From box tops for a trip to walking to school, elementary school forms a community

Kris Hill

Saturday, Oct. 7, 2000 | 8:40 a.m.

Camille Garritano's third grade class at Roberta C. Cartwright Elementary School has several ideas for the ultimate field trip.

They want to go China, France -- no, no, Disneyland. More likely they'll descend on Wet 'n Wild or play a game of laser tag with all 830 schoolmates. But first, the school must collect 50,000 box tops.

Cartwright, in the southeast valley, is enrolled in General Mills' "Box Tops for Education" program. The first step for families is to clip box tops from specific products such as cereal and pancake mixes. The tops are taken to the school, which sends them to the company and, in time, receives a check worth 10 cents per box top.

The collection is one step to involve the community in the lives of Cartwright students.

Parents volunteer in classrooms and make sure kids get to school safely. Students from nearby junior and senior high schools help at Cartwright, and elementary students attend plays and other events at the high school.

The Parent Teacher Association hopes others in the community will also help, particularly surrounding businesses.

When Cartwright opened three years ago, the only structures nearby were a small housing development and Silverado High School.

When the school was being built, one could see for miles around, Principal Emily Aguero said. A visitor today might have a hard time finding the campus because it is hidden by surrounding homes.

Beyond the homes is Silvestri Junior High School, which opened in Cartwright's second year.

The community's growth has been reflected in Cartwright. In its three years, th school, built for 600 students, has grown from a student body of 300 to 1,400.

That came down to 850 this year when Bass Elementary School opened in the portables on Cartwright's campus. Those students are expected to move into their own building in the middle of the school year.

All of Cartwright's students come from within a mile radius of the school, and it depends on that closeness.

Parents are involved in every aspect of the children's education. Garritano said almost all her student's parents attended open house this year.

The mother of one student saved box tops all summer, she said.

To save enough for Cartwright's goal of a field trip, PTA Chairwoman Vicki Mihalko said the group is turning to the community.

When students are motivated, they go home and tell their parents that they want to get more box tops, according to Teresa Fullerton, PTA box top and soup label coordinator.

The school succeeded in getting the community involvement it wants in a significant way. Dozens of parents have signed up for the "Walking School Bus" program, launched Wednesday.

Bus service is not provided for Cartwright because its students live within a mile of the school. In "Walking Bus," created by UNLV's Safe Community Partnership, parents walk children in a relay. One takes a group a couple of blocks where another meets it and takes it farther, etc., until the children are at school.

Routes are determined by where volunteers live.

"I was thrilled with the parent involvement . . . walking their kids to school," Aguero said.

Parents clip box tops, they volunteer in the classrooms, but they don't all know each other, Aguero said.

The community is still in its infancy. One goal of the "Walking School Bus" is to give neighbors around the school a chance to meet each other, to foster a community feeling, Aguero said.

Lyn Jackson, who walks her two daughters -- a kindergartener and a second grader -- to school every day was raised in a Seattle suburb. She later lived in tiny South Bend, Wash., before her husband was transferred to Las Vegas.

Jackson said was glad to see the walking program. "It kind of makes us a community." She said she hopes it will help people get to know each other better.

"A lot of people (who live near the school) come from places where there was a lot of community feeling," Jackson said. Yet when they arrived, they did not become involved in their new community.

Aguero said she hopes that the elementary school's motto of building a community can be fulfilled.

"It's part of the plan, to create a community: the Cartwright family," she said.