As turmoil swirls around Agassi Prep’s future, school unveils new tech tool

By Chris Kudialis

Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016 | 2 a.m.

A hall full of students at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy sat happily and cheered as the school’s namesake stood at a podium Tuesday to announce the donation of new tablet-based technology, to assist with grammar and phonics.

Meanwhile, concerned mothers sat anxiously at the back of the hall, wondering whether their children would be around to use the Square Panda playsets for iPad.

Agassi, with donations from Carlos Santana’s Milagro Foundation, the House of Blues and Bank of Nevada, accepted 42 of the playsets Tuesday, which offer personalized instruction for kids of different reading and phonics levels. Santana and wife Cindy Blackman also attended the event, with the renowned guitarist voicing his support for the school’s young children.

“You are a beam of light,” Santana told a group of about 80 kindergarten-age children. “You can do things that are out of this world.”

The Square Panda program promises to give young learners the keys to reading fluency, with over a dozen levels of phonics lessons, plastic alphabetical letters and a system that measures each child’s individual progress and patterns of play.

When the announcement was over, mothers Janet Hill, Monique Holbert and Samiya Rahmaan gathered outside to collect signatures for a petition in protest of a potential new owner of the school, New York City-based Democracy Prep.

On the night of Oct. 26, the mothers said they were invited to a meeting the next day at the school by an automated phone call. They said they were told about the school’s initiative to change ownership for the first time since it opened in 2001.

Potential changes by Democracy Prep, the mothers said, would include 10-hour school days, stricter rules against student interaction and removal of some of the school’s sports teams.

“We were totally blindsided,” Rahmaan said. “Honestly, I don’t get it.”

“I don’t think we’d stay here,” Holbert added. “I don’t want my baby to be a robot.”

Asked Tuesday about the proposed merger, Agassi told the Sun that Democracy Prep’s takeover wasn’t yet “a done deal.” But the tennis player-turned-philanthropist praised the New York-based charter school franchise, saying Democracy Prep would help “further students’ education” with “great operators here in our backyard.”

“We want to choose the next step that’s in the best interest of these kids,” he said. “We’re restoring best practices.”

Asked about the concerns of the protesting parents on hand, Agassi said more time in school would result in a better overall education for students. Parents who disagree have plenty of other options at Las Vegas charter schools and public schools in Clark County School District, he said.

“As a parent myself, I’d love an environment where the school prioritizes the educational journey of my child,” Agassi said. “If you don’t want a deeper, more focused education, all you have to do is walk down the street and go to a different school.”

Over 300 parents and students attended a governor’s board meeting at Agassi Prep Wednesday evening in protest of the proposed merger. After over two hours of deliberation, the board decided to hold the vote on the proposed change in ownership until next month.