On this back-to-school
edition of Inside Education,
a new school year, a new superintendent,
new budget cuts and new schools.
Before the doors officially open,
we'll take you inside
one of the School District's
brand new elementary schools.
"You know, right now it's a building
"but the day the kids show up,
"it will be a school."
Then are your students registered?
It's quick and easy, but so very important.
We'll show you how to register your kids
for both class and bus service.
Plus a closer look at recent budget cuts.
We talk to the author of an analysis
published by the Kenny Guinn Center
for Policy Priorities.
By the way, she's a CCSD student.
Plus we're here at the School Nutrition
Association national conference.
This is where school districts
come to meet with food vendors
to find out what's new for breakfast
and lunch on school menus.
We'll take you on a tour
coming up on Inside Education.
"The cornerstone of education
"is getting to know a student first."
We want to make sure we're supporting
families and students.
"I think the community should know
"that their voice counts."
Reading is the doorway to everything
that we do in education.
♪♪♪
Thank you for joining us
for this edition of Inside Education.
I'm your host, Mitch Truswell.
Are you ready? Hard to believe
but summer is almost over
and a new school year is about to begin.
The first day of school for the Clark County
School District is earlier than usual.
Classes start on Monday, August 13.
But before the first bell rings
for some 323,000 students,
there are things students, parents,
staff and community members should know,
and we're here to help.
During this special back-to-school episode,
we'll get an inside look at some
of the new schools that will open in August
and let you know how to register your child
for class if you haven't already.
We'll also provide answers
about bus service, school lunch
and recent budget cuts and let you know
about other important resources.
We begin with a big change
for the fifth largest school district
in the nation, a new superintendent.
Dr. Jesus Jara started his new job as head
of the Clark County School District in June.
He is spending his first months on a listening tour
meeting with the Board of School Trustees,
District employees, families
and community leaders to learn firsthand
about the needs of students, employees,
families and the community.
We'll get a chance to sit down with Dr. Jara
in two weeks for a special School Matters
edition of Inside Education.
Dr. Jara will be joined by School Board
President Deanna Wright.
That episode of School Matters
with the new superintendent
airs on Thursday, August 9
at 7:30 p.m. here on Vegas PBS.
We hope you tune in.
The new superintendent has a big job,
but some of the biggest challenges he'll face
may likely be the effects
of the recent budget cuts.
This summer District leaders approved
approximately $68 million in cuts
from its 2018-2019 general operating fund,
and $47 million of those cuts
came from individual school budgets.
The Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities
recently put out an analysis of these cuts
authored by a CCSD student.
Joining me now is Nancy Brune,
executive director of the Guinn Center,
and Paulina Kerrigan, the author,
also a student from Las Vegas Academy.
Welcome to both of you.
This seems like a really big job, Paulina,
and you were able to put all the facts
and figures together.
It seems like this would take a really long time.
(Paulina Kerrigan) Yes, it took a very long time.
I believe I was working on it for about a week,
like eight hours a day, and towards the end,
another intern also helped me
with the school budget part
and it was very time consuming.
-Nancy, this is part of the mission
of the Guinn Center.
What are you trying to do by putting together
projects like this analysis?
(Nancy Brune) The Guinn Center is a statewide
bipartisan policy institute,
and our goal is to provide data-driven
analysis to decision-makers.
By providing this data, we hope that folks
in the community will have a better
understanding of what's going on.
We hope to drive conversations
and help people look for solutions
to some of the issues facing
the Clark County School District
and other folks in the education space.
-So Paulina, what did you learn,
or what should we take away from this analysis?
You went in to see how these cuts
affected all the schools,
so what did you find out?
-I found pretty much that the cuts
were equitable across levels of schools,
so elementary, middle and high schools
were cut equitably across themselves.
High schools were cut more because high schools
and 7th and 8th grade don't have any
restrictions on class sizes,
but elementary schools have very strict
restrictions so they need more teachers
automatically, and magnet schools
and Title 1 schools were cut less.
-So were you thinking possibly you'd find
some schools, some areas were hit less?
Was that kind of what you were thinking
was going to happen?
-I thought it might, especially when
I was looking at the budgets.
