This new teacher plans to buck the odds, and stay

By Emily Richmond

Mon, Mar 10, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Sam Morris

Coronado High science teacher Brian Lenze talks about Yucca Mountain during his principles of science class Tuesday.

Teacher new to district faces big, small tests (8-26-2007)

Clark County School District

Sam Morris

Coronado High School science teacher Brian Lenze monitors his lab students in honors biology class Tuesday. The lesson was Darwin’s principles of evolution.

The alarm chirps at 5:30 a.m., signaling the start of a workday that won’t end until nearly 12 hours later.

At least it’s a short commute from rookie teacher Brian Lenze’s Henderson apartment to Coronado High School, where he has taught honors biology and principles of science since August.

After school there’s the student Ultimate Frisbee Club that he started, then a few hours correcting assignments and developing lesson plans. He could take the paperwork home with him, but Lenze’s favorite place to work is his classroom, with the best of his students’ projects decorating the walls and filling the shelves.

Lenze is just one of more than 3,000 teachers in their first year with the Clark County School District. Of those new hires, 70 percent came from outside Nevada. Typically the district loses 50 percent of its new teachers within five years. They come in green, get a little seasoning and go back home to teach.

The district doesn’t expect to keep them all. But it’s doing what it can to hold on to the ones who show promise.

•••

Plenty of people are watching Lenze in this critical first year — his administrative supervisor, the head of the science department, the more experienced teacher assigned to serve as his mentor. His formal midyear evaluation was largely positive. He was doing a good job covering the material but he needed to circulate in the room and give students more praise.

When he taught at small private and charter schools back in Florida and Michigan, “circulating” was hardly an issue in a room with a dozen students. But at Coronado, where science classes top out at 40, crowd control takes on a new meaning.

He’s been taking an evening graduate course at the Regional Professional Development Center, set up by the Legislature to help train teachers. The class helps science educators develop lab experiments that reinforce direct instruction. And now Lenze is trying out a new activity for the first time, a variation on one suggested by his mentor teacher.

When the first-period bell chimes at 7:10 a.m., the honors biology students are already in their seats. Lenze dims the lights for a quick slide show review of Darwin’s principles of evolution. When the lights come back up, all the students are up and out of their seats for the experiment.

Each team of students gets a small plastic cup of dried beans, and Lenze tells them to dump the contents carefully onto their lab tables. He then hands out the “tools” — one group gets plastic spoons, the next is handed sets of chopsticks, while others get forceps or small straws.

The students have 30 seconds to move the beans from the slippery tabletop to the plastic cup, which must be held with one hand against their midsections.

The clock starts and the students, many giggling, begin the task. Lenze walks the room, one eye on the second hand of the clock.

It’s clear from the start that the chopsticks are a no-go. The forceps aren’t much better, but Lenze urges the kids to keep trying. The “Spooners” team is cleaning up.

Time’s up. Utensils down. Lenze has each team count its beans, then he writes the totals on a chart on the board. The teams with the lowest numbers of beans are selected for extinction.

Before the next attempt, Lenze announces that a genetic mutation has taken place, affecting only the plastic spoons.

This time, he tells the team, you can use only the handle end of the utensil.

The Spooners howl in protest. The other teams cheer. They are engaged, interested, learning.

Lenze grins.

•••

He would have stayed in Michigan, where he grew up and graduated from college, if he could have found a job. Budget cuts and declining enrollment have the public schools there laying off teachers in droves. Clark County was the only place offering a job and the opportunity for advancement.

He loves his school. The kids couldn’t be better. The parents show up for open houses and quickly return his calls. His supervisors are supportive and he’s made some friends among his fellow teachers.

So far, nearly all of the new teachers Lenze has met come from somewhere else, just like him. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It’s easier to fit in when you’re not the only outsider.

Most of the newcomers say they are planning to stick around, at least for now. But a few are struggling with homesickness, something Lenze can understand. He misses his family, his old friends and having season tickets to the Detroit Tigers. Of course, it’s a little easier to bear when the trade-off is not having to shovel snow or scrape ice off your windshield.

He’s feeling more at ease in the classroom. Wearing a necktie is no longer an everyday thing. However, the shirt cuffs remain firmly buttoned, lest students catch a glimpse of the Celtic cross tattooed on their teacher’s left forearm. Lenze has no regrets about the tattoo; it was worth every penny of the $250 price three years ago.

His salary is $35,000, and that figure won’t go up much next year. The money’s enough to get by on for now, as long as he shops smart and keeps driving his 2000 Chevy Malibu.

He doesn’t need a second job, but Lenze is looking for one anyway. He wants to buy a house, and that’s going to take some serious savings. When school gets out in June he’ll find work painting or landscaping. Other new teachers talk about working in retail, or substituting at year-round schools. No surprise there. You don’t teach for the money.

On most weekends he heads to the local park for pickup games of Frisbee, meets friends for bowling or the movies. He’s joined St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Henderson. It was working with his church’s youth group back home that steered him toward teaching.

His parents worried about his moving here, what with the gambling and all. But Lenze is spending more time in church than in casinos.

It’s a little lonely at his apartment complex, though, where most of the units sit empty while the new owners finish renovations. Last week someone moved into the unit below Lenze’s, the first time it has been occupied since August. He’ll stop by after work and say hello.

If he weren’t as outgoing as he is, this first year would be a lot tougher.

