North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown and City Council members award city schools with $27,500 in small grants for Mariachi programs Wednesday Dec. 21, 2022.
Sunday, Dec. 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
It takes a lot to keep the large Bridger Middle School mariachi program going.
Close to 250 students are in the classes, filling up eight periods at the North Las Vegas school. And 19 of the most advanced young musicians are in the Mariachi Los Halcones band that travels to competitions.
Instruments and uniforms wear out, said teacher Alfonso Garcia, so the $5,000 that the city granted to the program late last week will go to these essentials that make the traditionally Mexican genre — which fuses opera with folk music — so full and commanding.
Bridger, like many North Las Vegas schools, serves primarily low- and moderate-income families, “which is why this grant will help out so much,” said Garcia, whose program especially needs violins and guitars.
The $5,000 was part of a $265,000 round of funding North Las Vegas carved out of federal pandemic relief funds to boost student and teacher achievement through several “microgrants.”
The city received more than 50 applications and awarded 31 projects to teachers and administrators, with several schools getting multiple awards. The schools received their checks at Thursday’s city council meeting.
Serafin Calvo, the city’s community services and engagement director, said officials reached out to principals to ask how they could help. North Las Vegas has about 40 schools in the Clark County School District, plus several charter schools.
The school administrators reported the same challenges — student academic achievement, chronic absenteeism, teacher retention and recruitment, and family engagement, he said.
One plea for help stood out.
Calvo said he wasn’t expecting to hear from one principal that some kids didn’t come to school because their clothes were dirty and their families had limited access to laundry machines. That school, Civica Academy, received funds to purchase commercial-grade washers and dryers that it would keep on its Carey Avenue campus.
The $265,000 comes from a city pot of more than $1 million for education initiatives. They made a point to set aside funds exclusively for mariachi, as North Las Vegas has a large Latino population, and Calvo said the culturally relevant program motivates children to go to school and gives them skills that they can turn into paying gigs.
Future rounds of funding will include a city-sponsored student mariachi showcase in March at The Amp at Craig Ranch Regional Park. Twenty-six bands have signed up already, Calvo said. The city will also fund the startup for programs at two local schools, if the schools can provide the teachers.
With other grants awarded last week, Lincoln Elementary will partner with the Las Vegas Aces to build community around the “One Canyon” feeder school alignment — the nine elementary and two middle schools that send students to Canyon Springs High School — to encourage good attendance.
Watson Elementary plans to start an after-school gardening club and monthly farmers market. Mackey Academy will build robots with Lego Spike Kits. Elsewhere at Bridger, a teacher will buy books written for older children who need to catch up on their literacy skills.
Microgrants totaling $210,000 went to Dickens, Lincoln, Squires, Cahlan, Fitzgerald, Priest, Scott, Cozine, Simmons, Antonello, Elizondo and Watson grade schools, Bridger and Johnston middle schools, Mackey Academy, Civica Academy and 100 Academy, and Mojave High, the city said.
Along with Bridger, the mariachi programs at Smith, Johnston and Sedway middles, and Canyon Springs and Rancho highs, received $27,500 just for instruments and costumes.
And the city will devote about $27,500 to cover the tuition and certification for four educators to attend the next Leadership Institute of Nevada’s Executive Leadership Academy, an intensive yearlong professional development program.
The North Las Vegas City Council has two educators — Rancho High social studies teacher Isaac Barron, and Mayor and retired elementary school administrator Pamela Goynes-Brown.
“Thank you and congratulations to all of our educators and what you do for our babies in North Las Vegas,” Goynes-Brown said.
