School with rich history takes a leading role

By Emily Richmond

Monday, Feb. 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

If Nina Hooks ever tires of teaching, she could have a second career at sporting events.

The pre-kindergarten teacher’s powerful rendition of the national anthem was a highlight of Wednesday’s dedication ceremony at Kermit Roosevelt Booker Sr. Empowerment Elementary School, which moved into its new campus in August.

The replacement school was built on the original Martin Luther King Boulevard site, with an unrivaled level of design input from the community and students.

Longtime Clark County School Board member and former district Principal Shirley Barber remembers the 1970s, when the Booker campus was transformed into a sixth-grade center, the district’s solution to a federal order calling for Clark County’s schools to be more integrated.

Students from throughout the district made new friends with children who lived in other neighborhoods and learned tolerance at the center, Barber told the audience. And now, as one of eight “empowerment schools,” Booker is again a model for the community, Barber said.

“Booker’s distinctive history is in many ways symbolic of the evolution of education in our valley,” said Barber, whose third term on the board ends this year. “It has had its struggles, but here it is now — leading the way to change in this community and the Clark County School District.”

Because Booker is an empowerment school, Principal Beverly Mathis has more control over daily operations, hiring and budgetary decisions. But it’s the level of community involvement in the school that really sets Booker apart, said Lauren Kohut-Rost, deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

During a recent tour of “learning cottages,” Kohut-Rost found a parent or grandparent volunteering in nearly every classroom.

“I have never seen that before,” Kohut-Rost told the standing-room only audience. “It was incredible.”

Booker’s students have typically done well academically, even when they didn’t have a school to call their own. Last year, while operating in portable classrooms at nearby Wendell Williams Elementary School, Booker earned “exemplary” status on standardized tests, the highest possible rating under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

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Charter school supporters hoping for a quick resolution to the State Board of Education’s moratorium came away disappointed from a Thursday meeting called by lawmakers to discuss the issue.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, and chairwoman of the Legislative Committee on Education, said she was pleased by the wealth of information shared during the six-hour meeting at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, one of eight charter schools in the Clark County School District.

“I think we really laid everything out on the table,” Parnell said.

Lawmakers expressed interest in the Colorado model of charter school governance, which assigns the responsibilities to a specially created entity.

But regardless of who becomes responsible, “if we have one thing we can all agree on today, it’s that we need resources,” Parnell said.

In November the State Board of Education, citing a lack of resources, put a hold on approval of new charter school applications. The vote came a month after the Clark County School District took the same action, for the same reason.

State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio sought a clarification on the moratorium.

Raggio asked Keith Rheault, Nevada’s superintendent of public instruction, for the state board’s definition of “temporary.” “Is it six months? Is it two years?”

Rheault said the two staff members assigned to charter schools have 11 applications in the pipeline. The moratorium was intended to give them the chance to catch up. Rheault stopped short of saying when the moratorium would be lifted. “Temporary is just what it is,” Rheault said. “Until we can address some of the issues.”

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In case there was any question why reviewing applications and monitoring charter schools is so time-consuming, Edward Goldman, associate superintendent for the Clark County School District, sought to clear the air at Thursday’s meeting.

“You made the rules and asked us to ensure compliance,” Goldman told the education committee. “We spend an inordinate amount of time on the issues because that’s what the law requires. We take it seriously, and we follow through.”