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Teachers head into school Wednesday at Carson Elementary, where many staff members will be removed. They may seek voluntary transfers to other schools this month rather than waiting to be reassigned based on seniority.
Thursday, April 8, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Related Story
Students play while waiting for school to start at Kit Carson Elementary in Las Vegas on Wednesday, April 7, 2010.
Sun Archives
- Memo: School District plans to cut 90 administrative positions (3-26-10)
- School District survey asks residents where to direct cuts (3-16-10)
- Year-round schools could face calendar shift to save money (3-16-10)
- Superintendent Walt Rulffes: Schools need plan of action for success (12-27-09)
- Window opens for School District (7-19-08)
- Teachers resist increasing pressure to accept pay cuts (2-5-10)
- Budget crunch puts shorter school year, teacher pay cuts on table (2-4-10)
- Education cuts may never be healed after special session (3-2-10)
Sun Coverage
Beyond the Sun
Kit Carson Elementary School
WHY THIS?
A looming staff restructuring at Carson Elementary School, which has a long history of underperforming, might be enough to win over federal education officials who make funding decisions. Carson is one of two struggling campuses, along with Rancho High School, that the Clark County School District is revamping in its pursuit of “Race to the Top” grants. Nevada is eligible for about $22 million in grants this year that will go to schools that commit to dramatic overhauls.WHAT'S NEXT
In addition to the reassignment of Carson Elementary’s principal, Carolyn King, and many teachers, one option under consideration as a way to turn the school around is to convert it to a magnet program, which would draw students from throughout the district to its specialized offerings. District officials say the magnet status would serve Carson well, as the West Las Vegas campus, currently under capacity with 226 students, would have plenty of room for newcomers.In its attempt to win millions of dollars in federal money, the Clark County School District has to show it is serious in its effort to make dramatic changes at its most beleaguered campuses.
How dramatic?
The district could close one of its worst schools and transfer students to a more successful campus.
Officials aren’t doing that.
But they are taking the next-most harsh action by replacing the principal of the struggling Carson Elementary School and at least half its staff and bringing in new leadership and fresh rank-and-file workers in an effort to turn around the campus when classes begin in August.
The action has triggered anxiety on campus, but that’s part of the price, the U.S. Education Department says, if the district wants to show it is making a good-faith effort to improve a school that has a history of underachievement.
“I love my kids. I don’t want to leave them,” said one teacher, who hopes to be rehired at Carson and who, like others interviewed by the Sun, did not want to be identified.
Parents expressed strong support for Principal Carolyn King and the staff Tuesday, as they picked up their children at Carson’s campus on D Street at Lake Mead Drive.
King declined the Sun’s request for an interview, and district officials said no decision has been made on her new assignment.
Carson is one of six elementary schools in the “Prime Six” program, a legacy of the phaseout in the 1990s of a federally mandated busing program. Instead of encouraging campus diversity and providing expanded opportunities for West Las Vegas students, the Prime Six campuses have been left isolated by ethnicity, poverty and low achievement, according to an unsparing report by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project researchers.
Carson is significantly under capacity with just 226 students — 60 percent black and 38 percent Hispanic. Nearly 80 percent of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price meals. Four of every 10 students are English-language learners. Student test scores are consistently below the districtwide averages, as well as other campuses with similar student demographics.
One option under consideration is to convert Carson to a magnet program, which would draw students from throughout the district to its specialized offerings. The district’s existing magnet programs are hugely popular, and Carson’s underused campus would have plenty of room for newcomers, said Billie Rayford, associate superintendent who supervises the campus. There will be opportunities for community input before any decisions are made, said Rayford, who emphasized that the district is intent on a collaborative process.
At least one Carson parent supports the turnaround plan, even though she regretted it meant the principal would lose her post. Triana Jones, who has two children at Carson, said King has been particularly helpful to her family.
“We hate that she’s going to leave,” Jones said. “It doesn’t seem like they’re (the district) being fair.”
Like many of the parents and grandparents picking up students Tuesday, Jones attended Carson. The school has long served as a community center for the historically black neighborhood, which has seen a sharp increase in its Hispanic population since 2003.
“I’ll do anything to help this school,” Jones said. “It has to be more than just a new principal. The parents have to get involved.”
Carson’s staff have the option of looking for new positions during April, when teachers can seek voluntary transfers to other schools rather than waiting to be reassigned based on seniority, said Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association.
At stake in the turnaround effort are federal grants connected to the “Race to the Top” competition launched by the Education Department. “But there are strings attached to that,” Murillo said. “We wanted teachers to know that it’s going to be a lot of work if they remain there.”
