3 schools likely to make ‘dangerous’ list

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Aug. 8, 2003 | 11:02 a.m.

Three Clark County schools could soon be labeled as dangerous schools, a designation that under federal law would allow students at those schools to demand transfers to safer campuses.

Gibson Middle School on Washington Avenue near Valley View, along with Biltmore and Washington continuation high schools, will likely be put on notice that the number of criminal citations issued during the 2002-03 school year exceeded the amount allowable under the new law, said Brad Reitz, assistant superintendent of student support services for the Clark County School District.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires states to define "persistently dangerous schools" and then identify campuses that meet the criteria. Unlike the new national standards for "adequate yearly progress" in student academic achievement, which are standard nationwide, each state was allowed to devise its own definition of a dangerous school.

Supporters of the new federal law, which takes effect this year, say it will increase accountability and improve campus safety by forcing states to better track school crime. But critics say at best the law makes it too easy for states to write definitions that exclude most, if not all schools. At worst, educators and law enforcement officials say, the law could discourage people from reporting crime because they fear their school will be labeled dangerous.

"It's well-intended legislation that's lost in the politics of implementation," said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm that works with school police across the country. "It's going to further an already chronic problem of school crime under-reporting because for a principal having their campus on the dangerous list will be the death kiss for their career."

If criminal citations at Gibson, Biltmore or Washington exceed the allowable number once more between now and the end of the 2004-05 school year, the campus would be labeled as persistently dangerous and students would be offered transfers to other schools, Reitz said.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said the inclusion of the two continuation high schools -- Biltmore on Veterans Memorial Drive and Washington on North White Street in North Las Vegas -- was not unexpected.

"The students at those schools are habitual discipline cases, that's why we send them there," Garcia said. "That doesn't mean the schools don't need to be safe, but it does explain the higher number of citations coming out of there."

Gibson Middle School Principal Crystal Helm was surprised Thursday when told her school had racked up 26 criminal citations and arrest for offenses ranging from assault to robbery.

Helm said she had been under the impression that Gibson was at risk of being put on the state's list of persistently dangerous schools because of its high number of truancy citations.

"I'm going to have to look into those arrest figures," Helm said.

Len Paul, superintendent of the district's northwest region, said principals are typically not notified by school police when arrests occur or criminal citations are handed out.

"That's something that probably needs to change," Paul said. "If schools are going to be judged using this criteria, the principals need to be kept informed. We'll have to talk about how best to do that, perhaps it will take the form of a weekly or monthly report of police activity on campus."

Nevada Schools Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said he didn't believe the threat of being labeled a dangerous school would inhibit reporting of serious crime.

"The districts met with law enforcement and this definition (of a dangerous school) is representative of what they said they wanted," McLaughlin said Wednesday. "There may be some refinements to how we handle all of this as we move forward, but I think overall we've come up with a fair regulation."

The definition of a dangerous school has varied wildly across the country, said Jason Pierce, researcher with the Education Commission of the States, a policy clearinghouse based in Denver, Colo.

Several states, including California, Florida, Massachusetts and Georgia, have reported none of their schools met their definitions of persistently dangerous.

"The definitions are all over the place, and in some cases it looks like the bar is being set so high that no school could ever meet the threshold," Pierce said. "It's hard for some people to swallow, since common sense tell us there's probably at least one school in California that parents wouldn't feel safe sending their kid to."

The Nevada Department of Education's definition is based on the number of criminal citations issued for violent or serious offenses exceeding a set percentage of the school's enrollment for two out of three consecutive years.

Gibson Middle School in the district's northwest region had 26 criminal citations and arrests during the 2002-03 academic year, or 1.9 percent of the total enrollment of 1,348 students. Under the state's new law, schools with between 751 and 1,500 students must have the number of yearly criminal citations exceed 1.75 percent of the enrollment.

Washington and Biltmore continuation high schools each had eight criminal citations and arrests, totaling 7 percent and 4.8 percent of the student enrollments, respectively. Under the new law, the limit is 2 percent for those schools.

While state education officials are expected to identify schools meeting first-year standards for "persistently dangerous" later this month, a Las Vegas Sun survey of the state's 17 school districts found only Clark County and Washoe County expected to have campuses on the list.

Washoe County will have one elementary school, five middle schools and two high schools on the list, said Steve Mulvenon, spokesman for the state's second-largest school district.

"It's incomprehensible that we would have eight schools labeled dangerous while Los Angeles Unified (School District) doesn't have a single one," Mulvenon said. "That tells me either Nevada's definition is far too broad or California's is far too narrow."

Michael Fitzgerald, consultant for the Nevada Department of Education, said he's in the process of double-checking the numbers of citations and enrollment figures submitted by each school district before releasing the state's list of campuses identified as meeting the criteria. He's also waiting for word from federal education officials that the state's definition of a persistently dangerous school has been accepted.

The federal law calls for districts to identify such schools and begin offering transfers this year. But Nevada officials have asked for a waiver to set 2002-03 as the baseline, which would mean school transfers would not be offered until 2005, Fitzgerald said.

While suspension and expulsion reports are kept for each school, criminal citations have not been tracked in the past, Fitzgerald said.

"If the feds say no, we'll have to go back two more years and try and pull out data that was never collected originally, " Fitzgerald said. "That would be a sticky wicket situation."

Fitzgerald said he agreed with Paul, superintendent of Clark County's northwest region, that a more thorough reporting process might be needed at the individual school level.

"It does no good when school's out to count up the criminal citations and say, 'We had a tough year,' " Fitzgerald said. "We'd be better off watching for the red flags along the way and figuring out ways to intervene."