By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
Submitted May 14, 2008
The Moapa Valley High School (MVHS) was selected last week as one of six new Empowerment Schools in the Clark County School District (CCSD). The official CCSD announcement on Wednesday, May 7, made MVHS the first CCSD Empowerment school to be chosen from a rural community. Other schools selected in this round of Empowerment choices included Cheyenne High School, Keller Middle School, and three additional Elementary Schools; all located in Las Vegas.
The Empowerment model strives to give local school administrators greater autonomy in making scheduling, budgetary and curriculum decisions. Also Empowerment has is meant to offer additional funding, $400 per student, to be managed by the school principal to carry out the school’s goals. The school administrators and staff are then held to higher accountability for student achievement.
Last week’s announcement, which came by letter from CCSD official Karlene Lee, granted MVHS administrators the autonomy of Empowerment status without yet committing to the additional funding. But the letter stated that the district was still actively working to acquire the additional money to fully fund the program.
Hanevold admitted that there are many important changes that Empowerment makes possible even without the funding. These include things like greater latitude in scheduling staff development time, ability to make that time more effective and valuable, and the freedom to tweak the school-day schedule to allow for staff meetings that would encourage greater communication and collaboration among the faculty.
The added autonomy would also allow for greater latitude in maneuvering existing funds to where they are most needed locally. For example, the school is often required by district policy to spend a good deal of its budget on new textbooks. “Our teachers might find it more important to direct that money instead to technology rather than a textbook for every student in every class,” Hanevold said. “Rather than that decision being made at the district level it would be decided by us here; by what our teachers most need here on the ground.”
All of these things can be done to improve operations at the school without any additional funding. But according to the MVHS Empowerment proposal, the goal is for the school to become a true college preparatory high school. Hanevold says that he would need additional funding to make that happen.
“We are already a high performing high school,” Hanevold said. Even without Empowerment, the school has already moved toward its college preparatory goal by offering more Honors and AP classes and by cooperating with the College of Southern Nevada to offer dual college credit classes to MVHS juniors and seniors.
But these programs need additional funding to grow, Havevold said.
In addition, Hanevold has been very vocal about what he calls his school’s underfunded elective programs. MVHS has a very high participation in programs like Band, Orchestra, Forensics and Culinary programs. The number of MVHS students enrolled in these programs usually rival numbers enrolled in the large urban schools. But, because funding for these programs is allocated based on total student population, the MVHS programs receive significantly less funding.
Hanevold sees this as a real problem of equity. “Why should our kids be worth only ¼ of what a kid in Vegas is worth if they choose to be in Forensics or Band or Orchestra,” Hanevold said. “Because our programs are just as big here as they are in Vegas.”
Hanevold sees the additional Empowerment funding as the only way to provide funds for those programs.
Though there is currently no commitment for additional funding from the district, Hanevold feels confident that the money will be made available soon for the program.
Members of the Moapa Valley Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) also expressed excitement about the announcement. The MVCEAB, with the support of local school administrators, has spent nearly two years working to convince CCSD officials to bring Empowerment to Moapa Valley schools.
“We are obviously very happy about the announcement,” said MVCEAB Chairman Lindsey Dalley. “We have to give credit where credit is due to the district, for finally hearing us and pulling through for us.”
The long-term goal of the MVCEAB is to eventually secure Empowerment status for all four of the Moapa Valley schools. “This is a really good foot in the door for us,” Dalley said. “We hope that the district will continue to work with us in our goal of having an Empowerment community of schools.”
A special community meeting to discuss Empowerment at MVHS will be held on Monday, May 19 at 6:30 p.m. in the Ron Dalley Theatre at the High School. At this meeting the community is invited to learn more about what Empowerment means. CCSD officials and school administrators and staff will be available to answer questions.
Hanevold explained that this meeting is meant for more than just the parents of High School students. “We want to get a good sampling of the community,” he said. “It is important that we get Elementary and Middle School parents there as well because they need to hear what is going on.”