The budgets for some of the schools
didn't look right, 75 schools didn't
have budgets that looked quite right,
but when we looked at the data overall,
it looked fine and equitable overall.
-And Nancy, your thoughts on this?
Do you think this is something
the School District should use to promote
that they're being very fair?
-Yes. I think I had the same hypothesis
or my thinking was the same,
that we thought there would be discrepancies
or inequities across Trustee districts.
But clearly after we saw the data,
the District did a lot of hard work
and good thinking in making sure
that the pain was spread across
geographic districts, different types
of schools, and Title 1 schools.
So I think the community really can appreciate
the hard work and thinking that leadership did
within the District to make sure
that the pains were distributed evenly.
-So Paulina is an intern, we should let people know.
Why was it important for her
to do this project for the Guinn Center?
And you said you'd hire her if you could.
-Yes. Her analysis was impeccable
and the rigor with which she looked at the data.
Based on our work on workforce development,
we think it's really important
for our students in Clark County
to have internships and apprenticeships
so when they graduate, they're job
and skill ready to go into the workforce.
We were happy to have Paulina,
and we hope to have other interns
from other area schools next summer.
-Well, good work, Paulina, keep it up.
Thanks so much for your time today.
You can read the analysis for yourself
and you can also find other research
on tax cuts, Medicaid funding,
and federal revenue streams in Nevada
on the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy
Priorities website, GuinnCenter.org.
Clark County School District leaders
will open four new elementary schools
to start this 2018-2019 school year.
Kenneth Divich
at Farm Road and Jensen Street,
Robert and Sandy Ellis
at Beltrada Avenue and Via Italia,
Dennis Ortwein
at Dean Martin Drive and I-15,
and Shirley Barber Elementary School
at Spencer and Pyle Avenue.
Inside Education's Kathy Topp recently
took a tour through the soon-to-open
Barber Elementary School.
Kathy, we hope those schools
are ready for students.
(Kathy Topp) They are. Mitch, the schools are built
using funds from the bond program,
a different source of money
than the operating budget
that saw the recent cuts.
In 2015 the state legislature allowed
for 10 years of bonding authority
to construct new schools
and renovate existing schools
in some of the District's
most overcrowded areas.
As you may recall, several schools opened
during the last school year,
and four new elementary schools
will officially open their doors on August 13.
"Very few have an appreciation
"for how big this school district is."
And it's only getting bigger.
"Here's a literacy classroom,
"and this is gifted and talented..."
Barber Elementary is one of four
new elementary schools to open this August.
"We have three weeks before the kids arrive."
Each new school is approximately
100,000 square feet and cost $30 million each
to build and furnish.
(Blake Cumbers) Many of the schools in this area are overcrowded,
and there's a lot of development
going on at the same time.
(sounds of hammering)
Crews are busy putting bookshelves together
in the new school library,
and teachers are already starting
to move in supplies.
Barber Elementary's new principal, Nicole Coloma.
That's what we're all shooting for,
and that's what we're working for is that
this is an amazing place the kids get to come.
They're going to be in awe because
this building is so amazing,
and it has every technological feature
that you could want.
Like state-of-the-art classrooms,
a kindergarten wing,
and even a water fountain equipped
to refill water bottles.
The kids and the parents are going
to walk through here and be amazed.
But first parents need to make sure
their students are registered.
"It's really important that parents
"register for the new school year."
At CCSD's Student Records Services Department,
staff is busy tracking registrations
all over the School District.
(Greg Manzi) It's extremely easy to register your child.
If you're using the Parent Portal,
we've prefilled that application for you
with the information that we have
from Infinite Campus, making it five minutes
or less to complete that registration
as an existing family, and if you're new,
we tried to streamline the process as well.
We've moved a lot of questions to the household
level that apply to all the students
that are going to be registering.
New students will still need to visit their school
to show proof of identity, residency
and immunization records.
I've been in a portable at a remote location
waiting to move in, so I've only been
in this building a week and a half.
Back at Barber about 600 of the projected
750 students are registered,
and final projects are being tackled by crews.
It's mostly just paving and landscaping
and some fencework that needs to be done
on the exterior of the school.
