Program among finalists for public service award

Nevada's program is one of 96 other finalists in the 1998 Innovations in American Government awards competition, which recognizes innovative governmental programs. Ten programs will be awarded $100,000 grants in October.

Innovations in American Government, formed in 1986, is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Council for Excellence in Government, a national non-profit group.

The Classroom on Wheels program, or "COW," takes teachers into Reno and Las Vegas neighborhoods to help prepare 3-, 4- and 5-year-old at-risk children for kindergarten and first grades.

Teachers hold class in a school bus converted into a classroom, with the outside painted white with big black spots.

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