Mike Barton, West Middle School's new principal, shakes hands Wednesday with Jasmine Joiner, 14, as 13-year-old classmate Kendra Irving and the retiring principal, Jimmie Jones, look on. Photos by Clint Karlsen. Geography teacher Thomas Panholzer, left, talks Wednesday with incoming principal Mike Barton at the Preparatory Institute School for Academic Excellence at West Hall, formerly West Middle School.

One of Clark County's poorest performing schools got a new principal, a new name, and a new strategy for improvement Wednesday.

Clark County School District veteran Mike Barton now heads the Preparatory Institute School for Academic Excellence at West Hall, which used to be called West Middle School.

He is being given new tools to improve the struggling inner-city school, including a longer school day, smaller class sizes and a third semester in the summer. Parents will not have to pay extra for the summer session.

"It's going to cost more money," said Edward Goldman, the district's associate superintendent of Education Services, who was in charge of West's overhaul. "But when schools are in need, we have an obligation to remediate."

West, at 2050 Sapphire Stone Ave. in West Las Vegas, is one of 13 schools in the district that has failed to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards for three consecutive years and is in jeopardy of being taken over by the state. It was one of seven district schools operated by Edison Schools, but the district decided this year not to renew the contract with the company.

District officials acknowledged that West will be more expensive to operate than the typical middle school, but they were unable to come up with an exact figure because plans still are being worked out.

Officials want to reduce class sizes from 30 students to about 25.

Goldman said the school will be open to sixth- through ninth-graders in the fall. Ninth-grade students will be given the option to stay at West rather than attending Canyon Springs or Western high schools as freshmen. He said the district also is considering converting West into a campus for kindergarten through 12th grade in the next four years.

District officials will meet with parents who have children at West to discuss the proposed changes during the first few weeks of April.

Barton opened the Global Community High School in the fall and has been a district employee for eight years. Global opened with 40 students and now has 250 students from 17 countries and five continents. It caters to students who have been in the country for less than three years.

Goldman said Barton's experience at the high school that made him the right man for the middle school job.

"I'm going with a proven administrator who is a change agent," Goldman said.

Barton said "West Prep" will have a dual approach: getting students prepared for college and having them ready to enter the work force.

"The bottom line is that test scores have to go up," Barton said.

"With community input and our proposed vision, I can't see it failing."

West's new model is patterned after a school in the Los Angeles Unified School District and two schools in Philadelphia. Barton and Goldman said all three schools were successful in dramatically improving student test scores in only a few years and had similar demographics as West's.

John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association teachers union, said he has not discussed the proposals with district officials yet. He said he wants to provide contractual protection for some teachers who might not want to work during the summer, but he added that he's open to all the ideas being proposed.

"My feeling is that we'll be able to work through most issues," he said.

West has about 900 students in grades six through eight. The enrollment is primarily minority: 55 percent of West's students are black and 38 percent are Hispanic.

West has lost hundreds of students during the past few years as parents have taken advantage of a federal law allowing them to transfer their children to a nonfailing school designated by the district.

According to the 2004-05 accountability report, most of West's students are not achieving at their grade level in various subjects. The report shows that in state-mandated testing, 71 percent of West's students failed to meet standards in reading; 56 percent were below standards in writing; 71 percent did not meet standards in math; and 78 percent did not meet standards in science.

Outgoing principal Jimmie Jones said not all academic news at West is bad. He said West students showed a dramatic increase in a state-administered test in math, reading and writing. He said his students' scores in the Criterion Referenced Test improved an average of 10.1 percent in those subjects from the 2003-04 to the 2004-05 school years. The exam tests students on their knowledge of the state's curriculum.

"If you look at where we started and where we ended, we were on the path toward success," Jones said.

Jones' last day on the job will be April 17. He is retiring.

Some parents picking up their children at West on Wednesday afternoon were receptive to the proposed changes.

Patricia Green has a sixth-grade daughter at the school, and a son who will attend West in the fall. She said she wants the school to go to a K-12 model to give it more of a community feel.

"The majority of people think this is a bad school, and they send their children across town," Green said.

"The kids who do go here will have a better opportunity."

Cecilia Soto, who has a daughter in sixth grade at West, said she's open to the changes being proposed but is skeptical that they will result in a turnaround of the school. She said the main factor determining school success is student motivation.

"There are students here who don't want to learn," she said.

"If they (students) don't put forth any effort, things are going to stay the same."