Crowding squeezes classes out of a room

By Emily Richmond

Monday, Aug. 13, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

In January 2006, principal Betty Roqueni was told her new school would open that August with 534 students.

On opening day, more than 1,200 students showed up.

And Friday, the last day of school for the year-round campus, Roqueni bid a fond farewell to her students - all 1,600 of them.

Welcome to Clark County, the nation's fifth-largest and fastest-growing school district, where a new campus such as William V. Wright Elementary can be over capacity even before the first pair of sneakers scuffs into a classroom.

At Wright, built to serve yet another of the valley's new master-planned communities, Mountain's Edge, this has been a year of crowding at every turn - in the hallways, in the parking lot, in the lunchroom and in the classrooms. In fact, so many children showed up for school that about a dozen teachers and their students were left without classrooms.

After a series of community meetings, traffic patterns were revised to ease congestion and a new seating plan was set up for lunch, so that children could more easily get in, eat and go out and play within the allotted time.

Teachers without classrooms, however, were resigned to leading their students up and down the hallways every three weeks to classrooms that were temporarily vacated because other classes were on track break. On the eve of every classroom shift, the teachers would pack their belongings into boxes and crates, like nomads.

Jennifer Wagenseller, who settled into her own room after three months of roving with her first grade class, said her students viewed the frequent moves as an adventure, and she tried to take it in stride, as well. But she concedes she cheered the day she received her permanent room assignment, and was able to decorate the walls, set up displays and unpack her full classroom library.

As the district was able to install more portable classrooms on the school grounds, the number of roving teachers dropped steadily. By the end of the year, only first grade teacher Tamara VanLeer was still without a room of her own.

VanLeer was philosophical about the situation. She got used to packing and unpacking her large plastic bins full of posters, teaching materials and desk supplies. Each time she was required to move, it would take about a day to pack and a day to unpack, loading the bins onto a small handcart for the journey.

"It would be nice if everybody could have a classroom, but with this kind of growth that's not always going to be possible," said VanLeer, who will become a librarian this year, a long-planned move she said wasn't hastened by the challenges she experienced at Wright.

To be sure, the complications that come with crowding tested everyone, including Roqueni, who is finishing her 33rd year in the Clark County School District.

Because the school was running through basic supplies faster than the district could deliver refills, she found herself mining long-standing connections and friendships for help.

She turned to colleagues at Dondero, Decker and Warren elementary schools, for everything from reading workbooks to paper towels and toilet paper. The principal of Ries Elementary School saved the day with a truckload of chairs.

Roqueni had opened another school in 1999, so she had some idea what challenges she faced. Still, she said, "I couldn't have done this on my own."

On the second-to-last day of school at Wright, head custodian Michelle Skeete is supervising the daily transformation of the multipurpose room into a cafeteria as folding tables are efficiently set in rows and food service workers line up disposable foam trays of turkey hot dogs, Tater Tots and applesauce.

"You figure out a system that works," says Skeete, placing trash bins at the head of each row. "If everyone sticks to it, things run very smoothly."

The first lunch period begins at 11:15 a.m. Within five minutes, eight of the 10 rows of tables are filled with children, munching hot dogs or unpacking meals brought from home. Rather than get up to fetch extra ketchup or approach an adult for help opening their milk cartons, students raise their hands at their seats.

After about 15 minutes, Roqueni picks up a microphone and dismisses students who had finished eating, one row at a time. The students file out in one direction, dumping their trays in the trash. Skeete swiftly replaces garbage bags and mops down tables, managing to stay ahead of the next wave of students.

Watching with interest from the sidelines is Ben Yau, whose son Andrew is finishing third grade at Wright. For the 2007-08 academic year, Andrew will move to the new Forbuss Elementary School, which is closer to his family's home in Rhodes Ranch.

"That's his third school in three years," says Yau, who has surprised his son with a McDonald's Happy Meal as an end-of-school treat. "We've lived in the same house the entire time."

Yau says Wright Elementary has improved its procedures since the start of the year, "when things were kind of disorganized. I don't mind if traffic is heavy. I do mind if the system is lousy."

Wright will be slightly less crowded when the new school year begins Aug. 29. Forbuss Elementary School, near Blue Diamond and Fort Apache roads, is projected to open with 829 students. About half of those students will be coming from Wright, which is near Blue Diamond Road and Durango Drive.

But the district's summertime estimates are notoriously fluid, particularly in fast-growing pockets where new neighborhoods spring up almost overnight.

"We're trying to keep up and figure out where everybody is coming from," said Rick Baldwin, a director in the district's zoning and demographics office.

This past year Wright was bombarded not only by Mountain's Edge residents, but by growth in adjacent Rhodes Ranch. In the meantime Wright's preenrollment figures are already over the district's projection of 1,200 students, and the figure is expected to climb up toward this year's high of 1,600 as the academic year progresses. Although the new Forbuss campus is easing some of the crowding, the real relief won't come until 2009.

That's when another new elementary school opens, just a half-mile away.