Incline schools take center stage in the community where parents and kids join with business and government leaders to provide a high quality of education that extends from pre-school to life long learning. This community spirit and involvement supports innovative programs that are implemented by highly qualified and dedicated teachers and school administrators.

Community involvement with the schools is at its best on stage at the Incline Star Follies, a fun-filled fundraiser variety show now in its eighth year. The follies stars more than 120 students and community members and raises close to $100,000 each year for all of Incline’s public schools.

Combined with fundraising events held by Rotary clubs, local Realtors, the elementary school Jog-A-Thon, the high school Crab Feed and Moonlight Serenade, and Incline Schools Academic Education Foundation, plenty of money is being raised to ensure that important art, music and physical education programs are available for all Incline students.

Last year, Incline’s two elementary schools (grades K-2 and 3-5) received a substantial grant, the largest in the Washoe County School District. This one-and-a-half-year grant enabled the schools to implement full-day kindergarten and provide a full-time literacy coach in each school. Principal Frank Garrity, who oversees both schools with assistance from a vice principal or dean at each school acknowledges, “results have been extraordinary.”

Kindergarten students are more prepared to enter first grade and all students in general are performing at a higher level.

An active PTA at the elementary level support science fairs and a Meet the Masters program in which parents come into the classrooms to teach art and other enrichment programs. Parents also pay to fund a full time certified physical education teacher, when many Washoe County schools have had to drop their PE programs entirely.

After school programs that support and enhance learning utilize community volunteers. These include the Children’s Cabinet Homework Club for first and second graders and the Incline Afterschool Organization that offers academics as well as athletics.

This year, Incline Middle School welcomed new Principal Kathleen Watty. More than one third of Middle School students earned enough points to quality for a rewards program that emphasizes citizenship, overall GPA, attendance, academic improvement, behavior and community service. Students compete successfully in spelling bees, geography and math competitions at the local level and four eighth graders advanced to the State Math Counts Competition in 2007.

Incline High School was voted one of the 500 best high schools in the nation in 2006. The number of graduates to pursue higher education is 90%, among the top percentages in the west. This is a commendable achievement, considering that approximately 50 of incoming kindergarten students speak English as a second language.

Each year the high school graduates an average of four National Merit Scholars.
Advanced placement and special education classes are regularly offered for qualifying students. A new AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) class is open to students who have the ability to succeed but have not applied themselves. This class focuses on skills necessary for academic success such as listening, note taking, organization, written and oral presentation. Begun as a freshmen class, within four years it will be offered at all grade levels, according to Incline High School principal John Clark.

Plans are in the works for a new athletic stadium on the site of the old one. The new facility will include a new football field, bleachers, track and lights. The project is expected to break ground in the spring of 2008 and be ready for sports with the start of school that fall.

In addition to high performing public schools, the independent Lake Tahoe School provides intimate classes and personalized learning for Pre-K through 8th grade. The emphasis is on challenging and supporting every student with a variety of classes from a core academic curriculum to a foreign language (Spanish), art, music, speech and drama, music, science, computers and physical education. Students, teachers and administrators are actively involved in community service projects and in outdoor educations programs that emphasize caring for the environment.

Incline Village is a college town and the community reaps the benefits. Sierra Nevada College, founded in 1969, is Nevada’s only four-year private liberal arts college. In partnership with IVGID, the college invites seniors to audit classes in a continuing education program called Life Long Learning. SNC has recently joined with Knowledge Universe Learning Group (KULG) in a partnership that will open new avenues for community members to enjoy lectures, forums and workshops.

Students will have greater access to on-line learning opportunities that will complement the school’s traditional small classes and personal contact with professors, some of whom are world-renowned and actively working in their fields.

Sierra Nevada College has a highly acclaimed teacher education program in both northern and southern Nevada and offers a Masters of Arts in Teaching. The campus at Tahoe Boulevard and Country Club Drive includes residential dormitories and a dining hall, the Prim Library and Resource Center and the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences.

The TCES, a partnership between SNC, UC Davis, UNR and DRI, houses world-class research and teaching laboratories and an interactive education center where the public is invited to explore the science of healthy alpine lakes and watersheds. Each summer for more than 20 years, the college has hosted Visiting Artists Workshops where world-renowned artists bring their teaching talents to share with students and the community.

Incline’s youngest residents and their parents have a choice of religious or sectarian preschools and the Le Petite Kids Club, a licensed day care center for children from birth to school-age that has a pre-school-like curriculum. The Village Christian Preschool and Childcare Center is a ministry of The Village Presbyterian Church, The Incline Village Nursery School, founded in 1970, is a nationally accredited non-denominational pre-school located in the Episcopal Church. All these schools nurture young children, develop positive social skills and build personal confidence in loving and caring environments.