EDITORIAL: Coral Academy’s move into Heard Elementary presents huge opportunity

Change can be difficult, particularly for elementary school children just beginning to find their way. That's magnified for children in military families, for whom moving around the country — or even out of the country — and attending multiple schools can be the norm. So it's understandable that students at Heard Elementary School on the Nellis Air Force Base are uneasy about their future.

As reported by the Review-Journal's Neal Morton, the Clark County School District — which has overseen the 63-year-old school for more than four decades — will soon shutter Heard Elementary and hand over the keys to charter school operator Coral Academy. The move was first set in motion in early 2015, when Nellis officials put out a request for proposals for a charter school to build, operate and staff a school of at least 800 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Mr. Morton noted the deal was ostensibly sealed when the district last year revealed a $420 million plan to build 14 new or replacement schools in the next two years, and the aging Heard wasn't on the list. So when the 2016-17 school year opens in August, Coral will move into Heard while also moving forward to build a new school on a quieter area of the base.

But while students may be apprehensive, this is absolutely a case where change can be good and extraordinarily instructional in the case for school choice. To its credit, Heard currently has a four-star accountability rating from the state, but Mr. Morton pointed out that Coral — which operates three campuses in the Las Vegas Valley — holds the state's highest possible accountability rating at five stars. Keep in mind that charter schools are public schools. They don't charge tuition, and they receive the same amount of per-student funding from the state as public schools.

Concerns have been voiced that Heard students will be much different from the demographic at Coral's other campuses. Indeed, there are significant differences in low-income population (6 percent at Coral's current campuses, 33 percent at Heard) and special education students (4 percent at Coral, 15 percent at Heard), and Heard is 21 percent Hispanic, versus 12 percent at Coral. However, that presents Coral and its students — and there's already a wait list for the school, which is telling — an outstanding opportunity to show how charter schools can benefit students of all demographics.

Furthermore, Nellis isn't just taking a flyer on bringing in a charter school; eight other Air Force bases around the country have charter schools. And since charters have the freedom to innovate and function outside a school district bureaucracy, Coral is uniquely positioned to turn this transition into a huge net positive for students and families. We should all be hoping the charter school operator does just that.