It took nearly seven hours of heated -- and sometimes tearful -- discussion Thursday, but the Attendance Zone Advisory Commission hammered out recommended boundaries for the three new high schools slated to open in Clark County in August.
The 12 volunteer members of the commission, appointed by the Clark County School Board, came to the decisions following weeks of public meetings with community members, parents, students and district staff. The School Board, which has the final say on zoning issues, will vote March 2 on boundaries for the new Spring Valley, Del Sol and Canyon Springs high schools.
Del Sol is located in the southeast region of the Clark County School District, Canyon Springs is in the northeast region of the school district and Spring Valley is in the southwest region. All three school sites were selected to alleviate overcrowding at nearby schools as well as provide the seats the district expects to need in coming years.
With nearly 12,000 students and 19 high schools ultimately affected, the zoning commissioners said they struggle to draw enrollment boundaries that will provide a population for new schools with minimal disruption to existing schools.
"We're not going to make everyone happy -- we'll try, but it's just not going to happen," Neil Roth, one of the commission members, said. "This is a very emotional situation for people -- we're talking about the lives and future of their kids."
Kathy Johnson was one of the Green Valley High School parents who left Thursday's meeting disappointed. Moving nearly 300 students to Del Sol will disrupt Green Valley's award-winning music program, Johnson said.
"They had a meeting for the families (slated for rezoning) and one person said they wanted to go to Del Sol," Johnson said. "What's the point of having the meetings if they're not going to take into consideration what people want?"
The Attendance Zoning Advisory Commission, or AZAC as it is called by district administrators, was created by the School Board in the early 1990s as a way of gathering public input about zoning changes. In addition to considering whether schools are under or over capacity, socio-economic factors and ethnic diversity are considered, said Dusty Dickens, director of zoning and demographics for the district.
The district's ultimate goal is to get every high school to about 2,700 students, Dickens said. At the same time the district struggles to align "feeder school" boundaries so that students from the same elementary schools go on to middle school and then high school together.
"There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle," Dickens said.
Based on the advisory commission's recommendation, Del Sol's enrollment could include: 980 students from Silverado High School, 367 students from Green Valley High School; 1,026 students from Chaparral High School, 898 students from Las Vegas High School, and 306 from Valley High School. The projected numbers are based on geographic enrollment data and do not include students who may attend magnet programs or receive zoning waivers to attend a school other than Del Sol, Dickens said.
Parental frustration was evident at the meeting, as people talked about their fears of their children losing friends, opportunities for athletics and special programs or the chance to go to the same school where their older siblings had graduated.
Mark Jacobs, who has a daughter in the eighth grade and a son who is a sophomore at Silverado, said he was fed up with being told by the district where his children could attend school.
"I'm going to take it out of your hands," Jacobs told the commission members. "My Realtor is out right now looking for a house across the street from Silverado."
But Silverado Principal Mark Coleman -- who was at the meeting for Jacobs' remarks -- warned the upset father that proximity doesn't guarantee enrollment.
Since he arrived as principal four years ago Silverado has lost 1,400 students -- many of whom lived close to the school.
Based on the recommendation the advisory commission will make to the School Board Silverado could lost up to 980 students to Del Sol. That will likely mean losing 20 teaching positions as well, Coleman said.
"We're talking about top-quality staff who come and get the job done," Coleman said. "This is going to be tough."
Coleman said he knows Silverado will rebound as it has in the past. Other schools face even greater challenges, Coleman said.
"I feel for Chaparral -- they're going to lose a third of their population," Coleman said. 'And the Las Vegas (High School) kids moving to Chaparral, they're not getting to go to a new school to establish their own traditions, they're stepping in to an established community with its own way of doing things. That's the group that's really getting the brunt of all this."
Some residents of the Lakes master-planned community in northwest Las Vegas were also unhappy that their neighborhoods were being divided between Bonanza and Spring Valley high schools.
"Our kids will be bused right past the kids going to Spring Valley," said Yvonne Boyles, a Lakes resident who has had children graduate from Durango and Bonanza and has an eighth grader at Lawrence. "We were hoping this would be an opportunity to stabilize our community."
Clark County School Board member Sheila Moulton, who attended the afternoon session of the zoning advisory commission meeting, said she was impressed by the knowledge displayed by the members as well as their concern for the impact on students and schools.
"This is not an enviable job and they do it exceptionally well," Moulton said. "Now the decision is in our hands."
With 268,300 students Clark County is the nation's sixth-largest school district and the fastest-growing. The district has opened at least 10 new schools for each of the last four years and will open a total of 14 new campuses for the 2004-05 academic year.
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