Nevada is eligible for about $22 million in grants this year that will go to schools that commit to dramatic overhauls. Competing districts were required to identify their lowest performing campuses based on factors such as student test scores, dropout rates and graduation rates. The first round of grants will go to schools already receiving federal funds based on their high-need student populations. Using that formula, the Clark County School District identified Carson, Fitzgerald and Hancock elementary schools; and Desert Pines, Mojave, Rancho and Western high schools.
Although Carson would be the first turnaround school, Rancho in North Las Vegas would become the district’s “transformation” campus, following a federal blueprint to remake how the campus is used. The staff is allowed to stay, pending certain conditions. The district isn’t required to replace Principal James Kuzmaa because he’s been at Rancho’s helm fewer than two years, the feds’ required cutoff point, said Rayford, who also supervises the high school.
The transformation model requires schools to use multiple measures to track teacher performance, and then determine who from the staff is allowed to stay for the program’s second year, said Marcia Calloway, a Nevada Education Department consultant who is coordinating the grant program. Additionally, transformation schools must replace stagnant programs, improve professional development for staff and find ways to expand instructional time.
Kuzmaa, who is finishing his first year at Rancho, said his staff is excited by the prospect of the transformation grant. None of his 150 teachers has opted to voluntarily transfer for the fall.
Rancho is home to several of the district’s top-rated magnet programs, including the aviation academy, which draw students from throughout Clark County. For the magnet students, graduation rates typically top 90 percent. But students assigned to attend Rancho based on their addresses fare much worse, with a graduation rate of 52 percent in 2008, the most recent year for which data are available.
Kuzmaa’s goals for Rancho — with or without the transformation grant money — are to improve opportunities for area students to take elective classes that interest them in addition to the required core academics.
The district is limiting its first-round grant applications to Carson and Rancho, said Lauren Kohut-Rost, deputy superintendent of instruction. The uncertainty in the district’s workforce, with potential layoffs possible as a result of budget cuts, was a factor in that decision, Kohut-Rost said. Additionally, the government has not yet provided application details to the Nevada Education Department, which will make it difficult to complete the paperwork in time for the 2010-11 school year.
But even without the prospect of grant money, that doesn’t mean raised expectations aren’t in place for the other five campuses identified as persistently low achieving, as well as other struggling district schools, Kohut-Rost said.
“There will be heightened oversight and expectations,” she said. “Some of those campuses are already showing positive growth, and we want to continue on that trend.”
The $546 million grant program for the nation’s lowest achieving schools is under way nationally as the federal No Child Left Behind Act is up for reauthorization. Education researchers say President George W. Bush’s sweeping reform of public school funding and oversight has had mixed results, with no marked improvement in student achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he wants to refocus the spotlight on the bottom 5 percent of the nation’s public schools, which he argues are contributing disproportionately to the nation’s academic woes.
The Clark County School District has some experience with successfully turning around a low-performing campus. In 2005, the district reconstituted the former Charles I. West Middle School in West Las Vegas, firing the principal and requiring staff to reapply for their jobs (fewer than 20 of the 70 teachers were rehired). Since then, Principal Mike Barton has added a high school and elementary school program, and student achievement has soared.
This school should be looking for a new history teacher. Kit Carson was responsible for genocide against the Navajo in days of lore. He was a cold hearted killer who burned Native American farms and hogans. He is the same to the Navajo as Hitler is to Jewish people.
twoshoes, I'm thinking it's days of YORE.
Let's see... Lake Mead & D st., 98% hispanic/black, 4 of 10 English Language Learners....
here's the nail on the head from the article;
"It has to be more than just a new principal. The parents have to get involved."
You can move these kids to a new school on a different PLANET, and it won't help a lick unless the parents give a damn and or these kids have a dramatic, immediate change in socio-economic status... http://www.journeytoexcellence.org/pract...
As a teacher, I'm already tired of seeing the bulk of "help" money being thrown at the lowest common denominator. There are students who refuse to work, there are students who have low IQ's, there are students who don't show up, there are students who have physiological problems and will never function like kids who don't, there are students who move a couple of times during the school year, etc. Spend a fortune, and you might see a little change, but you can't turn a kid with an IQ of 80 into a kid with an IQ of 110, or take away brain damage from crackhead mothers, or force a lazy child's brain to engage.
"Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he wants to refocus the spotlight on the bottom 5 percent of the nation's public schools, which he argues are contributing disproportionately to the nation's academic woes."
Duncan is a clueless do-gooder who doesn't understand working within a budget, and who never even went to a public school, let taught in one. I suspect he is looking for federal dollars for himself, his former Chicago "school reform" business partner, and his family members who are in non-public education.
