School zoning meeting draws heated debate

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

More than 200 parents and students braved an overheated auditorium Monday to let the Clark County School District know how they feel about plans to redraw attendance zone boundary lines for the coming academic year.

For many of the members of the audience at Shadow Ridge High School for the Attendance Zone Advisory Commission's public input meeting, the proposed boundary changes were short on logic.

"It's not a neighborhood school when students living in that neighborhood can't attend," said Sheri Zobrist, who has a freshman daughter at Shadow Ridge and two children at Shirkenbach Elementary School. "My children may not be zoned for (the new) Arbor View (High School) and it's across the street from our house."

The commission, made up of citizens appointed by the Clark County School Board, has spent the past two weeks fielding public comment and taking suggestions from some of the thousands of families who will be affected by the district's annual "zoning season." The district will open 11 new schools in August for the 2005-06 academic year, including Arbor View High School adjacent to Gilcrease Orchards in the northwest valley.

District regulations require the commission to consider the diversity of student enrollment, including socio-economics and ethicity, when revising boundaries. The School Board may adopt the commission's recommended boundary lines or devise its own scenarios.

Calvin Valvo, a physical education teacher at Chaparral High School, said he can find no logic in the proposed boundaries for Arbor View, which would move his sophomore daughter from Centennial High School located about a mile from their home, to Arbor View, more than 4 miles away. At the same time the proposal would move some of his daughter's friends living two miles from Cimarron-Memorial High School to Centennial, more than seven miles from their homes.

"The district could save a lot of money on transportation if it would let kids walk across the street to school," Valvo said. "People who live within walking distance should be allowed to stay at that school."

Dusty Dickens, director of zoning and demographics for the district, said it's impossible to please everyone when redrawing boundary lines, particularly when it comes to high schools.

"The good news is we're building new schools full of wonderful opportunities," Dickens said Monday. "The bad news is somebody has to move."

While district zoning meetings have been known to flare up with emotional exchanges between the public and AZAC members, the primary source of the raised temperature was the heating system, controlled by a central district computer that left on-site staff unable to turn it down.

Dickens acknowledged things would "get hotter" as proposed zoning changes evolved into recommendations to the School Board, set to vote on the new boundaries in March.

In addition to considering high school boundaries, AZAC members heard from students, teachers and parents concerned over plans to shift 175 students to Priest Elementary School from nearby campuses. Priest is already overcrowded with more than 850 students at a campus built for 660, parents said.

Taylor Johnson, a fifth grader at Priest, said overcrowding has already put a crimp on extracurricular activities such as cheerleading and choir, as there are not enough spots for all the students who want to participate.

Angelica Cienega, also a fifth grader at Priest, said her classroom has 35 students already.

"It's overcrowded, it's hot ... it's crazy," Cienega said. "It's very hard to learn sometimes, it's frustrating."

Jill Stidham, a teacher at Priest, expressed concern that many of the students that could be rezoned for the North Las Vegas campus would be expected to walk to school and cross Martin Luther King Boulevard. That road was the site of a fatal accident in December 2003 when Jade Kilmer, a 10-year-old fifth grader at Priest, slipped while inline-skating home from school and fell under the wheels of truck.

"I am the teacher of that lost student; we do not want to lose any more," Stidham told the commission members.