Double sessions for Silverado hit sour note

Terry Webster

Wednesday, March 1, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

Something has to be done to ease overcrowding at Silverado High School, and vocal taxpayers made one thing clear to the Clark County School Board on Tuesday -- double sessions shouldn't be the answer.

A standing-room-only crowd repeatedly made that point at a school attendance zone meeting, prompting the School Board to delay deciding until the end of March on how to reduce the student population at the bursting school.

"Everybody agrees we need to download Silverado," Superintendent Brian Cram told the crowd. "What we disagree on is how to do that."

But most of the crowd agreed that double sessions should be the last resort.

When Dusty Dickens, director of the school district's Demographics, Zoning and Realty Department, broached the subject of double sessions, the crowd booed her.

"There is no magic number for double sessions," Dickens said after the meeting. "It's just that a facility gets to a point where it is no longer functioning. Silverado is at that point. Either somebody has to go, or you have to go double sessions."

Silverado teacher Dylena Pierce said she hopes that isn't the case.

"I was in double sessions," Pierce said of her high school years. "My senior year was obliterated. I didn't join band that year for the first time in eight years, and that was my second family. I also was a varsity softball player, and I couldn't do that in my senior year because of scheduling.

"Those are moments I missed out on. I do not want my students to have to go through that."

Silverado's official enrollment of 3,638 students makes it 42 percent over capacity. Without any relief, the southeast valley school would grow to 4,000 students by next year.

Long-term relief won't come until a high school under construction about 3 miles away opens in fall 2001. Officials are struggling with a one-year plan to get Silverado through the next year.

Another public meeting on Silverado will be held before the School Board makes its final decision at the end of March.

More input is needed, officials said, because some families have not been notified of proposals unveiled Tuesday.

Parent had suggested moving all incoming ninth graders (about 186) in Silverado's northern attendance zone -- between Sunset Road and Tropicana Avenue and between Interstate 15 and Eastern Avenue -- to Chaparral High School. Chaparral is already over its capacity.

Students in the northern zone are the farthest from Foothill High School, the Henderson school that would take Silverado students in all other proposals.

Dickens said that of the ninth graders in that area, 65 percent are minorities. Some speakers maintained those students are being inconvenienced because of the minority concentration.

Another possibility presented by Dickens involved moving all ninth graders living more than 2 miles from Silverado (about 473) for one year to either Miller Middle School or Foothill.

"We've heard so much discussion about how far Foothill is," Dickens said. "Miller Middle School is closer."

Cram said it is possible students could be housed at Foothill but be allowed to participate in Silverado extracurricular activities.

"We'd have to run shuttle buses. We'd have to do a lot of things," he said. "The honest answer here is that has not been decided at this point."

It was also suggested that in two areas, all new students be assigned to Foothill. One area is generally located south of Silverado Ranch, between Eastern Avenue and Interstate 15. The other is bounded by Lake Mead Drive, Pecos Road, Wigwam Avenue and Green Valley Parkway. Some homes in those areas are less than a mile from the school.

If Silverado's student body is reduced by about 500, the school would still be overcrowded, but it would be livable until the new school opens, Dickens said.

The district also is examining how many siblings would be affected by the proposals. Officials noted it's not desirable to have family members attending different schools.

Prior proposals recommended by an advisory commission did not provide enough relief, Cram said.

Speakers who opposed double sessions asked that the new high school's boundaries be decided, and they expressed concerns about wasting money on busing.

Beverly Kitterman said that deciding the boundaries for the new high school would give families more stability.

"Kids need to feel like they have a sense of identity," she said.

"Why would you bus someone within a 1-mile radius of the school?" Antoinette Clapp said. "That seems to be wasting taxpayer dollars." Bruce Rowe said the board has done a commendable job in a difficult situation.

"I can't imagine what it would be like to manage schools in the fastest growing part of the United States," he said.

Cram said parents are always willing to rezone children of other parents.

"We have a majority of the population that appears to not want any double sessions for this," Cram said. "The alternative for the double sessions, of course, is you have to review some students. What starts to occur here is that the ideal zoning is the zoning that doesn't affect your child.

"If you don't want double sessions, you have to rezone. If you rezone, you have to pick up approximately 400 students to make this work. If you don't do that, you will find the only result left will be double sessions in some form."

Despite postponing the Silverado decision, the School Board changed zoning for other schools. But most of those decisions drew no comment from the crowd.

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