If he really wanted improvement, he'd be calling for a more equitable economic system than we have. He'd be calling for poor teenage girls to stop having babies.
Want school improvement? Make kids pass one level before going to the next. And make the lazy kids' parents pay for repeated grades.
P.S. And let the Kit Carson parents choose to send their kids to other schools, if they like.
@teacher:
Under NCLB, since Carson is a repeatedly failing school, parents already have the right to send their kids to whatever CCSD elementary school they want to. Not only is transportation probably a problem for many or most of them, but District schools don't usually go out of their way to inform parents of this right, because each kid is worth four grand to whatever school the kid attends.
It's not the school district's fault - it's the Federal Government.
Bureaucrats in Washington DC shouldn't be telling Nevadans how to educate their children.
1) Implement district wide open-enrollment. Allow parents to pick the public school their child attends.
2) Schools are only funded when a child enrolls in the school
3) Give principals significantly greater autonomy in how to deploy the school's resources
4) Give teachers more control over their classroom
5) The central office worries about results -- how much are the students learning, how many students are graduating.
It's not "parents". It's the parent. Let's face it, if 70% of the students only have one parent, they face immense odds of failure. Mother is working, they come home to an empty apartment, where there is no supervision, so the kids watch tv, or they hang outside. We all would have done the same thing back in the day.
But if there was an "old man" that came home, and demanded respect, and wanted to know how the kids were doing in school, the result would be remarkable.
But sadly, this is not happening, especially in the minority community. It's not the school system that is failing. It's the parent/parents.
TedBundy, in my opinion, you are an outdated idiot. First, I think that single parents are generally stupid, selfish scum that got themselves into their own situation and it is too bad that children have to suffer because of dumb and irresponsible the parents are. That said, it is ridiculous to think that only an "old man" could demand respect. There is absolutely no reason for mothers to be involved and raise children that have respect for them as well.
As for the parents that are backing up the principle - IMO, you are even dumber. The school district is actually being challenged to improve the education for your children and you are complaining about change? IMHO, I realize that you are undereducated if you live in that area and are sending your kids to that poor school, but wake up and choose better for your children.
obviously I wasn't talking about widows. that is not a choice. sorry that you were raised in a disadvantaged family.
"sorry that you were raised in a disadvantaged family."
Gee, someone thinks that ALL children who were raised by one parent are automatically at a "disadvantage".
Here's a quarter, go buy yourself a clue.
"Implement district wide open-enrollment. Allow parents to pick the public school their child attends."
Question: If the parents are unable to get their child from their house to whatever school they want their child enrolled in (most likely due to inability to provide or pay for such transportation), how should that be resolved?
I mean, just in the Las Vegas Valley you're talking about a good 20 miles from the far western end to the far eastern. And that's in a straight line.
Creating false choice is not a strong plan.
OK TCrawford. I relent. The Long Walk was insignificant. Now I can see Carson was only following orders- like William Calley and Adolph Eichman. That makes perfect sense. You are absolutely correct when you say it wasn't genocide and I shouldn't paint it with that brush. What percentage of Navajo died on the walk Carson helped send them on. I wonder if it was genocide to their families?
These folks in Washington have no clue to what is going on in the local schools. They are all clueless. Let's face it it isl ike asking a plummber to do heart surgery.
We need professional educators and business folks to start calling the shots. Also bring back full Business and Vocational Education.
As far as open enrollment, California just passed a bill and it was signed that there are no such thing as boundaries. You can send your child anywhere and I mean anywhere!!
"Question: If the parents are unable to get their child from their house to whatever school they want their child enrolled in (most likely due to inability to provide or pay for such transportation), how should that be resolved?"
If you can pick ANY school, choose one near your home. That is too easy, isn't it?
"sorry that you were raised in a disadvantaged family."
Gee, someone thinks that ALL children who were raised by one parent are automatically at a "disadvantage".
Here's a quarter, go buy yourself a clue.
Aren't you clever. Umm, yeah.
"If you can pick ANY school, choose one near your home. That is too easy, isn't it?"
Then why bother offering open enrollment at all, other than to give the students whose parents can afford or make the time to get their kids to another school that chance?
This is the same problem with vouchers - you will make a few schools better...and a lot of schools worse because the students who could most improve under this kind of program wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.
Get over it, the world isn't fair and it is a waste of time to nitpick over things like this. If a parent really cares to enroll their kid in a school that is not near their house, they will transport them there personally, set up a car pool with other parents, etc. Either way, their kids still get a "free" education.
"Get over it, the world isn't fair and it is a waste of time to nitpick over things like this."
