By MAGGIE MCMURRAY
Moapa Valley Progress
Sounds of bells, busses, and back-to-school excitement filled the playgrounds and school yards of local schools on Monday, heralding the beginning of the new school year.
Most kids expressed excitement at being back. 2nd grader Logan Roberts said, “I am excited for new friends.”
Other kids were torn. Elsie Turner, also a new 2nd grader said, “I’m excited for my new class, but I’m also a little scared.”
Most parents were excited for their kids, but sad for themselves. Parent Karen Jensen said, “I’m really going to miss my kids, but they are very excited today.” Amy Warburton agreed, “I don’t want school to start-I want it to be summer forever. But I’m excited at the same time because my kids all have great teachers.” Emily Wollenzein shared a similar sentiment, “This is our first year in public school, so I’m excited and nervous, but mostly excited.”
Even teachers shared in the excitement of new beginnings. Bowler librarian Bryce Hardy said, “I’m very excited for the new year. We have lots of new books and I can’t wait for the kids to come read them.” New Bowler teacher Alyssa Eide Bailey said, “I’m pretty excited for the year. I get to work with my mom and I have the best class this year. It will be great.” Bailey’s mother is long time Bowler 1st grade teacher Carol Eide.
All four local schools have experienced changes in their leadership and/or staff, meaning new faces are everywhere. Many schools also have changes in bell schedules and class schedules changes that parents should be aware of.
Perkins Elementary has a new principal this year, filling the vacancy left by former principal Hal Mortensen. Holly Lee comes to them from Las Vegas and is very excited about the upcoming school year.
Perkins enrollment has dropped to a total of 160 kids beginning there this year, just slightly down from last year. Registrar Lisa Begay does not see this as a problem and points out that registrations are still coming in and will continue to be processed for several weeks.
Begay also points out that Perkins has a new starting and ending time that parents need to be aware of so their children can be dropped off and picked up on time. This year school at Perkins will begin at 8:55 am and children will get out of school at 3:06 pm. Last year school ran from 9:05 to 3:16.
Moapa Valley High School also has a new principal. Hal Mortensen moved to the high school earlier this summer to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of former principal Rod Adams.
Louise Culler, school registrar, said that enrollment at the high school has remained pretty much the same. Last year’s enrollment on count day in September was 533. This year’s count day hasn’t come yet, but beginning enrollment is 529.
The biggest change in schedule this year at the high school is the loss of early-out on Friday. The district will no longer allow early-out days so the Friday bell schedule will be from 7:10 am to 1:05 pm, the same as the other days of the week.
Changes in early-out also affect Mack Lyon Middle School. Lyon will now run from 7:23 am to 2:12 pm every day, including Friday. However, Mack Lyon will keep it’s shortened Friday class schedule and use the time when the kids used to get out early to hold district-required Digital Citizenship Lessons through their home rooms, instead of taking time out of their daily class time for these.
Lyon principal Ken Paul, explained why lessons like these have become necessary. “In the last 10-15 years we have gone from an information scarcity to an information surplus,” he said. “It used to be that the teachers or the textbook held all the knowledge and they taught the children. Now all the information is out there and available on the internet and our role as educators has changed. Good teaching is still good teaching and we are changing and adapting to help the students the best we can. Students are changing from becoming consumers to becoming active producers.”
The middle school has accordingly changed its goals to the “4 C’s”, which are collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity, Paul explained.
Enrollment at the middle school is up quite a bit this year from a total of 372 last year, to an early total of 409 so far this year.
Grant Bowler Elementary has also had some significant changes. According to Bowler registrar Traci Fischer, enrollment has increased from 585 last year to 640 kids so far. Although more kids are expected to register late, that is an increase of 55 students so far.
Fischer attributes the change to area growth. “We’ve had a lot of new people move into the valley and we think that is causing the increase in enrollment numbers,” she said.
Bowler will switch to full day kindergarten this year.
“There are a lot of exciting things happening in Clark County this year and we are embracing them because with change we hope things will be better,” said Bowler principal Shawna Jessen. “This year will be the best year ever for Bowler. We definitely have the best school with the best staff and the best kids ever.”
