More charter school options on the horizon for Las Vegas families

Steve Marcus

Whitney McIntosh, founding principal at Young Womens Leadership Academy of Las Vegas, speaks during an open house meeting at Winchester Cultural Center Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. The all-girls charter school is scheduled to open next school year on the east side.

By Hillary Davis (contact)

Tuesday, March 22, 2022 | 2 a.m.

As founding principal of Cactus Park Elementary, Karli Casto is leading the extensive remodeling and landscaping of a former indoor swap meet at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Pecos Road to become a schoolhouse.

There will be a namesake cactus garden, another garden where the kids will plant fruits, vegetables and herbs, and living quarters for goats and chickens.

Casto said the pandemic gave people the time and circumstances to reassess the education priorities of their children. The families that have connected to Cactus Park so far — about 125 students have applied since December — want a change, she said.

Cactus Park is one of seven new charter schools planning to open in August in the Las Vegas Valley, potentially giving up to 3,100 students a different education option.

“They might say, ‘I feel like I’m looking for something different,’ or ‘I want to work somewhere where my wellness is valued,’” Casto said. “With students and families, the same thing — they had time to say, ‘What is it that’s really important? And can I find that?’ ”

According to the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, roughly 50,000 Southern Nevada students combined this year to attend 60 charter schools, which are tuition-free, public institutions that are publicly funded and privately operated with state oversight. Charter schools are open to all children — regardless of ZIP code — and often provide smaller class sizes, and areas of concentration such as science and art.

Getting a charter school off the ground takes at least a couple of years, so schools that are opening in August had likely been conceived of before the outset of the pandemic in early 2020. Five are fresh on the local school choice scene, a peak showing for new state-approved operators.

Rebecca Feiden, executive director of the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, said seven is on the high side for a single year of new charter schools, but not necessarily indicative of a trend. Two of the schools deferred their opening by a year because outreach was difficult during the pandemic, she noted.

Kathy Rudd, principal of Battle Born Academy, which will open in August, said new charters are responding to inequity toward socioeconomically disadvantaged children.

Many of the new schools are without the backing of a network, and most are setting up shop in parts of town where both household incomes and educational outcomes for children are low. Battle Born Academy checks both boxes.

Rudd is narrowing down locations just north of downtown Las Vegas, where at least 25% of people live below the poverty line.

Rudd and her assistant principal both previously taught in the Clark County School District and worked at Teach For America’s local office.

The two administrators knocked on doors in 2020 to ask families what they needed in a school. Those front-porch conversations catalyzed them to submit their application to the state within months.

“We were talking about the idea of a charter school, and then we all shut down. In some ways, that gave us a really clear insight into talking to families — the rug got ripped (from) underneath them,” Rudd said. “For the first time, some families were really taking a pause to examine what was being offered in schools, what school was like for their children. What was actually happening every day in school was now happening in their living room.

“When we started talking with families, their sense of urgency sped us up,” she added. “We probably would have opened at some point … but our families were like, ‘No, like, I need an option’ ” sooner than later.

Most charter schools try to carve out a niche beyond small class sizes. Cactus Park has indoor/outdoor classrooms, while Battle Born will be “project-based.”

Students will think big-picture in every subject — “learning through the lens of a bigger project around big, worldly, weighty questions” and culminating with actions like testifying before the legislature or designing a mural, Rudd said.

At the Young Women’s Leadership Academy of Las Vegas, which has a girl-centered model, Principal Whitney McIntosh said enrollment is already halfway to her first-year, 150-student target.

She said parents are drawn to the gendered focus, which is uncommon in Nevada, and the near-perfect high school graduation and college acceptance rates of the academy’s sister schools nationwide. As she’d hoped, most students so far are from the working-class east valley neighborhoods near the campus off McLeod Drive and Desert Inn Road.

“A lot of families are really excited about the promise of what it could be long-term for their scholars,” she said.