Private school interest grows - News

PRINT THIS Popular

May. 31, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

CORRECTION: The Dawson Center was misidentified in a May 31 story about private schools and a Week in Review item. The Dawson Center is an educational outreach program. It is supported by the Alexander Dawson Foundation, the same foundation that also supports the Dawson schools in Las Vegas and Boulder, Colo.
Kevin Cloud is the director of the Dawson Center, not the foundation.

Private school interest grows

State cutbacks fuel parents' concerns about sports, educational programs

By JAMES HAUG
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

SCHOLARSHIP AVAILABLE
The Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Educational Campus is offering a merit-based scholarship for any student entering the ninth, 10th, 11th or 12th grades. Students must maintain a 3.5 grade-point average or better and take a qualification test on June 10 at the school. Students are asked to register for the test by Monday. More information can be found at adelsoncampus.org/merit.

List of private schools in the Las Vegas Valley

Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus students, from left, Allison Wessells, 18, and Sara Kantor, Eli Kroytoro and Aaron Lapping, all 17, conduct a test during their honors physics class last week. Officials from Adelson and other private schools say they are seeing more interest amid a recession and planned program cuts in the Clark County School District. CORRECTION: The Dawson Center was misidentified in this May 31 story about private schools and a Week in Review item. The Dawson Center is an educational outreach program. It is supported by the Alexander Dawson Foundation, the same foundation that also supports the Dawson schools in Las Vegas and Boulder, Colo. Kevin Cloud is the director of the Dawson Center, not the foundation.
Photo by Craig L. Moran.

Even in the middle of a recession, private schools with annual tuition of $9,000 to $20,000 seem more enticing than ever.

Tours of the Alexander Dawson School At Rainbow Mountain are up 50 percent over last year.

Most Popular Stories

Three suspects arrested in shooting death of police officer

FATAL SHOOTING: Police again mourn comrade

NORM: Wynns finalize divorce papers

U.S. HIGHWAY 95 CRASH: Longtime LV officer mourned

Slaying details emerge

NORM: At last, Ripa gets her wedding cake

Corrections officer dies in collision on U.S. 95

Two suspects in officer's slaying could face death penalty

Two of three suspects in slaying of officer could face death penalty

ANOTHER SOMBER DAY: Fourth officer in short span dies

Mike Imperi, headmaster of the K-8 school of 630 students on West Desert Inn Road near the Las Vegas Beltway, said "enrollment (for next year) is strong. We'll likely open with more students than this year."

Registration for Faith Lutheran Junior and Senior High School is at an all-time high as 1,421 students have applied for admission. The school can only accept 1,355. Enrollment this year was 1,280.

"We'll be close to capacity," said Kevin Dunning, the school's director.

Fear appears to be a motivating factor as parents worry about the decline in public education because of state budget cuts, administrators say.

"I attribute part of this (increased interest) to the budget crisis in the Clark County School District," said Dunning, director of Faith Lutheran in Summerlin.

The Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus, a Jewish school in Summerlin, "is seeing more inquiries from families who are currently public school families," said Kay Lau, a spokeswoman.

Lau said the number of inquiries to the school has increased 10 percent. Adelson serves about 400 students.

"These families express concern about the budget cutbacks and how the quality of education might be sacrificed for their children: no arts, PE and the like," she said.

The Clark County School District has budgeted for $120 million in planned spending reductions for next year, which will mean cuts in school staffing and the end of some popular elective classes like theater and Chinese.

Private school officials said one of their biggest attractions might be stability. Despite the recession, the Adelson school, for instance, "is not cutting back on any of its programs," Lau said.

While class sizes of 40 to 50 students are not uncommon in the Clark County school system, Dawson averages about nine students to a teacher, Imperi said.

The financial crisis in the public schools helped convince Joni Trageton to send her 10-year-old son, Zachary, to Faith Lutheran next year for sixth grade. Zachary is currently enrolled at Ober Elementary School, a public school in Summerlin.

"It's scary what's going on," Trageton said. "They're cutting into the sports program. I've seen the arts get cut, special needs get cut, even a program like GATE (Gifted and Talented Education)."

Because public school funding is based on enrollment, about $5,000 per student annually, the flight of students to private schools could exacerbate the financial crisis.

Walt Rulffes, superintendent of Clark County School District, said he is not concerned about predictions of student gains in private schools because he believes the opposite is more likely to be true. Public schools will gain students as families can no longer afford private school tuition.

For the first time in at least 10 years, private school enrollment in Clark County for 2008-09 declined over last year. There were 15,981 students enrolled this year compared to 16,155 last year, a drop of 2 percent, according to the Nevada Department of Education.

The county is home to about 100 private schools, but many are preschools or have small enrollment. Total private school enrollment is equal to about 19 percent of public school enrollment in Clark County, which is 311,155.

Private school officials acknowledge that the increased interest in their schools might only be wishful window shopping. They won't know for sure how many students enroll until the beginning of the school year in August or September.

Kevin Cloud, executive director of the Dawson Center, the foundation which supports the Dawson School, noted that "recessions do not hit everybody equally."

The public school families who can afford tuition are giving private schools a fresh look, Cloud said.

Carolyn Goodman, president and founder of the Meadows, a pre-kindergarten to 12th grade academy in Summerlin with 910 students, doesn't doubt that the recession might force some families to pull their children from the school, but it won't affect enrollment "because we have wait lists at every grade level."

