Education Notebook: Candidates’ identities closely guarded

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, Dec. 12, 2005 | 8:23 a.m.

The names of the finalists for Clark County School District superintendent are slated to be made public 48 hours before the School Board begins its interviews Jan. 9.

And with consultants Bob McCord and Kathy Harney running the show, the identities of the six candidates aren't likely to come to light any sooner than that.

The consultants, both former district administrators who have worked on past searches, are well known for their ability to keep their lips zipped. McCord's dedication to confidentiality has reached legendary status.

One high-level district administrator recalls an episode several years ago when McCord was overseeing another top-secret search. He asked the administrator to spend the day showing a candidate around town.

When the administrator asked for the candidate's name, McCord replied, "I can't tell you." McCord instructed the administrator to be at a hotel at 6 a.m. Upon arriving, the administrator found McCord in the lobby -- "trench coat, dark glasses and all," the administrator recalled with a laugh -- on hand to make the introductions.

"No one even tries to get information out of Bob," the administrator said. "We all know better."

When the hotel hand-off anecdote was recounted to McCord last week, he said he couldn't recall the exact incident.

But he admitted, "It sounds like something I'd do."

Teaching giving

The holiday spirit is alive and well in Clark County's younger residents as students demonstrate that it's often better to give than to receive.

Dozens of campuses, both public and private, have launched collection drives for holiday gifts, coats and cash to benefit the needy.

At Leavitt Middle School, students have collected more than 2,000 toys that will be donated to needy children by HELP of Southern Nevada. Las Vegas Fire & Rescue volunteered to help students load and transport the toys.

And Greenspun Middle School students have adopted a second-grade class at Lunt Elementary School and plan to fulfill the holiday wish list of the students.

During a "miracle minute" collection last week students, teachers and staff pulled in $895 to help fulfill the holiday wish list of the students. Assistant Principal Warren McKay said he's looking for a grocery store to match the collection so that the school can buy groceries along with the toys and clothing the Lunt children requested.

Not to be outdone by the students they protect, the Clark County School Police Department treated about 120 children to a $100 shopping spree earlier this month. At the 11th annual "Shop with a Cop" event, the children, each escorted by a school police officer, made their selections from the aisles of a local Kmart.

The splurges were paid for with funds collected at district schools. O'Callaghan Middle School and Sierra Vista High School were this year's top contributors with more than $2,000 each.

The future is now

A Las Vegas Sun story about "futurist" Ed Barlow's visit to the Clark County School District, during which he suggested students today would do well to learn Mandarin Chinese or Arabic, attracted quite a bit of attention beyond Nevada. Barlow, who has served as a strategist and consultant to numerous corporate and public entities, said he found mention of the story in several international publications, including the Nanjing Post and the Beijing Horizon.

"A lot of eyes are on Clark County," Barlow said.

Alan Bowman, principal of Walker International Elementary School in Henderson, pointed out that his students and faculty are already acting on some of Barlow's recommendations. The public school, which opened in 2002, approaches curriculum from a global perspective. The state's first dual-language school, students -- the majority of whom are native English speakers -- receive half of their instruction in Spanish. The goal is to have students bilingual by the fifth grade, said Walker Principal Alan Bowman.

The school, which has a lengthy waiting list of families seeking zoning variances so that their children may attend, has also added after-school language enrichment workshops in Japanese, Chinese, French and Arabic.

"Through this curriculum our students will be better prepared for the new millennium," Bowman said. "It is important for the public to realize that high schools are not the only institutions looking at the future."

Emily Richmond can be reached at 259-8829 or at emily@lasvegassun.com.