School choice program sparks interest, if moderate

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The Clark County School District’s experiment with open enrollment is off to a promising, if modest, start.

More than 100 students in the district’s northeast region will attend the school of their choice for the 2008-09 academic year after their families submitted applications to campuses with open seats. Marsha Irvin, the northeast region superintendent, said letters would be mailed Tuesday letting parents know where their children have been assigned.

The northeast region stretches north from Owens Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Students in grades 1-12 were given the opportunity to attend a campus other than the one to which they are assigned based on their home addresses.

About 20 applications were rejected because students failed to meet one or more criteria. Several families applied even though they lived outside the northeast region’s boundaries, and there were also applications for kindergarten.

When the pilot program failed to win funding from the 2007 Legislature, the district said it would not be able to provide transportation for students who opted for open enrollment. As a result, district officials said they expected significantly fewer families to be able to participate. But Irvin said the project was still worth pursuing, and this week she said she was “really thrilled” by the public’s response.

“I said all along it would be worth it if even just one student signed up,” Irvin told the Sun. “So to have over 100 get the chance for this kind of opportunity is really very exciting.”

In addition to giving families more options, open enrollment is intended to promote healthy competition among schools.

The most popular campuses for transfer requests were Legacy High School (31), Hayden Elementary (23) and Cram Middle School (10).

Open enrollment is more common in districts with stable or declining student populations. Clark County has opened at least eight new schools in each of the past 10 years, and enrollment boundaries are rearranged every spring, requiring thousands of students to shuffle among campuses.

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Bishop Gorman High School celebrated the first graduation at its new Summerlin campus Friday, sending 212 seniors out into the world.

The class of 2008 is bound for colleges and universities across the country, including Stanford, the University of Southern California, UCLA, George Washington and Vanderbilt. The graduates include two National Merit finalists, 27 Nevada High School Scholars, two national Latin Award winners and 19 recipients of athletic scholarships.

Commencement speaker Tito Tiberti boasted a unique connection to Gorman. Not only did he graduate from the original campus in 1963, his family’s company, Tiberti Construction, built the new one.