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ENLARGE
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Warning: The following column is not my usual partisan discourse but should (hopefully) be of keen interest to all Incline/Crystal Bay voters and residents.
First of all the background. Just-retired Washoe County Superintendent of Schools Paul Dugan regularly visited our little mountain community with charts showing a steady erosion of student population at Incline High School ... on average total enrollment was declining by about 20 kids per year. Rotary President Gary Lee, whose kids have alternately attended public school and Lake Tahoe (private) School, decided to do something about this.
Gary and I visited Dugan to discuss possible solutions to this dilemma. As a proximate result last February the superintendent convened a committee of volunteers to come up with a road map for the future of education in our little isolated and sometimes snowbound community.
The key challenge was that if the student population continued to decline there would be less and less funding available for Incline schools because Nevada reimburses school districts on a per student basis. That would impact the availability of excellence and enrichment classes and the decline would feed on itself. One of the committee members was IVGID General Manager Bill Horn who shared utility bill data showing that the incidence of second homes in Incline/Crystal Bay was increasing.
How do you fix this problem?
Among the talents on the committee was Incline High School language teacher Jeni Cross who advocated implementing the International Baccalaureate program in Incline/Crystal Bay. Further studies showed that student participants in the program developed a high degree of morale, excelled at their studies as well as sports and had a significant advantage in admissions to top colleges and scholarship opportunities. Perhaps the most significant advantage was the fact that English learners (approaching 50 percent of Incline students) would be on more of a level playing field because of the program's emphasis on foreign language proficiency. In other words, native Spanish speakers could tutor native English speakers (and vice versa).
The North Lake Tahoe Bonanza has been very supportive of the IB proposal. Its reporters have made independent investigations into school districts which have implemented IB and reported on the universally positive results. If Incline/Crystal Bay can become the 17th of only 16 areas nationwide to feature IB from kindergarten to 12th grade, would that in turn create a demand for people to locate here for the educational opportunities?
The challenges can be boiled down to one word ... money. No one can have escaped the fact that Nevada's education budget has been significantly reduced. That directly impacts K-12 school spending. Incoming Superintendent Heath Morrison is a huge supporter of IB and has been more than supportive of the “IB in IV” effort. Unfortunately he cannot spend money he doesn't have, particularly when there are strong prospects of a special session of the legislature to revise the budget downward.
Implementation costs over a 10-year period are projected to be in the range of $400,000 but look at the return on investment. The probable results should be: families flocking here to get their kids in our schools, a surge in home values, new businesses opening to accommodate an increasing year-round populace and, most important, students excelling at their studies and being recruited by the nation's top universities.
Incline/Crystal Bay, we can do this.
— Jim Clark is President of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee; he can be reached at tahoesbjc@aol.com.
First of all the background. Just-retired Washoe County Superintendent of Schools Paul Dugan regularly visited our little mountain community with charts showing a steady erosion of student population at Incline High School ... on average total enrollment was declining by about 20 kids per year. Rotary President Gary Lee, whose kids have alternately attended public school and Lake Tahoe (private) School, decided to do something about this.
Gary and I visited Dugan to discuss possible solutions to this dilemma. As a proximate result last February the superintendent convened a committee of volunteers to come up with a road map for the future of education in our little isolated and sometimes snowbound community.
The key challenge was that if the student population continued to decline there would be less and less funding available for Incline schools because Nevada reimburses school districts on a per student basis. That would impact the availability of excellence and enrichment classes and the decline would feed on itself. One of the committee members was IVGID General Manager Bill Horn who shared utility bill data showing that the incidence of second homes in Incline/Crystal Bay was increasing.
How do you fix this problem?
Among the talents on the committee was Incline High School language teacher Jeni Cross who advocated implementing the International Baccalaureate program in Incline/Crystal Bay. Further studies showed that student participants in the program developed a high degree of morale, excelled at their studies as well as sports and had a significant advantage in admissions to top colleges and scholarship opportunities. Perhaps the most significant advantage was the fact that English learners (approaching 50 percent of Incline students) would be on more of a level playing field because of the program's emphasis on foreign language proficiency. In other words, native Spanish speakers could tutor native English speakers (and vice versa).
The North Lake Tahoe Bonanza has been very supportive of the IB proposal. Its reporters have made independent investigations into school districts which have implemented IB and reported on the universally positive results. If Incline/Crystal Bay can become the 17th of only 16 areas nationwide to feature IB from kindergarten to 12th grade, would that in turn create a demand for people to locate here for the educational opportunities?
The challenges can be boiled down to one word ... money. No one can have escaped the fact that Nevada's education budget has been significantly reduced. That directly impacts K-12 school spending. Incoming Superintendent Heath Morrison is a huge supporter of IB and has been more than supportive of the “IB in IV” effort. Unfortunately he cannot spend money he doesn't have, particularly when there are strong prospects of a special session of the legislature to revise the budget downward.
Implementation costs over a 10-year period are projected to be in the range of $400,000 but look at the return on investment. The probable results should be: families flocking here to get their kids in our schools, a surge in home values, new businesses opening to accommodate an increasing year-round populace and, most important, students excelling at their studies and being recruited by the nation's top universities.
Incline/Crystal Bay, we can do this.
— Jim Clark is President of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee; he can be reached at tahoesbjc@aol.com.