Pretty much the building is done.
The school will be ready for students
come August 13-- a new school
for a new school year about to begin.
Every kid that comes in here will be lucky
to be attending Shirley Barber.
-The four new schools aren't the only projects
going on right now.
Students at nearly 20 other schools
will be moving from portable classrooms
to new classroom additions,
and there are projects like new
air conditioning, new roofs
and playground surfaces going on as well,
so it's a very busy time of year.
We wanted to give you a few links
for that registration information.
You can find links for both school
and bus registration on CCSD's website,
CCSD.net.
The School District also has a special website
dedicated to the Capital Improvement Plan
with maps of new and planned schools,
information about the bond
and even video of the construction process.
You can find that
at CapitalImprovement Plan.CCSD.net.
Mitch? -Kathy, thank you.
If you prefer not to go online to learn about
or prepare for the new school year,
mark your calendars for the upcoming
Cox back-to-school fairs being held
at valley shopping malls.
The fairs are free and open to the public
and are a one-stop shop for everything
back to school; for example,
you can learn about things like registration,
zoning and Infinite Campus,
and there will even be immunization clinics.
Upcoming fairs are scheduled for Saturday,
July 29 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
at the Boulevard Mall,
Saturday, August 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
at Meadows Mall,
and Saturday, August 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
at Downton Summerlin.
Registering for school or even attending school
is a challenge for those students
who are considered homeless.
The Clark County School District has a department
whose mission is to remove barriers
for homeless students so they can attend school
and become successful.
Kelly-Jo Shebeck is coordinator
of the program Title 1 HOPE,
and Teresa Butler is a CCSD graduate
who was helped by the program.
Thanks to both of you for being here today.
Kelly-Jo, let's start with you.
There are many different conditions
that a student could be in
that would define them as homeless.
Can you give us a couple of those so we understand.
(Kelly-Jo Shebeck) Our largest population of students are living
in a doubled-up or multifamily
living situation, so that means
they are living with other families
or relatives, friends or neighbors,
because their family has lost housing
or been forced out of their homes.
So we have two or three families living
in a two-bedroom apartment,
children living on the floor oftentimes,
and I've seen families living in garages.
That would be our largest population.
Then we also have our hotel/motel families
living in the weeklies so they don't pay
first and last months' rent,
so they're just making it week by week.
And then we work very closely with our shelters
so we identify students who are living
in the shelters, and then unsheltered,
so living in cars, parks or on the streets.
-Wow, that's quite a lot of conditions.
Teresa, when you were in high school,
and you're now at UNLV in the scholars program
because you did so well in high school,
but you actually came in contact with Title 1
in high school because you were homeless.
What did they provide to you
that made the process of getting to school
and getting what you need easier?
(Teresa Butler) I didn't even know about Title 1 HOPE,
but I remember getting bus passes from them.
Then I needed more help, and my counselor
directed me toward well, do you need clothes?
I ended up talking to the staff there,
and I ended up getting more help
than I really thought I could ever get,
getting more clothes and more support,
and even help getting into college.
-Did it make a difference?
I mean, had you not come in contact with them?
I don't know if you can define how much
more difficult it would be to get
through high school, which is hard enough.
-I definitely would not be in college right now.
I don't even want to think about
where I would be if I didn't have them,
because they made it so much easier.
No one else could have helped me the way they did.
-Kelly-Jo, I asked you approximately
how many students are defined as homeless,
and you said more than 15,000 in CCSD alone.
What kind of services can you provide to students?
-Primarily we're an enrollment program.
We're helping students get in school
without proper documentation.
Last year we had a lot of families come in
from the California fires and the Houston floods,
or we have families that flee domestic violence
or are somehow forced out of their homes
and they're leaving their documents behind.
It's very difficult to get enrolled in school
or prove who you are or where you live
without that documentation,
so our program really helps support them
to make sure students are enrolled
so they can be successful.
-Right. It's whatever it takes
to get them into school. -Right.
So the enrollment piece, and then we also provide
like she said the bus passes,
talking about school of origin,
so that's another big part of our program.
