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Students back in class as district shows off newest school
Mona Shield Payne/Special to the Sun
First-grader Diego Magana concentrates on coloring his incentive behavioral chart in his class on the first day of school Monday, August 30, at Ruby Duncan Elementary School.
Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 | 1:40 p.m.
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Sun Coverage
Map of Ruby Duncan Elementary School
Ruby Duncan Elementary School
250 West Rome Blvd., North Las Vegas
First-grade teacher Stefanie Turell beamed as she introduced herself to her new students on the first day of class Monday at Ruby Duncan Elementary School.
“Raise your hand if you’re excited!” she said. All of her students – about 20 of them – raised their hands as high as they could.
The teachers and administrators had reason to be excited, too. The elementary school, 250 W. Rome Blvd. in North Las Vegas, opened Friday and held its first classes Monday. The building even smelled new – full of pristine linoleum floors, “smart,” digital white boards and spotless new classrooms, ready for mobs of kids to use.
The students in the new school were among more than 300,000 students returning to Clark County School District classrooms today.
Las Vegas civil rights activist Ruby Duncan – the school’s namesake – gasped as her friend, Michael Flores, 22, guided her wheelchair into the new elementary school’s courtyard. “Ooo! How beautiful,” she cooed.
Duncan, who has a ninth-grade education and never graduated from high school, said she made education a priority for her seven children.
“I never made it, but I deemed that my children would always get their education,” she said to Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes before accompanying him on a tour of the school. “This is one of the greatest things to happen to me in a lifetime.”
Sabrina Congioloso of North Las Vegas dropped her two oldest children off for school Monday morning, with her youngest, 4-year-old Emma, in tow. The stay-at-home mother’s middle child, Brody, 5, was starting his first day of kindergarten.
“He has no fear,” she said of her son, who was jumping and running outside the school with his big brother, Dakota, 7, before classes. “It’s a whole new school so there’s a lot of changes.”
Rhiannen Cox, 10, started fifth grade Monday morning. Before heading to class, she said she was most excited to meet new people, explore the new building and keep learning her favorite subjects – reading and math.
Cox’s stepmother, Anya Cox, 26, of North Las Vegas, said she was happy about the new public school, but said she hopes to be able to send Rhiannen to a magnet school next year for middle school.
“We’ve found that regular public schools tend to be too easy for our kids,” Cox said. “It’s pretty upsetting because I don’t feel like the schools are doing their best.”
“Sometimes you get lucky and you get good teachers,” she said. “We appreciate them.”
The elementary school is projected to have nearly 600 students enrolled this year.
Principal Rick DiTondo, who was transferred from Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary, said he was eager, yet anxious, to start classes.
“It’s been a challenge,” DiTondo said of planning the new school’s programs amidst the state’s budget crisis. “I can’t get the teachers everything they want.”
DiTondo said he’s optimistic about the school’s future. His crop of 24 teachers and eight specialists are up to the challenges of the down economy, he said.
“You have no choice but to be [optimistic],” he said. “We’re going to move forward … no excuses, we’ll make it work.”
DiTondo showed Rulffes the new school Monday morning, complete with tours of a couple of first-grade classrooms, the central courtyard, the science room, art room, music room and library.
“I think it’s one of the highlights of the year,” Rulffes said of the new school.
Although he said he was proud of the school's “green” features, such as bigger windows and its use of geothermal energy, Rulffes said his favorite part of the new building would be the kids.
“In spite of the limited resources, we did not cut any teachers,” he said. “I think we’ve got our arms around it the way it is now … my goal is to not cut any more.”
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picture #4, that better not be a gun in his belt.
Kidding aside, how many new schools opened and where?
Take a few moments to read the series from the LA Times (hardly a right wing publication) on the difference a teacher makes and how they determined the effectiveness of the individual teacher. The teacher's union responded by calling for a boycott of the LA Times for daring to publish such data.
http://blog.al.com/learning-curve/2010/0...
Could you please tell us more about the story of Ruby Duncan? What became of her children after she made education a priority? This seems like it could be an inspirational feature story.
bigs
If you are going to cut and paste a response to multiple articles, you may want to give it a proof read first.
gbigs, Tom Gorman (staff), has left a note that it is the law that every school has to teach any student who wants to learn, regardless of nationality or legality. Tom did not say if it was a state, city, county, or federal law.
Why in the first place is the burden of the cost falling on the citizens? Tom left a note that there was good reason for this law. I'd love to hear this one!
What so now the county has a right to raise taxes for education and we will pay more for illegals kids educations?
Supreme court passed this law to make schools teach any student that wants to learn and make the school districts pay for it. $100 million Rory is telling us it is going to cost CCSD. How much are the citizens paying to provide education for illegal aliens families?
Our government is making the citizens assimilate to the illegal aliens living in our country. Why else are they providing for the illegals and making the citizens pay for it? We have enough problems in our own country to take care of we can't afford to take care of citizens from foreign countries, especially when they are breaking our federal laws.
It has been said that in order for the North American Union to happen, people will have to assimilate to the changes ahead, i.e., get used to living with foreigners and paying their way.