With enrollment on verge of rising, will there be enough private schools in Nevada?

By Ian Whitaker

Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015 | 2 a.m.

State officials announced on Tuesday that more than a thousand families had applied for the state’s sweeping new education savings account program with the hope of receiving money to spend on things like private school tuition. That’s almost as many people as have enrolled in Arizona’s ESA program in five years.

But what about capacity at Nevada private schools?

One of the main arguments in favor of the program was that it would spark an avalanche of private schools moving into Nevada to compete for students. Michael Chartier of the Friedman Foundation, one of the libertarian organizations that played a key role in drafting the legislation, said in June that private schools would flock to the state.

So far, though, that hasn’t happened. No new private schools have opened in the state this year, according to Donna Wix, private school coordinator for the Nevada Department of Education.

That’s not necessarily bad news, said Wix, mainly because the program is relatively new.

“If someone seriously wanted to open a private school to take advantage of the program,” Wix said, “they would probably start getting ready in the spring so they could open next fall.”

That has to happen, say some experts, because Nevada currently doesn’t have enough private schools. There are few in inner city neighborhoods, and even fewer in rural communities.

Right now, there are only about 20,000 private school students in Nevada, one of the lowest figures in the nation. In Arizona, for instance, 55,000 students are enrolled in private schools.

But with the number of private school students on the verge of rising in Nevada, the big question is whether more seats will become available for them. And so far nobody has the answer.

“We don't know what will happen,” said Seth Rau, policy director for education think-tank Nevada Succeeds. “It’s not guaranteed."

Wix said she had received only one phone call from someone expressing interest in starting a private school in Nevada.

It may be too early to tell what things will look like in 2016, but the program’s rollout is coming up soon. The first ESA students could start attending private schools as early as January.

While some private schools have room to expand, others are at full capacity. Faith Lutheran, the largest private school in the state, is one of those.

“For all practical purposes, we’re full up,” said Steven Buuck, Faith Lutheran’s director. “We can probably wedge in maybe 10.”

The school has 1,700 students at its Summerlin campus and wants to expand to twice that, but Buuck expects it could take as long as 15 years due to the sheer amount of fundraising involved.

Contrast that with Mountain View Christian School, which currently has around 400 students but has room for a lot more.

“We have probably one of the greatest capacities to take students,” said school director Crystal Van Kempen-McClanahan. “We could probably take 500 to 600 students in a perfect world.”

Nobody knows exactly how many seats are currently available, mostly because the state education department doesn’t keep those statistics. An informal survey by the Treasurer’s Office and the Friedman Foundation estimated there were around 6,000 empty seats statewide.

“We figure that’s a good number,” said Grant Hewitt, chief of staff to Treasurer Dan Schwartz, whose office is responsible for the rollout of the program.

Six thousand seats should be more than enough, but it could all come down to how many families end up applying for the program. A thousand applications have been submitted in the last week and a half, and the enrollment period lasts through November.

“We are expecting that it’s going to absolutely explode,” said Van-Kempen McClanahan. “We’re just trying to prepare ourselves.”