Clark County schools learn to do more with less

Two cheerleaders squeeze onto the last chair left, bracing their legs to not spill off the sides.

"HEY!" shrieks band teacher Paul Beuning, silencing the class. "I don't want to yell, but I will. Talk at a dull whisper, please."

A regular whisper won't do, not with 129 students.

And that's just one period for Beuning and his assistant, teaching more than 600 band students at Chaparral High School.

"You learn names of those who show up to night practice or get in trouble," remarks instructional assistant Justin Cloud at the back of the room. "Others, it's a struggle."

Principal Dave Wilson walks in, looks around and sighs.

"Reality," Wilson laments to himself.

He didn't want this to happen. Wilson often boasts of his award-winning band, the largest of any high school in the state. But it's too much to ask of one teacher. All last year, he promised a second band teacher to ease the burden on Beuning and Cloud.

"I had that second teacher locked in," Wilson says. "Then, whomp."

"Whomp" was the teachers union's arbitration victory, forcing the district to pay
$30 million in raises. The union argues the district can afford the raises. Superintendent Dwight Jones said it can't. To foot the bill, Jones cut 1,000 teaching positions this summer, reducing the country's fifth-largest school district to 17,000 teachers.

The new reality is increased class sizes and reduced elective programs, which students across the district discovered on the first day of school Monday. No more photography, early childhood, fashion or food programs at Chaparral, near U.S. Highway 95 and Flamingo Road.

Core subjects can't be cut, but classes grew.

"Bigger?" asks Chaparral sophomore Andrea Voorhees when told of the larger classes Monday morning. "They're already pretty full."

A few doors down the hall from band, U.S. government teacher George Chamberlin braces for a first in his 15 years of teaching.

"Look, we have a deal for you," he recalls hearing from an assistant principal at the end of last school year. "We're going to give you just proficient kids. In exchange, you get 50 of them."

Then it went to 60.

Chamberlin has never seen such a thing.

He also struggles Monday to keep students quiet in his auditorium classroom, where 60 whispering voices roar.

LARGER CLASSES TOP TO BOTTOM

Chaparral might as well be any high school in the Clark County School District. On Monday, class sizes increased by an average of three students, lengthening the district's lead in a dubious ranking that President Barack Obama noted Wednesday at North Las Vegas' Canyon Springs High School. At an average 35 students per class, Clark County has the most students per class in the nation.

And that is at the cream-of-the-crop schools, too. Schools such as West Career Technical Academy are under the same pressures as Chaparral, but in different ways.

Registered nurse Kathy Clemens teaches only 10 to 15 students at a time for a clinical section of the nursing assistant program. That's because she must. For students to be certified, the state limits class sizes. It surprises students.

"When they came in, they were like 'Wow. It's so small.' They like it," she says.

For her class to be small, core courses in math, English and social studies must be larger. The summer cuts pushed some of those classes up to 38 students, Principal Monte Bay says.

That is slight compared with Chamberlin's 60 students. But he doesn't moan. After all, he accepted the challenge.

Chaparral Principal Wilson praises his teachers for that.

The school is coming off an incredible turnaround, graduating 374 seniors in June compared with 229 a year before with similar-sized senior classes. Although just one of 49 high schools in the district, Chaparral accounted for a quarter of the district's increased graduation rate.

Last year was also Wilson's first year at the helm of the struggling school, taking over as part of a turnaround, keeping only half the staff. He is hopeful despite the situation, noting the football team's first opening game victory in a decade.

"Football sets the tone for a school," Wilson notes while fist-bumping students in the hallway. He talks easily with the students, asking about family or interests, calling them by nicknames - such as "Detroit" for a boy who just moved here from - you guessed it - Detroit.

HOW TO KEEP UP

Behind the scenes, Wilson sweats serious decisions in his office, surrounded by whiteboards of calculations and constant dilemmas.

"Here's the reality," he says. "I have less staff, zero money for textbooks. What do I expect this year? It's going to be all hands on deck to keep the graduation numbers I have."

That struggle to stay at the status quo goes for almost every Clark County school operating with less.

To graduate, students need to pass four High School Proficiency Exams, usually taking them sophomore year. The bar is being raised this school year for the writing exam, requiring a higher score to pass.

That happened with the reading test two years ago, and more seniors still need to pass that test. At Chaparral, 178 of the 574 seniors haven't passed reading - six times more than last year. On top of that, 200 or more seniors need to pass the math, science or writing tests.

Wilson and administrators attend to the day's goal: Get every student through every class with their pink cards signed by every teacher. The pink cards are how Wilson proves Chaparral's enrollment and receives funding. Each card is worth $3,300 to the school.

Band teacher Beuning only got through last names starting with H in his second period. Too many students. Too little time. But he will catch up when he sees them at marching band practice.

"Every dollar counts," says Wilson, mentioning that a friend donates polo shirts embroidered with the school name for his 140 staff. "Little tidbits, but they all add up."

Will it be enough to keep up the graduation rate at Chaparral - and other district high schools - despite larger class sizes and fewer teachers?

"That will be the essential question," says Chamberlin, opening his desk drawer to take out a microphone to teach his 60-student class.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@review
journal.com or 702-383-0279.