Comments (23) | Add a comment
North Las Vegas school to educate headstrong male pupils
-
K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal
A new public charter school, the Willie H. Brooks Soar Academy, will open in August at Zion United Methodist Church, 2108 North Revere St., near Lake Mead Boulevard. The academy will educate students with disciplinary problems. » Buy this photo
Tools
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Jun. 2, 2011 | 7:50 a.m.
When Tami Bass opens the Willie H. Brooks Soar Academy in August, she wants to offer a "different type of environment" that is sensitive to the ways boys learn.
The all-boys charter school, located on the campus of Zion United Methodist Church in North Las Vegas, will be the first of its kind, state officials said.
The Nevada Board of Education granted the academy its charter in January because it pledged to work with boys who are disciplinary problems, said Steve Canavero, director of the state's Office of Charter Schools. Because it will serve a special population, the school is an exception to state law that otherwise makes it illegal for a public school to discriminate on the basis of gender.
Soar Academy will stress high standards of conduct. Students will be required to wear uniforms of black blazers, white dress shirts and ties. Tennis shoes will not be allowed except for gym.
When socializing, students will be expected to address each other formally, using the title "mister" and a last name, Bass said. The use of first names will be discouraged.
Students also will be expected to assist women and senior citizens by opening doors and offering to carry things for them.
"All those things that we take for granted, some people never learn," Bass said. "If they never see it, they never dream to be it. It's our job to show them what they can be."
Bass hopes the school can serve as many as 250 students. The academy will start with the sixth grade and gradually add grades until it's a 6-12 school.
Bass believes the academy's emphasis on traditional gender roles could go a long way toward reducing social ills, such as teen pregnancy or dropping out of high school.
"I believe there is a divine hierarchy in place, and we've gotten away from it. That's one of the reasons we are seeing so many problems," Bass said.
"Men are born to do certain things as I believe women are born to do certain things. We need to get back to the basics," she said. "There won't be the confusion and sheer anger I see in our young people."
But Bass does not think that men must always be in charge and women must follow.
"All of us are called to lead, but you have to stay in your lane," Bass said. "I have a lane, you have a lane."
The state's first all-boys charter school is named after a woman, Bass' maternal grandmother, Willie H. Brooks.
As a charter school, Soar Academy will receive the same per-pupil funding as other public schools and be given more flexibility for innovation than regular public schools have. Canavero said the state does yet not have an all-female charter school.
Many schools in the Clark County School District offer classes that are all-male or all-female, but their overall enrollment is mixed.
Bass is a lawyer who works for a mental health agency, United Family Services, and teaches political science and criminal justice classes at the College of Southern Nevada.
She also helped start another charter school, the 100 Academy of Excellence. She left that school for "philosophical reasons."
She does not want to use a private contractor, unlike the 100 Academy, to run the daily operations of the Soar Academy, which will be managed by its board of directors.
The new charter school will lease space from the former day care center of Zion United Methodist Church, 2108 North Revere St., North Las Vegas, about two blocks north of West Lake Mead Boulevard.
The school, however, will be secular, following the same curriculum as other public schools. Canavero said the school can lease space from a church as long it's just a business relationship.
Bass acknowledged that national studies on the effectiveness of single-gender education have been mixed. But she also believes that schools must become more creative in educating boys, who "are certainly in more dire straits than young women."
"I believe we should leave no stone unturned considering we're last in the list in the country (for education)," Bass said. "There's nothing we shouldn't try here in the state of Nevada to get us where we need to be. Nothing."
Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal .com or 702-374-7917.
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal 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 use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
What a needed school for our community!
My hat is off to Dr. Bass for having the vision and persistence to be successful in getting this Charter School in our community. This school is the first of it's kind in the State of Nevada and will serve as a Model for the rest of the State and the Western United States. I applaud Dr. Bass and her Board of Directors and wish them many many years of success in educating our young men with standards and morals. I beleive that this is the beginning of changing the lives of many who would otherwise be lost to the penal system. It is the beginning of bringing back STRONG families where Men are the head and the leaders that they are meant to be. Congratulations!! The Community stands with you. Phyllis Beech
There is no need to worry about the families. They will pick and choose only the kids with supportive families. They will turn away anyone who many mess with their spurious statistics. They choose the students who will have the best chance of being successful, and then release stats about how much they are better than public schools. The R-J of course will parrot this. Tell us about how kids at charter schools are better than kids in public schools. One thing they will forget to tell you is that the charter school has the ability to weed out the bad apples, the public schools do not.
Are they going to hire strong black male role models to work at this school, or is it going to be another house full of hens pecking at the kids? Retired police officers? Retired military? These boys need to have positive male role models. Boys want fathers. These guys are going to be the closest thing these kids have to fathers, that is, until some parole, probation or correctional officer becomes their father, but by then it will be too late.
Men are men and women are women? How antiquated...REALLY? Last I checked...we still carry the eggs and you the sperm. Nothing's changed has it?
When the kid shows the symptoms, it's the family that has the problems.
Great idea. Good luck, these young men need someone to have high expections of who they are not only academically, but personally. The failures of other schools in the area is sad because so many of these tough kids would make great future leaders. I am glad to see a real important issue being addressed.
Steve Canavero, director of the state's Office of Charter Schools.
Another government bureaucracy. Another $100K+ educrat, or ten.
More government. Higher taxes.
Charter schools are just another BIG Government, public education gimmick. This one might take 20 years for people to catch wise. In the mean time another few generations of kids would have been ruined, and the crooked politicians would have redistributed many billions of dollars to their friends.
With all this "free" money available for charter schools it's sure to attract charlatans. I actually know one such operator. He gets his per-pupil funding from the district (or whatever the wonkish formula is), supplemented by donations from guilt-ridden whites and cogs in the local political machine. He makes a nice living. He kicks back money to the boys downtown via campaign contributions.
The kids learn nothing except culturally sensitive, self-esteem building nonsense, but their parents really have no choice. The District's regular public schools are physically dangerous and educationally LESS THAN zero.
@ptsd, tough love is a great idea but the problem is the proper tough love is illegal and if we were to kick them out of school they would just end up like their parent.
We have a solution to disciplinary problems boys when i was in school, they were wares of the court, and given the choice of military duty, or imprisoned(which did not work, they only became worse criminals), quit giving these elite a Free Easy Ride, make them work their brains in a Postive Way or pay their dues to society, why are we wasting Legal Taxpayer Dollars for these Failures, kick them out into the real world and let them see what the "School of Hard Knocks" will give them when they have these phony badass days gone and they either change or serve time or be executed in our broken correctional system. We waste money on losers instead of investing in higher education with more options for those who achieve and have degree level programs available for them in the last four years of higher education with options of vocational training to be ready for the job market upon graduation or advancing to another degree level upon completion of 12 years of school and elimating the GED loophole for the misfits to get a head of the line diploma without doing the educational time. Enough Free Rides at Taxpayers Expense, Achieve or suffer the consequences in the Real World!
Good luck.