School District reassesses changes

Terry Webster

Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2001 | 9:36 a.m.

Several at-risk schools in West Las Vegas will keep their assistant principals after all.

After weighing in October whether to shift assistant principal positions among 12 schools after the annual fall student count, the Clark County School District has decided to retain the jobs at four West Las Vegas elementary schools.

Schools with stagnant or declining enrollment were to lose positions to those in faster-growing areas of the county. But two schools that were to lose administrators had been designated by the state in recent years as needing improvement. Two others had high numbers of at-risk students.

A new full-time position was created to restore the assistant principal position at Madison Elementary School, which last year was removed from the state's list of schools needing improvement after appearing on the list three years in a row, Deputy Superintendent Augie Orci said. Part-time assistant principals were kept at Booker, Kit Carson and Martin Luther King elementary schools, said school officials.

The state list is based on scores on the TerraNova, a national standardized test taken by fourth, eighth and 10th graders every October. Schools make the list when more than 40 percent of the students score lower than the 26th percentile on the test's four subject areas -- reading, language, math and science.

The School District does not have enough assistant principals to cover every school, officials said, so a formula based on attendance is used to distribute them. Some assistant principals work at more than one school -- using a part- time schedule at each.

The schools deemed to have the highest need have had either all or part of their respective assistant principal's hours reinstated, Orci said.

Booker Elementary Principal Beverly Mathis was relieved to have her part-time assistant principal -- who works two days a week -- reinstated.

"For us, it's going to be business as usual," she said. "I'm glad that somebody decided this was a priority. For us, October is a time that we're really trying to zoom in on things, especially with testing. We're zooming in all year, but October is really busy."

School officials also named other schools during their initial study of assistant principal staffing, including Mack, Pittman and Fyfe elementary schools. According to spokesmen at those schools, they all have kept their positions.

But since there aren't enough assistant principals for every school in the district, some were left empty-handed.

McCall Elementary in North Las Vegas lost its assistant principal. So did Harris Elementary.

"This really isn't an at-risk school," said Harris Elementary Principal Sharon Caplan, who oversees 728 students. "I guess there was a more needy school out there who really needed it. We're just going to do the best we can."

Officials said the formula and selection process for position cuts is under review so that the most needy schools can keep their resources.

"We're reviewing the entire process so that this doesn't happen again," Orci said.