If you're enrolled in school
and you lose your home and you have to go
to another school zone, our program helps you
stay at that school to provide stability
for you to be successful.
-I understand every school has a Title 1
HOPE advocate, so that's how students
are basically referred to you under normal
circumstances. -Absolutely.
With such a large school district,
we rely heavily on our school personnel.
So our advocates, we ask them every year
to share information with teachers,
or sometimes our advocates are counselors
or social workers so we ask them
to share our information with their staff,
because they're the ones that see students
and the changes in what they're wearing,
or did they come to school every day
and now they're not coming to school on time.
Those little changes are red flags
that they say there's this program
that may be able to assist.
-Teresa, before we go, what would you say
to someone who's watching this that knows someone
or is a homeless student themselves,
should they reach out and get help?
-Title 1 HOPE is the necessary step
to make it out of the situation you have.
I think without that, that's where
all of this becomes stagnant
and they help us move forward
from the situation we're not meant to be in.
-We appreciate your time, both of you,
and continued success.
If you would like to learn more
about the Title 1 HOPE program,
you can find it at the address on your screen.
You can also call Title 1 HOPE
at 702.855.6682.
Nearly two-thirds of School District students
are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
The program is part of the National
School Lunch and Breakfast Program
that provides meals every school day.
Eligibility is determined
by family size as well as income.
Applications for meal benefits
must be completed each school year,
and only one application is needed per household.
A reminder that it takes 10 operating days
to process an application.
You can apply online at MySchoolApps.com
or also in the main Food Service office.
If you have questions about benefits,
you can also call 1.800.819.7556.
Speaking of school meals, have you ever thought
about how something actually gets on the menu
in the Clark County School District?
All public schools must provide foods
that meet some pretty strict dietary guidelines
required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It just so happens there is a conference
that helps districts offer healthy
and enticing meals, and this year
it was held here in Las Vegas.
Deep inside an exhibit hall
at Mandalay Bay is where thousands
of food service directors and staff
from school districts across the country
are on the hunt for something new.
The School Nutrition Association's
national conference is where you can find it.
Hundreds of food vendors, some with very
well known names, are offering breakfast
and lunch items that first,
meet school guidelines and, second,
are aimed at the sometimes picky clientele--
students.
"This is the highlight in school nutrition,
"an annual school nutrition conference.
"All the vendors come out,
"and luckily it's in Las Vegas this year."
Among the thousands attending the conference
is Christine Saheb,
a registered dietitian with CCSD.
We tagged along as she searched
for new menu items, new ideas and new recipes.
(Christine Saheb) I just love these concepts they have here.
Here's a pulled pork-type slider.
It looks like they've mixed it
with carrots, tomatoes and lettuce.
It's simple, but that's what the kids like.
They put on Carolina Gold barbecue sauce.
They also have a really interesting
cheeseburger meatloaf, and if you try it,
it's even better than just a regular burger.
Also catching her eye at the Tyson booth,
a sweet and sour chicken
and a chicken and waffle combination
where the batter tastes like a waffle.
Saheb is also looking for more ethnic
and spicier options because students,
especially high schoolers, ask for it.
So you wanted to come over here and sample this,
the Szechuan chicken?
-Yes, this is a spicy Szechuan chicken.
This was really appealing to me just because
the chow mein is 51% whole grain,
which it needs to be whole grain
to be on our menu, and the incorporation
of the vegetables is very appealing to kids.
They're going to want to eat the celery,
the onions, and the carrots
when they see it in here.
You want to take a try? -Yeah.
-Tell me what you think. -Try them together.
Oh, yeah, that's good.
Also in demand by a growing number
of students, vegetarian and vegan options.
How do you know if the students will like it,
a taste test?
-We'd do all the taste testing.
We'd purchase this and take it out.
We have almost 1,000 student workers,
and we test it with them.
It has to get at least a 7 or greater
from a 1 to 10 scale.
If they like it, if it gets a 7 or greater,
we try it on the menu.
In addition to entrees, Saheb alsos keeps
an eye out for things she's not seen before;
in this case, a type of healthy sorbet.
I thought this food was pretty cool
because what it's doing is it's a little treat
for the kids but it counts as a half cup of fruit.
