Report stirs up community

A new report on the growing racial isolation at public schools in West Las Vegas was "deja vu all over again" for a community tired of hearing about the problem and impatient for solutions.

The report, discussed Thursday at a Clark County School Board meeting, was met with anger and suspicion by some audience members from the historically black West Las Vegas community, where the Hispanic population is growing.

Performed by a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, the report found that social isolation at six West Las Vegas elementary schools -- Booker, Carson, Fitzgerald, Kelly, McCall and Wendell Williams -- is escalating into segregation by race, poverty and language barriers.

Although students at the so-called Prime Six schools have the option to transfer elsewhere under an integration plan devised in the early 1990s, the report found that few students do so, which contributes to the problem of racial isolation.

"We have heard this time and time again," said Marzette Lewis of WAAK-Up, a West Las Vegas community action group.

The Clark County School District commissioned the report but did not disclose the cost. Over the years, the district has invested significant resources in improving student performance at West Las Vegas schools with mixed results. The report is the first step in developing a new strategy for addressing the performance issues at the schools.

School Board member Carolyn Edwards said the district needs to look at improving the quality of the six schools and ensuring that families are aware they have options to go elsewhere.

"This can't be a plan that takes a year," she said.

Some West Las Vegans, such as former state Sen. Joe Neal, were suspicious that the report was a pretext for a new mandatory busing program, a possibility that was denied by district officials.

Parent Andres Mendoza told the School Board that "you pay money to a consultant to tell you what you should have learned a long time ago. This leadership doesn't have vision for education."

A third of the students at the Prime Six schools are limited English speakers. The Hispanic population is growing in West Las Vegas, which is generally bordered by Interstate 15 to the east, Rancho Drive to the west, Bonanza Road to the south and Carey Avenue to the north.

The report also found that Prime Six schools are serving students from high-poverty families with a disproportionate share of inexperienced teachers.

"If you let things go on like this, (the problems) will only deepen," said Gary Orfield, the researcher behind the report and co-director of UCLA's Civil Rights Project.

People reacted so strongly to the findings that School Board member Deanna Wright told audience members to stop talking over each other. School Board member Linda Young, who represents West Las Vegas, followed a constituent to the parking lot to speak with him after he said he was ashamed of her leadership.

Orfield said "pain and hurt" usually rise to the surface when segregation is discussed. The country always has been polarized by race and has never found a way to provide equal education, he said.

School integration in Las Vegas has never been easy. Clark County had a mandatory busing program in the 1970s that disproportionately affected blacks.

The district switched to a voluntary integration program in 1994. Three magnet schools were organized in West Las Vegas to attract students from across the county. Students at the Prime Six elementary schools were given the option to transfer to other schools after their kindergarten year.

A federal court order to desegregate was lifted in 1997, but the district still wants to "be proactive" in addressing the problems, said Bill Hoffman, the district's general counsel.

Orfield denied that he was suggesting mandatory busing and urged the district not give up on its voluntary integration program, which he said can be successful.

Superintendent Walt Rulffes said he would bring back a plan, which Edwards said must have some "urgency."

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917