I know the world isn't fair. I'm trying to keep it from being MORE unfair than it already is.
And if that is nitpicking, so be it.
It's not the end of the world if a child goes to a school that is near their house out of convenience for the parents. The schools need students and the student needs a "free education". There isn't anything to complain about unless you just feel the urge to complain for the sake of complaining. If parents want to invest the time and effort into transporting their child to another school, good for them. If not, oh well. Life goes on and no one dies. There are more important things to worry about.
"It's not the end of the world if a child goes to a school that is near their house out of convenience for the parents."
Have you missed the ENTIRE point of the argument?
The point of Open Enrollment (according to its proponents) is to give students the opportunity to move from a school that is failing (such as Carson Elementary) to one where they might do better or be more challenged.
However, the PROBLEM with Open Enrollment is that not every student who wants to move away from a failing school has the ability to.
Keeping up so far?
I subbed at Kit Carson a few years ago. THat was the worst experience of my life - seriously. Since then, I have always avoided the westside schools and been fine. I can't imagine someone wanting to work there.
and if you really cared enough about your kid going to another school, then the opportunity is there and it is on you to take them the free school of your choice, no charge to you. Just get them there. if you can't do that, it is obviously not a big issue to you. of course, people like you will b!tch and complain about their hand-outs not being good enough.
Give the new principle at Rancho a fighting chance! He is new to the school so we can not fault him for suggesting the magnet programs there are "top rated". Any parent that would send their child across town to this gang infested, overcrowded, pos for a high school needs to have a cat scan. Magnet-not!
But please give this new principle a fighting chance! Get the two worthless, actually harmful, assistant vice principles out of this school!
Janice Barkley and Mary Scott are every thing we have come to hate about CCSD! Just a waste of taxpayer money!!! Get SCOTT & BARKLEY OUT OF THE SCHOOL, OUT OF THE SYSTEM ALL TOGETHER.
Transfer Josh Katz for good measure.
Thanks for caring!
"and if you really cared enough about your kid going to another school, then the opportunity is there and it is on you to take them the free school of your choice, no charge to you. Just get them there."
Yes, because that is SO easy.
We are talking about economically-disadvantaged people. Almost 80% of the kids at THIS SCHOOL ALONE qualify for free or reduced lunch. The only way you get that is to be making less that 185% of the poverty line (130% to qualify for free lunch).
For a family of 4, that adds up to LESS than $40,000 a year (less than $29,000 per year to qualify for free lunch). And at that level, you really expect these families to "find a way"?
Come out of your fantasy capsule and take a look around for once.
well, keep whining. it doesn't matter. I'm glad that more reasonable people are in charge and not you.
"I'm glad that more reasonable people are in charge and not you."
And am I to believe you are a "reasonable person"?
Because all the evidence so far pegs you as just another "bootstrapper" who thinks the problem is that anyone who doesn't succeed obviously is just a lazy slacker looking for a handout.
Don't bother trying to respond. Because at this point I find you pitiable, and would just mock you.
yeah, whatever, Douglas. what do you do for your career because you sound like you are such a successful person with your opinions that will never matter or amount to anything because they are unrealistic. good luck with your fantasy world that your opinions will ever be implemented here.
If 40% of the children attending a school only use English as a Second Lanuage, ESL, you are automatically at 60% achievement if all Primary English speakers pass all the tests. There needs to be a differentiation between Primary English Speakers and ESL learners. It's a throwback concept, segregation, but they need to either be tested differently or need to be taught and tested in their Native Language, whatever that may be. But, perhaps if this is done, a cost can be attributed to educating ESL students and if the parents are here illegally or are still nationals of a foreign ncountry, a bill can be sent to their respective governments to recoup the costs ......
DouglasDemocrat,
Hate to burst your bubble, but ALL children raised by only one parent ARE at a disadvantage! How could you even disagree with that statement? Do you seriously believe that it is better to have one loving parent than it is to have two?
Here are some stats for you:
-Girls without a father in their life are two and a half times as likely to get pregnant and 53 percent more likely to commit suicide.
-Boys without a father in their life are 63 percent more likely to run away and 37 percent more likely to abuse drugs.
-Both girls and boys are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to end up in jail and nearly four times as likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems.
What is it with you liberals? Are you allergic to traditional families? How do people get so anti-family that they will swear it doesn't matter if you have two parents or not.
Quit lying to yourselves! It does matter a lot!
Amen, henderson. And I'm a drooling liberal. Dopes like nevadaapplesslices and Douglas Denocrat cover the whole political spectrum, not just liberals.
Remember, it's easy and fun to make 'em, a lot harder to raise them....