Students return to changes at Pahrump Valley High

Parents who drop their kids off at Pahrump Valley High School will notice a few changes come Monday morning.

Principal Chris Brockman said the school's policy will not allow students to be dropped off at the main entrance, due mainly to safety reasons.

"As far as returning to school on Monday, the area in the front of the school where there is a drop-off for students has changed," he said. "We have added an exit to the parking lot on the Calvada side, so hopefully the flow of traffic will be much better."

The action, Brockman said, will allow for special education students to be safely dropped off by their school bus drivers, as the road between Great Basin College and the high school gymnasium will be closed to through traffic.

Though he noted faculty members will help direct traffic during the first few days of the new fall semester, the new change is permanent.

"Parents will need to pick up students in the other area but they can't do it in the bus lane where the canopy is located. That will be a bus lane for special education students and they will be the only ones in that lane. Parents will need to come in a different entrance which will be marked. They will have to go out the exit so we will have a traffic-in and traffic-out pattern to avoid cross-traffic."

The changes also extend to the school's curriculum inside the classroom. Brockman said the school is now offering credit recovery for students.

"We are now offering 10 sessions of credit recovery so students will be able to earn credit back that they have lost during the school day," he said. "We tried to do some of it last year after school was over but there was some transportation issues and we just thought we'd get a better result if we did it during the day."

The school also added an elective for students interested in the communications field.

Brockman said the faculty was looking at ways for students to produce a newsletter.

"We added journalism as an elective to the school," he said. "The students will be putting out a newsletter for parents every month. We thought that it would give us an extra elective for juniors because it's pretty much a junior level class. We thought that would be a fun class and we will see whether or not the kids want to get into it."

The high school is now offering literacy and writing courses for newly entering freshmen.

"We are Title I funded this year so we are now offering an illiteracy and writing course for 8th grade students," he said. "If their reading level is below what it should be when they get to high school or they if need more help with the writing aspects to be successful at the high school level."

Additional new programs at the school include Career and Technical Education (CTE), which is a career path program integrating technical career skill proficiencies with academic content.

The CTE programs offered are culinary arts, cabinet making, auto, graphic design and business office management.

CTE prepares students for the workplace by providing further education and training.

Advisory periods and early childhood programs will also greet students returning to school next week.

"Level one will be going to the textbook in early childhood but as they progress through level two and level three, have labs," he said. "They will be going out and working in the elementary school early childhood program. There are lots of changes and we have added an advisory period, which will meet once a week. This advisor is going to be given between 24 and 26 students that they will follow through till graduation."

To cover all of the new changes and programs, Brockman said the district hired additional personnel.

"We brought in four new staff members," he said. "We have hired someone for credit recovery and we hired someone for the Jag job readiness program. We hired someone to teach the reading and literacy class from Title I and we are also looking diligently for a certified teacher to run the early childhood program."

For additional information on the various programs or general information on the new semester, parents can log on to the school's website at pahrumpvalleyhighschool.com. or call 775-727-7737.