students, Tirozzi said. But New York City has more than a million students, compared with Clark County's 217,000.

Silverado is staying afloat, for now.

"It's a really great school, and we're dealing with it," Silverado senior Chanel McCreedy said. "But there's a point where it's going to break. They have to stop giving us more students."

Getting through the hallways to classes is nearly impossible within the five-minute limit, and there isn't enough time to use the restroom, students say. Some classes have as many as 50 students, well over the 30-student limit, and students sit on floors. Other limits, such as fire safety codes, are being pushed.

"The halls are really crowded, and after classes it's hard to get from one place to another," McCreedy said. "Everyone is blocked, especially trying to get in and out of the doorways."

Students who are late for classes face sanctions.

"If you have five tardies, you get a (required parent conference)," McCreedy said. "If people are in your way, then you are obviously going to be tardy to class. It's not your fault because there are so many people in your way."

A few hallway scuffles aside, Silverado has sidestepped potential student violence related to overcrowding.

People coming in and out of the school are closely watched, Silverado Principal Aldeane Ries said, and the cooperation between parents, students and teachers creates a good school atmosphere.

"We manage to keep a lot of close contact with the kids," Ries said.

Yet overcrowding in any school increases the risk of violence, said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland.

"The more students in a class, the greater the chances of reduced adult supervision," Trump said. "Many conflicts erupting in violence stem from pushing, shoving, hitting, harassment and related dynamics in the hallways or stairways. The chances of these things occurring increase with more students in tighter spaces."

How does all of this affect learning? Senior Stephanie Echols said she has managed just fine.

"The school being so crowded hasn't affected my learning at all," she said. "The teachers do still help us. They always say our school is so crowded that we're not learning anything and it's not productive. It's not like that at all. It's just a little harder to get to class. You just have to push a little more."

But the large classes concern Paul.

"There's no doubt there have been a lot of studies done that suggest lower class sizes create a better learning environment," Paul said. "It becomes difficult for teachers to interact with kids on an individual basis when they have so many kids. It gets difficult to do grades and read essays in a timely manner. A lot of teachers are sacrificing a lot of their personal time to get this done."

With 700 students, Silverado's senior class alone is bigger than the average high school in the nation.

Forty-two percent of the country's senior high schools have fewer than 500 students, the national principals group says. Twenty-five percent have 500 to 999 students.

Silverado's senior class had its picture taken in the football stadium bleachers last week. School staffers used bull horns to belt out instructions as several pictures were snapped.

"Cheese," some of the students said, grinning at a camera 50 yards away in the center of the football field.

Their days at Silverado are almost over. For next year's students, the only thing certain at this point is that the incoming senior class will remain at Silverado.

"Whatever we are going to do, we should announce it as soon as possible," Clark County School Superintendent Brian Cram said. "This is a classic zoning dilemma. It's very difficult, and we are not going to be able to please everyone."

The Attendance Zone Advisory Commission, a School Board-appointed panel, is recommending to the School Board that Silverado students be offered the chance to attend Foothill High School, about 14 miles away in Henderson. Based on public comments and a student survey, the option is unpopular.

Additionally, the commission has mapped out an area from which all new incoming students would attend Foothill. The general area is south of Silverado Ranch and between Eastern Avenue and Interstate 15.

Silverado will get long-term relief in 2001, with the completion of a new high school under construction at Maryland Parkway and Buena Vida.

Foothill is currently being looked at as Silverado's savior. That makes Foothill Principal Bob Johns more than a little nervous.

"I can't see us providing Silverado with any significant relief," he said.

Foothill, with about 1,300 students, is presently about 49 percent under capacity, according to figures from the school district's demographics, zoning and realty department. This appears to indicate the school has plenty of room.

It doesn't, according to Johns.

"We're going to add a whole ninth grade class next year of about 600 kids," Johns said. "I have 1,300 kids now, and we're going to be close to 1,900 without considering any growth factor and without anyone coming from Silverado. I have a seating capacity of about 2,000. If this happens, I'll be looking at portables."

What is not in Johns' equation is Foothill's shared facility arrangement with the Community College of Southern Nevada's Henderson campus.

Foothill uses some facilities at the college during the day, while the college uses space at Foothill at night.

Johns said that arrangement is deceptive. The community college is growing, and Foothill may have to rely solely on its own building, which is smaller than most high schools.

"The college system is growing so quickly, they are running into the same obstacles," Johns said. "Next year we'll be close to capacity. Unless they want to build me a new wing over the summer."

Other debates were held about sending Silverado students to Chaparral or Green Valley high schools, which are 6 percent and 27 percent over capacity, respectively.

Dusty Dickens, director of demographics, zoning and realty, has said the school district does not like to ease overcrowding at one school by creating overcrowding at another one. Foothill and the community college's partnership was designed to save the district about $10 million. That pushed Foothill to be built before the high school near Silverado to take advantage of the community college's construction. Foothill cost $26 million to build, Johns estimated. Two other high schools that opened in August cost about $33 million apiece.

"The community college received all of these free facilities," Alan Lewis, a former member of the school district's Bond Oversight Committee, said. "Now all the kids and the parents are paying for it. The demographics showed the new high school near Silverado should have been built before Foothill.

"This whole thing really bothers me," said Lewis, who claims the partnership was based on politics, not common sense.

Ries is worried her school will be placed on double sessions for a year.

"The latest proposal would create double sessions," Ries said. "There's absolutely no way in the world that double sessions should even be an option."

Students who want to participate in activities and athletics aren't the only ones hurt by double sessions, she said. It also would affect advanced placement classes, honors classes and electives.

"I can't imagine how it would work without negatively impacting every part of the kids' lives," Ries said.

Equally ridiculous to Ries was a discussion to move students living less than a quarter of a mile away from Silverado to Foothill.

The plan, aired at an Attendance Zoning Advisory Commission public input meeting, also irked parent David Baker. His family would be affected even though he lives nine-tenths of a mile from Silverado.

Baker is now lobbying for a law to be put in place that would prevent the School District from moving any students residing within two miles of an existing school.

"This School District is out of control," Baker said.

Terry Webster covers education for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-4091 or by e-mail at terry@lasvegassun.com.

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