Magnet schools dream big

By Ian Whitaker

Monday, March 9, 2015 | 2:01 a.m.

At Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, students sing in the hallways and limber up in stairwells. At the Academy of Sports Marketing and Media Communications at Desert Pines High School, they shoot video news reports for PBS and run the only school-sponsored radio station in the state. At the Academy at Jim Bridger Middle School, pupils build robots and drones.

That’s in addition to taking regular classes.

The Clark County School District, while still struggling by several measures, has found its most pronounced success with magnet programs, specialty tracks that allow K-12 students to take in-depth classes in such professional fields as engineering, hospitality and law.

Magnet students report feeling more supported by educators, have higher attendance rates and perform well on standardized tests, studies show. Many have won national scholastic recognition and earned spots at top colleges.

Magnet schools help unlock students’ innate desire to learn by ditching lectures in favor of hands-on experiences in subjects students find interesting, Rancho High School teacher Gary Archambeault said. Locally, there are magnets that focus on animation, aviation, Web design, finance, military leadership, geology, Chinese, culinary arts, sports marketing, public safety, costume design and mariachi music.

Clark County school officials plan next year to introduce seven new programs, increasing the number of students who can participate from about 5,724 to 8,570. The following year, four more magnets will open with another 400 seats. There are 319,000 students in the Clark County School District.

Because magnet school programs don’t cost parents tuition and any student in the district can apply, demand is high. The number of applicants dwarfs the number of seats available, and the district has only enough space to enroll about a third of students who’d like to attend.

What makes magnets so effective? To find out, you have to enter the classroom.

MOAPA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL

Agriculture | 2400 St. Joseph St., Overton | 120 students

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There are lots of smells at Moapa Valley High’s 40-acre farm — hay, manure, mulch. There, students plant, tend to, harvest and sell hundreds of bags of produce a year. Older students raise calves and steer. Students and administrators work more closely with FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America) than the school district.

The farm program isn’t a magnet per se, but it is similar to one in that students learn skills. The agriculture class is an elective, though students who work on the farm often outpace their peers in courses such as AP biology.

“We go in there knowing so much about photosynthesis and plants, the first two months of class were just review,” junior Bailey Kesl said.

Textbooks are manuals for tractors and heavy equipment. Students learn chemistry to keep soil fertile and business to keep the farm running efficiently.

The farm is where Baxter Baker, 16, learned how to trap problem animals. He used to want to be firefighter like his father. Now, he plans on becoming a government trapper.

“As I look for different places to catch animals, I learn how they lived there and how they survived,” Baker said.

LAS VEGAS ACADEMY OF THE ARTS

Performing and creative arts magnet | 315 S. Seventh St., Las Vegas | 1,848 applicants for 420 seats in 2014

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Don’t think of Las Vegas Academy of the Arts as a school. It’s more of a professional theater with a school around it.

“I’ve never had such a deep talent pool to draw from as a director,” said Erik Amblad, managing director of the school’s theater program. “They’re embracing a discipline here that most actors I know professionally don’t have.”

Renowned directors and stage technicians work alongside students to stitch costumes, hammer sets together and dial in lighting. Students in the visual arts program snap photos, animate characters and make pottery.

A small group of senior acting students cloisters in a room to practice singing. Magnet students are given lots of space to work by themselves and with each other.

“When we are in the creative process, it makes us develop an aspect of critical thinking and maturity,” said Collen Whitton, 17.

“They’re challenged intellectually here,” theater teacher Megan Ahern said. “They’re just challenged through the arts.”

MABEL HOGGARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Science, technology, engineering and math | 950 N. Tonopah Drive, Las Vegas | 1,201 applicants for 75 seats in 2014

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At Mabel Hoggard Elementary School, learning is hands-on.

The science curriculum is devoid of textbooks. Instead, students make miniature hot-air balloons to experiment with air density, and they build machines from Legos to learn mechanics.

In math, students not only tackle hard problems, they have to defend their answers and explain their reasoning.

Hoggard is Clark County’s first and most decorated magnet program.

“At my last school, (teachers) just told us the information and didn’t let the kids do anything,” said Oni Boulware, 8, a third-grader. Once she enrolled at Hoggard, Oni said, “I wanted to keep learning.”

RANCHO HIGH SCHOOL

Aerospace, engineering and pre-medicine magnet | 1900 Searles Ave., Las Vegas | 2,074 applicants for 310 seats in 2014

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The students in Rancho High School’s aerospace engineering program are used to a steady stream of onlookers.

It’s not the student-built biplane hanging from their workshop ceiling or the massive radial aircraft engine that captures attention. What draws looks are the drones whizzing around, the gigantic robots clanging on the floor and the sight of peers flying virtual airplanes on computers.

Rancho’s aviation magnet began in 1997 and is affiliated with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest and most distinguished school of its kind. Magnet students can earn college credit from Embry-Riddle with high school classes. Other graduates go on to college at MIT, Purdue, Harvard and Oxford.

Isaac Salmon, 17, said he always loved aviation but felt trapped in traditional schools that treated him like a receptacle for knowledge rather than a participant in it. At Rancho, projects are designed by students, not dictated by teachers, and students engineer their own creations.

Isaac helped develop a drone that can fly over cornfields and identify crops damaged by insects, an invention that won third place last year in a national science competition.

“I love the hands-on part of it and being able to actually touch and feel and see what you’re actually doing,” he said. “I do this stuff for fun now.”

ELDORADO HIGH SCHOOL

Video game technology and web design magnet | 1139 N. Linn Lane, Las Vegas | 630 applicants for 365 seats in 2015

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School is out at Eldorado High School, except for a few students who stay behind to play video games in the school library.

You could call it research. The teens applied to Eldorado’s soon-to-open video game technology magnet, where students will learn to code, design and build software.

“You get to build games,” program director Brandi Weekes said. “That’s your lesson for the day.”

Derrek Buck, 15, wants in on the action — and the $21 billion software industry as a beta tester for Nintendo. He hopes his number is called for a spot in the magnet. He thinks it would give him the skills he needs to break into a field he has been in love with since he was 5.

“I want to code games, animate them and even make the hardware for them,” Derrek said. “I hope to revolutionize gaming to the point where you’re physically in the game. I imagine going into the game and being in a whole new place.”