Among all the new items and options available
at the convention, Diane Pratt-Havener
of the School Nutrition Association
says some trends are clear:
Students increasingly want menu variety
and the kind of options
they often find at a restaurant.
Achieving that, that's the tough part.
(Diane Pratt-Havener) School meals have to meet federal
nutrition standards, so every school lunch
has to offer fruits, vegetables, milk,
whole grains and lean proteins,
and the trick is to offer all those foods
on a limited budget in way that's appealing to kids.
-We should mention there are many other
educational sessions at the convention
that help keep food service staff up to date
on a number of important food issues.
Joining us now to discuss some of the changes
coming to the CCSD menu this year
are Christine Saheb and Lory Hayon,
both registered dietitians
and licensed nutritionists with the School District.
Welcome, or welcome back, I should say,
because you come on here and we love to have you.
One of the big changes this year, Lory,
is the way parents and students
will access the menu-- there's a change coming.
(Lory Hayson) There certainly is. We're using a new
software platform called "Nutrislice,"
and it will be a way that the parents
can see realtime information on the menus,
so nutrition information and allergens,
"Taste It Tuesday" items and our new items.
-This is available then on a laptop
or a phone, text? -Oh, yes.
For people that want to do it the old way,
I'm sure they can find it somewhere.
-They find it in the same location.
So if they're used to printing it,
there will be an option to print the menu.
-Wonderful.
Let's talk about some new menu items.
Christine, talk about that.
We have a couple things you can talk about now.
(Christine Saheb) Yes, I can let you know a couple.
For August we have cheeseburger nachos,
like the fusion of their two favorite items
and putting them together,
and that's going to be for secondary.
-So that's high school? -Yes, and middle school.
Then for breakfast we'll have French toast,
and we've made these homemade warm peaches
that will be paired with it.
For our salad bars, we wanted to come up
with different themes each month.
We're going to have a new theme to keep it exciting
to keep them wanting to go back to the salad bar.
-Yes, because I know you're pushing
the fresh fruit and that sort of thing.
When you say "themed," what do you mean,
like it's going to be-- can you divulge?
-We already have it planned out.
We're starting with a nice Waldorf salad,
so it has the grapes and celery.
We're a nut-free facility so there's no nuts,
and then we have things like
barbecue chicken salad, Mediterranean salad
and an Asian salad. -Sounds good.
-And Caesar. -Great.
Lory, the USDA requires a lot of things,
like school meals have been to be low in fat
and sodium and things, whole grains.
What is the toughest part about finding new items?
Is one of those more difficult than the others
in finding new items that are appealing?
-There is. It's generally sodium
because there's a lot of fat replacements,
like you can bake something
and put applesauce in it.
Sodium, everyone's used to that taste profile
so to find things lower sodium
that are palatable and students like
has been quite a challenge.
So we hunt around at the shows to see
what we can find that tastes good
or if we could find something
that we could enhance the taste.
-Yes, by adding some spice.
Kids like spice, that's something I learned.
-Yes, very spicy.
A lot of Asian foods are pretty spicy,
like the Szechuan chicken.
-And that's something that's asked for.
-Yes, at the secondary level mostly.
-All right. So what else do parents
need to know coming up this year, anything?
-Oh, goodness. I think we're just
really excited about the new platform.
Going digital and saving paper is a good thing,
so it's something that's pretty exciting.
-Well, we appreciate the update,
and continued success in the Food Service
department and thanks
for being here today. (both) Thank you.
A reminder that you can find your school's
lunch menu online either on the website
of your child's school or you can search
for your child's school to find
that month's menu calendar at
CCSD.Nutrislice.com/Menu.
We want to thank you for tuning in
to this special back-to-school edition
of Inside Education.
By the way, Thursday is our new night
so we hope you continue to tune in
every other Thursday at 7:30.
As always you can catch this episode
and past episodes of Inside Education
on the Vegas PBS website or YouTube page.
A reminder that the new school year
starts on Monday, August 13.
It is coming up fast,
so enjoy the rest of your summer break
and get ready for a new school year.
We'll see you back here in two weeks.
♪♪♪
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