LOOKING IN ON: EDUCATION

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007 | 7:30 a.m.

Want to infuriate parents? Tell them their child's school is switching to a year-round calendar. The Superintendent's Year-Round Study Group began its work a week ago and will examine test results, attendance records and studies in other parts of the country to better determine when a school's schedule is ripe for change.

Such data may placate parents who claim the process of deciding when a school is put on a year-round versus nine-month calendar is secretive, arbitrary or unfair.

Clark County School Board President Ruth Johnson had a wealth of advice for the newly minted committee, which is composed of six parents, three community representatives and two School Board members.

"If staff gives you (information) and it doesn't feel like it reflects what your perception is, then go back and investigate why," Johnson said. "Don't take anything for granted. Don't assume there is a level of information within this committee that does or doesn't exist."

And there was more.

"Don't let the district, and they're very much capable of it, overwhelm you with data," Johnson said. "Stand up for what you believe in, and in the end I believe we'll come to a consensus of what the recommendation should be. In the process, make sure you stand up for what you believe in."

The committee will meet through October, with a final report due to the superintendent this fall.

Ronan Mathew, principal of Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas, was worried about campus security and asked for advice. He said that, to his knowledge, consultant Curtis Lavarello then spent a few hours there, at the request of School District Police, studying whether metal detectors were feasible.

Lavarello, after reading Mathew's remarks in the Sun, said he actually spent closer to seven hours at the school, over two days. But most of the time he was there unannounced - and unnoticed. "It wasn't until the third hour on the second day that a teacher stopped me and asked what I was doing," Lavarello told the Sun.

Lavarello, executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council, was hired by the Clark County School District in May at the urging of former Police Chief Hector Garcia. Garcia resigned as School Police chief last month and was hired by Lavarello to be his consulting company's vice president.

Lavarello said his friendship with Garcia had no bearing in his being hired by Garcia, and that his decision to hire Garcia as vice president of his company was not "quid pro quo," as critics of the former chief have alleged.

The offer of the part-time job came after Garcia told him that he planned to leave his position with the district, Lavarello said.

In 40 years of scuba diving, Steven Rosenfeld has explored murky depths and crystal-blue waters around the globe. He's usually more interested in taking photographs than scouting the ocean floors for souvenirs. But on July 14, off Catalina Island, "there was something stuck to a reef that just didn't look right," said Rosenfeld, a retiree who lives in Westlake Village, Calif.

He dived 40 feet and retrieved the item, which turned out to be a small fabric wallet. Inside were a $10 bill and two $1 bills, which had begun to deteriorate. Also inside: an identification card for Dylan Keith, a seventh grader at Bob Miller Middle School in Green Valley.

The wallet had been lost on a field trip to Catalina Island in May, during which Miller students had an opportunity to snorkel.

Rosenfeld threw the rotting wallet away, and spread the bills out to dry. Then he put the money and the ID in an envelope and mailed it to school.

"I usually wouldn't send cash through the mail but I wanted the kid to get the actual bills," Rosenfeld said. "I thought it was sort of neat."