He went home at Christmas and his parents have promised to visit soon. He plans to take them to Lake Mead and Red Rock Canyon. They need to see this place is more than just the Strip.

He knows the statistics: Half of the people who went through orientation with him probably won’t be here a few years from now.

Lenze says he will.

This is starting to feel like home.

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

By ZeddyBear

3/10/08 at 4:56 p.m.

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Keep up the great work, but I think this lad will be leaving for greener pastures. CCSD does NOT mentor the teachers it has.... but it does TORment them to the nth degree. I wish him the best, but in a year or two years from now he'll be back in Michigan shoveling snow and celebrating the holidays with friends and family.

This seems to be a problem with CCSD and it administrators. They forget that teachers are at a premium and as such they should be nurtured. CCSD and its administrators forget that as they proceed to drive teachers away instead of nurturing them. CCSD conveniently forgets to do that.

The State of Nevada does the same thing. Teachers are leaving the profession and there are fewer and fewer replacements. Nevada continually pays teachers at just above the poverty level.... and other professions with 4-6 years of college are treated with sizable pay raises, outstanding health benefits, and other perks. Nevada does NOT see the need to give their teachers anything that would keep them here... and that's what our children need.... stability. CCSD and Nevada don't look at the present situation in which certified teachers will be difficult to find. At that time Nevada and CCSD will have to start looking at the teachers they have and start paying attention to their needs, benefits, and paychecks..... I hope for all of our sakes it won't be too late for our school district and the State.
By LVGlads

3/11/08 at 3:53 a.m.

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Excellent and very well written article. I wish the best for Brian, and am confident he will succeed at a school like Coronado, which is run more like the private/chart schools he is used to.
By LMarie

3/11/08 at 5:10 a.m.

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I live out of state and plan on moving to Las Vegas to teach in the coming school year. I am glad to see that coming to a new place does not have to be as intimidating as it seems. I hope I will fit in as well as Brian has. I am also thrilled to see that Clark County Schools has an active new teacher support system. That is crucial to the success of new teachers.
By glittergulch

3/11/08 at 7:39 a.m.

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It is good to read of Lenze's success. I wish him all the best. I am a Michigander who came very close to teaching first grade in North Las Vegas for the 2007-2008 school year. I applied for my Nevada teaching license in the early summer, but it did not come through until the end of October. (And at that time, I calculated I would have had to apply for the license before I so much as considered teaching in Nevada.) The CCSD wanted me to come out, anyway, but it's a terribly uneasy feeling to already be broke and to begin a job, spend a couple thousand dollars moving, and commit to a lease without the necessary certification required by the state. I couldn't do it.

I had originally hoped for a similar story to Lenze's, but I'm glad to still be in Michigan, and I am pleased to be going back to college to pursue something I should be able to do in my own "backyard." I, for one, enjoy shoveling snow. It is best done with a whistle. And with springtime coming on now, I know things worked out for the best, and will continue to. I do wonder sometimes how things might have turned out in Las Vegas, though.

"Si quæris peninsulam amœnam, circumspice."
By mikeg

3/11/08 at 9:29 a.m.

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Yes well written article. I have to say though that as a local Las Vegan looking for a job, with a college degree, that the CCSD does not make it very easy to become a teacher. Apparently they only want those who fit 99% of the criteria, instead of taking a chance on someone who isn't a perfect candidate, their paperwork and regulations are the top priority in the real world.
By Derrick

3/11/08 at 2:04 p.m.

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mikeg,
Do you have a teaching license? If not, the district has a few fast-track programs that can get you in the door (if you weren't aware of them). Here is the website: http://ccsd.net/jobs/LLParl.htm
By avalentiner

3/12/08 at 2:48 p.m.

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Most new teachers try to to stay 5 years to earn PERS (retirement) and then take off for much better pay and respect. We lose our retirement if we leave before!!

Pay is a joke, too bad union is in bed with the CCSD. Why else would salaries have been negotiated through 2009 with hardly any noticeable increase in pay. This contract was done about 5 years ago. Starting pay in 2009 will be around 37k.

New Mexico now starts its teachers at 40k and housing is much cheaper there.

The CCSD had worked around the new recruit salary problem by bumping up the pay for new hires only, they get to make the same as someone who has been teaching for 3 years by putting the new hires up on the salary chart, thanks for helping those that put in the prior 3 years experience in the district without the same pay bonus.

Many CCSD teacher soon realizes that the real money to be made is to become an administrator, not much fun though. Who wants to sit around making 75k being part of the problem and not get to teach the kids.

Teachers who work at the much more challenging Title 1 schools get no extra pay or incentives, another reason there is very high turnover at especially these, the most at need schools.

The community college is not much better either, starting pay is around 36-38k. Not very competitive with industry wages, and doesn't do anything to help pay off a 50k graduate degree.

Vegas is the land of low wages. You get what you pay for folks. I'd hate to be living here in 10 years with our poor planning and vision.
By gobrian

3/26/08 at 9:47 a.m.

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I hope this article touches everyone and gives them the inspiration and hope they need if they're thinking of moving and starting a new job. Brian is a great role model for students and adults. His dedication is astounding and his care for others never stops. New job, new location ... that doesn't stop Brian. He takes it to the next level and thinks "What can I bring to Coronado?" Starting an after school club, continuing his education ... all I have to say is, what's next Mr. Lenze?