Attendance, academics improving at Floyd Elementary

Despite its poor rating designation, students and faculty at Floyd Elementary are making good progress, according to interim Principal Sam Simatos.

A two-star school, according the state department of education, is one that has room for improvement in school proficiency and growth.

Simatos, during this month’s school board meeting, said the school is operating quite well.

He noted that the entire staff has pulled together and are collectively “taking care of business.”

“To make things even better, we are employing everyday math and were improving student thinking skills,” he said. “Instead of asking who, what, where and when in our writing lessons, we’re asking them what are they interpreting, so we’re making the kids think in the third and fourth grade level.”

Simatos also told the board that student attendance is roughly 93 1/2 percent, while the staff attendance rate hovers at 93 percent.

“I’m proud of that considering that a lot of staff members had to move around because they were covering other positions,” he said.

Other programs at the school, according to Simatos, are proving to be both popular and successful methods for improving academic achievement, including what’s known as “Bobcat Buddies,” where fifth graders read to the younger kids.

“We are also doing a lot of parent involvement and literacy nights,” he said. “We had 300 parents show up on a windy day to have a picnic outside. There’s also popcorn Friday, but we may lose that because of the new standard on food. We have the open house and book fair where we made almost $4,000.”

Simatos said Floyd’s after school tutoring program is also working well, as is the student instructional intervention team, which meets to define students who are having some problems.

“We need to take a look at the staff that we have,” he said. “We have a lot of good people in Nye County that have become principals. If I have any input, which I may or may not have, I think we should look in-house for our next principal at Floyd Elementary. That staff deserves that because they kept a lot of things together and going at that school.”

In January, state officials identified 78 underperforming schools to be run by the state as charter schools.

The list, representing 10 percent of Nevada’s 724 public schools, included six Nye County campuses.

The six in Nye County are the elementary schools, Hafen, Floyd, Round Mountain, Amargosa Valley, Gabbs, and Pathways High School.