Private school administrators said they had to expand their financial aid programs. Imperi, the head master at Dawson, said the school expects to spend about $1.5 million on tuition assistance next year compared with $1.2 million this year.

Dunning, the administrator of Faith Lutheran, added, "We've seen an uptick in families who have come to us and said, 'Our financial circumstances have changed,' and they need help with tuition."

The trustees of Adelson Education Campus were motivated to offer a merit-based scholarship to its high school, or "upper school," because they want the school to be accessible, Lau said. The upper school charges about $18,900 a year.

Private school administrators said their schools are weathering the financial storm by drawing from savings and boosting their fundraising.

"At the end of the day, our students are our first priority, and we're doing everything we can to support them," said Angela Blagg, a spokeswoman for Bishop Gorman High School, the Catholic high school.

Trageton said she and her husband realize they will make financial sacrifices to afford to send two sons to Faith Lutheran next year. An older son, Tyler, 13, is already enrolled and will be a ninth-grader next year.

"The kids are the future," Trageton said. "We have to provide for them."

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

Share & Save

Leave Your Comment	9 Reader Comments
Terms & Conditions The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor. Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. anthony wrote on May 31, 2009 02:56 PM: The best thing for this state would be to give each childs parents control of the money the state pays on their behalf to these substandard public schools. This would create more private schools and the teachers could get jobs there. I truly believe the parnets can manage the money better than the School District, all you have to do is visit a public school while it is in session to see the waste of taxpayers money, very top heavy with high paid administrators. Abolish_public_education wrote on May 31, 2009 01:59 PM: Last I checked, by law homeschooled kids have the right to play on district sports teams. Though my kids would probably benefit from having access to the facilities and playing at competitive levels, we still won't take advantage of it. We don't want ANYTHING to do with CCSD. Wayne wrote on May 31, 2009 01:27 PM: No I am not connected with Insight, but I know some kids who are attending this online school. They are self-motivated to do the schoolwork. If kids are not self-motivated, there is NO way that kids will succeed in any school environment. If the program works, I could care less if the money is going to some out-of-state company. If Nevada had such a program and it ran as well as Insight, then I would applaud that program as well. The question remains --- Why doesn't a Nevada state company run a program as successful as Insight? Perhaps CCSD and CCEA don't want a program such as this one to succeed. Abolish_public_education wrote on May 31, 2009 12:00 PM: CCSD parent Joni Trageton said: It's scary what's going on .. They're cutting into the sports program. [Good Heaven's. NO!] I've seen the arts get cut, special needs get cut, even a program like GATE What's the big deal? CCSD has already eliminated the 3R's. Why should arts, football, and G&T be protected from mere cuts? Can we please stop talking about Republican style, big government ideas like vouchers?! Government solutions DON'T WORK. Government money always comes with strings. When private schools become dependent upon public funding they'll start performing like PUBLIC schools. Besides, government funding (such as vouchers) will just draw shady education operators into the market. Like those huckster trade schools who advertise on TV, and lure you with info that you might qualify for "government loans". COMPETITION works. Get the government completely OUT of education. Almost overnight new private schools will come into the marketplace to fill the demand for quality education services. For all tastes and price-points. Religious schools, secular schools, arts schools, football schools, etc. $20,000 per year schools, $20 per week schools. And on and on. This is all so obvious. The only reason we haven't gone this route yet is because the Republicrats are beholden to the special interests" Democrats to the education unions, and Republicans to the education contractors. Chris wrote on May 31, 2009 09:26 AM: Wayne--do you have a relationship with Insight School? I'll have to look into this school further--very interesting to me. Am I understanding correctly that Insight is a for-profit company from Arizona taking Nevada taxpayer money to run an on-line high school? John & Patrick--I like the idea of choice, but while it is easy to present the idea, much harder to actually show how to implement it. NV currently pays approximately $5,000 per student for K-12 education. Private schools are charging $10,000 to $20,000 per student. The voucher theory would distribute the $5K to the parent as a voucher, but how would that allow them to choose a $20K school? Wayne wrote on May 31, 2009 09:09 AM: If I had high school-aged children, I would place them in Insight School of Nevada. This school has dedicated teachers, a responsive administration, and a rigorous curriculum. Cost -- absolutely nothing, Contact the school at 1-800-208-1931. BTW -- There are NO disciplinary problems, no drugs, or violence on the school campus. The students are engaged in only ONE endeavor -- EDUCATION. Chris wrote on May 31, 2009 08:36 AM: Patrick--we've been through this before. In Clark County, there are no private high schools that without a religious affiliation that cost under $9,000. The Meadows School for example is $20,000. Same goes for your numbers for elementary school and kindergarten (and you have never actually offered the name of a single school under $2,000). John wrote on May 31, 2009 08:13 AM: Patrick, I could only imagine what the NEA/CCEA response to your proposal would be....I imagine something involving nails and a chalkboard. Parents should have free choice in where they educate their children and which school system to support, but the educrats would have a fit. Patrick wrote on May 31, 2009 08:02 AM: There are actually many private schools in Nevada that charge much less than $9,000. Several high schools charge around $6,000-7,000 and many elementary schools charge around $3,000-4,000. I've even seen some pre-k-k schools charge as little as $1,500-2k. The legislature can help parents afford schools by offering tuition tax credits while helping low-income children through scholarship programs.