I currently work at Moapa Valley Empowerment High School as the dean of students. I wanted to take a moment to comment on your recent opinion article regarding empowerment in schools (Whether Spending Or Cutting, Local Decisions Are Best: Progress, March 23, 2011). I feel I need tell you how much I appreciated your observations regarding the power behind the empowerment model.

For three years now we have been able to make decisions that best meet the needs of the students we serve. We have been able to change bell schedules, allocate funds, offer different courses that, as a team, we decided would work best in our ultimate goal of increasing student achievement.

The first year the additional funds from the Lincy Foundation allowed us to provide additional experiences for our students, professional development for our teachers, and technology for the building. The second and third years, as you commented in your article, we were able to avoid the massive cuts that the district was enduring because we utilized those funds to save positions.

Next year will bring many cuts to MVHS, and although many of us (including me) will probably be looking for work in other schools, one hundred percent of the staff voted ‘yes’ on the new budget. The whole staff knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the decisions made by the empowerment team were made with the single vision of how to best meet the needs of our students (in the worst of circumstances).

I love working at Moapa Valley High School and do not want to leave. However, I am and will always be proud to have worked at a school where we were able to make the big decisions that had the ultimate impact on our students!

Tracy Cardinal