School District, UNLV may team on ‘high tech’ high school

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2005 | 9:32 a.m.

Clark County School District and UNLV officials are considering teaming to site a "high tech" high school at the university's proposed new campus in North Las Vegas.

UNLV officials have reserved 640 acres off the northern part of the Las Vegas Beltway for a second campus. That's almost twice the acreage of the university campus at Tropicana Avenue and Maryland Parkway.

Walt Rulffes, interim superintendent of the district, said the proposal was well received when he met Aug. 3 with university Chancellor Jim Rogers. UNLV President Carol Harter and UNLV Provost Ray Alden have also been briefed about the proposal, Rulffes said.

Studies show students at smaller, theme-based high schools perform better than their peers at larger campuses, Rulffes said. The gains were even greater when the high school program is located on a university campus, Rulffes said.

"There's something about proximity to higher education that seems to encourage student achievement," Rulffes said.

Rogers said he was glad to have the opportunity to sit down with School District officials to discuss possible partnerships between K-12 and higher education.

"It's really one educational system, no matter what you say," Rogers said Monday. "I'm pleased that we're starting to talk about these things, but I'm also embarrassed that we haven't done it before."

The North Las Vegas property offers a wealth of opportunities not only for UNLV but the community college and Nevada State College, Rogers said.

"I'm open to any ideas that people may have about how we could best use the site," Rogers said. "There's plenty of land out there, and we should all be in this together."

There are no immediate plans for construction at UNLV's North Las Vegas site. University officials say they expect the existing campus to be built out by 2010 when enrollment projections top 35,000. UNLV's current enrollment is about 26,000.

The School District is currently planning to build between four and six career and technical education schools throughout the Las Vegas Valley. The first of the campuses slated to open will be in the northwest region, modeled on the district's Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center, or Vo-Tech High School, on Mountain Vista Street off Sunset Road in the southeast region.

What form the proposed high school would take has yet to be discussed, Rulffes said, although the district's Advanced Technologies Academy magnet high school may be one possible model.

Clark County's magnet high school programs have typically shown strong student achievement on standardized tests, statewide proficiency exams and posted graduation rates well above the districtwide average.

Vo-Tech graduated 81.2 percent of its seniors in 2004, compared with 62.7 percent districtwide. Its dropout rate that year was 1.3 percent, compared with an average of 5.2 percent for the rest of the district's high schools. Vo-Tech has an enrollment of about 1,700 students, compared with more than 3,000 at regular district high schools.

It typically takes a minimum of 40 acres to build a high school campus although the district has been experimenting with prototypes for smaller sites. If the high school was affiliated with the university, there may be ways to share facilities, Rulffes said.

Clark County School Board President Larry Mason was appointed by Rogers in July to oversee K-16 initiatives on behalf of the university system. Mason said the appointment is open-ended and he is still working as dean of student affairs and work-force development at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Mason said his new job duties include fostering discussion between university and community college officials and representatives of the state's 17 school districts, including Clark County.

"We all have the same top goal, making sure our students receive the best education possible," Mason said. "The more we talk to each other and share ideas the better chance we'll have of making that happen."