News gets chorus of approval

An announcement made Tuesday during the last period at Durango High School was music to the ears of choir students.

Principal Mark Gums told the school that he managed to retain three teachers and save classes in choral music, art and woodworking that were on their way to being eliminated or reduced.

One choir class was to have been taught by the band director during one period only, said Dalton Terry, 17. Because it would have conflicted with other classes, "most of us could not have taken it," the senior said.

But because Durango was able to save its choir teachers, more choir classes are being offered.

Enrollment projections for the Clark County School District were off by more than 4,000 students this year, and public school principals are trying to salvage what they can in the face of staff reductions triggered by the enrollment shortfalls.

"There's a lot of horse trading going on right now," said Rick McEnaney, the district's director of secondary fine arts education.

McEnaney said principals are looking for ways to save staff by appealing for extra funding from their area supervisors and reorganizing classes in the least disruptive way possible.

Because principals are resourceful, "things probably look much worse on paper than they actually are," McEnaney said.

Durango is 197 students short of projections. Marginal growth had been expected, but enrollment at the school, which served 2,714 students last year, has dropped to about 2,600.

Gums said the district's human resources department gave him permission to keep three teachers who otherwise would have had to look for jobs at other schools this week.

"We are constantly looking and evaluating," Gums said. "If we can keep our programs, then that's what we'll do."

He promised that Durango's much praised choral music program would stay intact and keep its madrigal choir and women's choir.

"The types of choir will not change," Gums said.

But the drama is not over for Durango, at 7100 W. Dewey Drive near the intersection of Rainbow Boulevard and Russell Road.

The school will lose one art teacher, which means the loss of five art classes. And Durango is losing a counselor who was the faculty adviser for the school's theater club.

Without a faculty adviser, the drama club probably will have to shut down, said Josh Nadler, 17, the club president. He doubted whether students would perform a play this year.

"We're always getting the short end of the stick," Nadler said.

The theater club was created after the school eliminated its academic program for drama earlier this year.

Principals often are forced to cut electives to preserve core classes such as math, science and English.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the arts are considered core classes. But Nevada law does not give the same recognition to the arts, McEnaney said.

Because there's no state-mandated, standardized test for the arts to hold schools accountable, classes like choir and drama often bear the brunt of budget cuts, officials said.

The scarcity of resources means it's common for two to three students to share the same musical instrument in class, district officials said.

A fundraising drive is asking the public to donate their old musical instruments to local public schools. Organizers of Make Music Matter are appealing to musicians who are letting their instruments collect dust in the closet.

District officials said they can restore broken and worn instruments. A moving company has offered to transport donated pianos.

McEnaney has collected oddities such as a Boy Scout's bugle, ukuleles and Hawaiian guitars.

"Nothing will go to waste," McEnaney said.

Donors can leave musical instruments at the Clark County Public Education Foundation at 3360 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 160, or call 702-799-1042 for more information.

There are two special drives this weekend.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dunkin' Donuts will give away a dozen doughnuts to patrons who donate musical instruments at the following store locations: 9265 S. Cimarron Road, 5861 W. Craig Road, 6295 S. Rainbow, 409 E. Silverado Ranch Road, 6795 Tropicana Ave., 171 N. Gibson Road in Henderson, 4125 S. Eastern Ave. and 11710 W. Charleston Blvd.

Also, the Nevada Pops will perform a benefit concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Henderson Pavilion, 200 South Green Valley Parkway. The $10 admission is free to those who donate music instruments.

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