Army pitch slips past School Board chief Mason

Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

With military recruitment at high schools becoming increasingly controversial, Clark County School Board President Larry Mason said Monday he unwittingly signed off on plans for the Army to co-host a workshop for Rancho High School students today at the Community College of Southern Nevada, where he is an administrator.

The Army's Planning for Life workshop, co-sponsored by Rancho's Family Leadership Institute, will be held from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at CCSN's Cheyenne campus.

Mason, dean of student affairs and workforce development for CCSN, said he was asked by one of the institute's organizers if "a career-oriented event" could take place.

"The U.S. Army, the military, was never mentioned," Mason said. "Obviously I should have asked more questions."

With a grant from the Sunrise Children's Foundation, the institute holds regular workshops and events for Rancho students and families, said Rosemary Flores, coordinator of parent training.

Flores said she asked Mason for permission to meet at the CCSN campus in June. She said she could not recall whether she informed Mason about the Army's participation in the event or even whether the military agency had signed on when she requested the use of the campus theater.

Mason said he did not believe anyone intended to deceive him about the program. He planned to ask the community college, as well as UNLV and Nevada State College to send representatives to the workshop "to balance it out."

Tai Ingram, Planning for Life's spokeswoman, said Monday that the program is not about recruiting students for military service.

"There is no contact information taken whatsoever, there's no recruiting information handed out," said Ingram, whose firm the Cartel Group is handling public relations for the Army event. "All aspects of the workshop are geared toward general life, not 'Hey, join the Army.' "

However, a press release announcing the event states that among other topics the workshop content will "provide students with the opportunity to discover the option of 140 enlisted and officer careers available in the military services."

This is the first of the Army's national Planning for Life workshops to be held in Clark County. Students will hear about "staying in school, going to college and the importance of being leaders in their communities," Ingram said.

Rancho Principal Robert Chesto said today's workshop is part of an ongoing series aimed at reducing the school's dropout rate and encouraging parents to take active roles in their children's educations.

"This isn't about the military, it's about getting families involved and helping students realize there are post-graduate opportunities out there for them," Chesto said.

The featured speaker at today's event will be retired Army Lt. Col. Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch, a nationally known public speaker who was the highest ranking Hispanic woman in the Army's combat support field.

"Her message isn't about military recruiting, it's about overcoming obstacles," Chesto said. "She's an example of what hard work and dedication can mean."

Joe Sacco, one of the organizers of a new Clark County group concerned about recruiters from the armed services being allowed access to campuses, said he wasn't mollified by the Army's pledge that no recruiting would take place at today's event.

Members of Project Counter-Recruitment, including parents and other county residents, have spoken out at each of the last three School Board meetings.

"With the illegal occupation of Iraq, the (Hurricane) Katrina disaster and military engagements around the world, the U.S. superpower is spread very thin," said Sacco, 25 and a Las Vegas stagehand. "What better time than in an economy that is declining to prey on the insecurities of the poor?"

Sacco said he was also dismayed that Mason had given permission for the event to take place at CCSN without knowing exactly what -- and who -- would be involved.

"It's clear to me that Larry Mason and the Clark County School Board are not doing a very responsible job protecting the children of our community," Sacco said.

Military recruiters have long had a presence at the nation's high schools and colleges, Mason said. In fact, Mason said, he was even offered the chance to become one.

Mason said it happened about 15 years ago when he was director of admissions for UNLV. His son had enlisted in the U.S. Navy and would go on to serve eight years , including a tour aboard the U.S.S. Independence during the Gulf War.

"They were trying to find alternative ways to get into the schools because the uniform wasn't working," Mason said. "The idea was to get a civilian with some military ties who could talk about the life and the opportunities."

Mason said he wasn't interested in discussing a possible position because he was happy at UNLV. But he offered the recruiters some words of advice.

"I gave them some ideas of what they should not be doing," Mason said. "I told them they had a tendency to go into minority and low-income areas. I told them they should be going to the affluent neighborhoods and making the same pitch."

But little appears to have changed, Mason said.

"If you look at the armed services today, most of the 'grunts,' so to speak, are minorities or from low economic stratas," Mason said. "Military recruiting has played an important part in providing education and careers for minorities. But at the same time we're talking about a lot of deaths as well."

Rancho has one of the district's highest percentages of minority students, with Hispanics accounting for 62.2 percent of the enrollment in the 2004-05 academic year. Nearly half of Rancho's total student population qualified for free or reduced-price meals.

The north Las Vegas campus, which includes an aviation magnet program, has an active Air Force JROTC.

The decision about whether or not to allow recruiters of any kind on campus has always been left up to school site administrators, Mason said. The district must also follow the federal law that requires equal access be given to the military, Mason said.

A provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which went essentially unnoticed for more than two years after the legislation took effect in 2002, guaranteed military recruiters access to public school campuses and student lists, including home addresses and phone numbers. Schools and districts that fail to comply risk losing federal funding.

Under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, parents may "opt out" of having their children's contact information released to outsiders. In Clark County parents may check a box to "restrict directory information" on their student's registration form.

The FERPA guidelines are printed in the annual Back to School Reporter newsletter mailed out at the start of each new academic year.

But the district does not keep separate lists for military and non-military requests. That means if a student is not on the master list his or her name will be withheld from educational institutions as well as the military.