Let’s applaud the good stuff happening in our schools

Monday, March 7, 2016 | 2 a.m.

We constantly are reminded how our Clark County School District is struggling to improve student achievement.

But our schools — the students, teachers, administrators and parents, too — are accomplishing terrific things. Even just one person can make a difference (which means we all can, if we put our minds to helping).

In this case, we want to introduce a teenager named Elia Motu. We’ll get to him in a bit.

First, here are some feel-good highlights presented during Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky’s recent state of the district address.

• Twenty-seven National Merit Scholars came from our district in 2015. Fifteen other students received military service academy appointments.

• Last year, the district was named the AP (Advanced Placement) District of the Year based on a growing number of students — especially traditionally underserved minority students — taking AP classes and scoring better on AP tests.

• In Newsweek’s ranking of the top 500 high schools in the nation last year, four were from the Clark County School District: College of Southern Nevada High School West, Advanced Technologies Academy (ATech), CSN High School East and West Career and Technical Academy.

• A record six high schools had 100 percent of their seniors graduate. And, in the never-say-die department, 585 seniors who didn’t have enough units to graduate in spring stuck to it and graduated in summer.

• Ten high schools saw graduation rates increase by more than 10 percent over the past three years, with Sunrise Mountain leading with a 20 percent increase.

We can appreciate the heartening data, and we need to applaud the people behind these success stories. So Skorkowsky offered individual shout-outs too. Among them:

The PTO at Sandra Thompson Elementary, under the leadership of Principal Shawn Halland and PTA President Kirsten Husaker, was named one of the top 25 PTAs in the nation, and at Cortez Elementary, Principal Belinda Jones and parent Brandi Baez got credit for launching the first PTO at the school in nine years.

Lawrence Junior High’s Best Buddies chapter was named the best middle school chapter in the international network for promoting one-on-one friendships between students with, and without, disabilities. The audience met two such students who melted everyone’s hearts as they held hands and smiled at each other: Sarah Millich, who has Down syndrome, and her best buddy, Tracy Wright.

And now we come to Elia Motu. He’s a Sunrise Mountain senior. Several years ago, his single mom lost her job near San Diego, leading to a housing crisis for the family that devolved from living in a motel to a homeless shelter to friends’ and family members’ homes. Along the way, Elia attended three high schools before the family moved to Las Vegas in 2014 for a new start.

Elia’s transcripts from California were in disarray, and by all appearances he was several classes short of being on track. So he put his nose to the books and caught up. His counselor, John Teran, who credits Elia’s mother for being actively engaged in her son’s academic life, asked Elia to speak to more than 200 freshmen, in small groups, about motivation, discipline and perseverance.

Teran won’t forget what he heard Elia telling the younger kids: “You may think it’s cool to drop out of school, but then you won’t succeed in life. You’re better off to do what you’ve got to do in school, then go to college and live comfortably. Do you want to be cool for just four years or be cool for the rest of your life?”

During Skorkowsky’s speech, Elia stood on stage, in coat and tie, accepting applause for his efforts. Then he pointed to his mom in the audience and applauded her. So did everyone else, and it got quite noisy.

So do we think there’s some great stuff going on in our schools? You bet we do.