♪♪♪ CCSD is the fifth-largest school district in the nation with student success as its number-one goal.

Join us as we meet student go-getters and goal-setters and discover their skills, talents and drive.

Plus meet the incredible staff who are helping students shine.

It's all here in Student Spotlight.

♪♪♪ Hi, everyone.

I'm Melinda Malone.

-And I'm Mauricio Marin.

Welcome to Student Spotlight.

-We're excited to be back this school year to "shine the spotlight" on all the amazing things that make the Clark County School District number one for kids.

We have a lot to share with you over the next half hour.

While some teens were sleeping in this summer, these high school students spent many early hours out on the lake.

How their dedication paid off.

-Then, challenge accepted!

Students all over the valley join in the library district's "Summer Challenge."

Meet one of our super readers.

-And CCSD Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara sits down with students from Shadow Ridge High School as well as three new principals from around the District.

What are their hopes for this school year?

We'll find out.

But we begin by shining the spotlight on two state-of-the-art, brand-new schools.

(Alabama Buckmeyer) The fifth graders here are going to be the first fifth graders in the school.

Fifth grader Alabama Buckmeyer is excited.

She's starting a brand-new school year in a brand-new school.

(cheers and applause) Hannah Marie Brown just cut the ribbon to our school with the huge scissors-- those are cool-- and the mayor of Henderson, that's cool.

The new elementary school in Henderson is named after longtime Las Vegan and education advocate Hannah Brown.

(Hannah Brown) It's amazing, it's overwhelming, it's beyond my wildest imagination, way beyond, to think my name will be on this building long after I'm gone and to hope the children get a quality education.

That's always been my heart's desire.

(Michele Wooldridge) It's an honor as a principal to open up a building and build it from the foundation up, put it together.

It's more than just a building, now we're turning it into a school.

In Mountain's Edge, another brand-new building, this one a middle school.

(AJ Brown) I was blown away, because this school is way different from anything I've ever seen before.

So I was fairly excited to come in and see how clean it was and how big it was.

Namesakes Barry and June Gunderson were there for the first day and the official ribbon cutting.

1-2-3!

(cheers and applause) (June Gunderson) It has been so humbling.

It's such an honor but also humbling, but the best part of it is seeing the kids today.

In fact, about 1,300 students walked into Gunderson Middle School on the first day of class.

(Pamela Lindemuth) Such excitement-- they're so excited to be back on a campus, and especially a brand-new campus like ours.

It's beautiful, it's new.

We have excitement from our staff.

We have excitement from our students.

We have excitement from our community.

It really is.

You could feel the energy when we walked in this morning.

Meanwhile back at Hannah Marie Brown Elementary School...

There's like so much I'm excited for, probably making new friends, like being in the class that I really wanted, like having the teacher.

It's going to be so fun.

-We love that.

Here's some facts for you: More than 310,000 students are enrolled in the Clark County School District this school year, and the District has approximately 360 schools.

On the first day of class, Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara toured the District.

One of the schools he visited was Shadow Ridge High School.

Dr. Jara, State Superintendent Jhone Ebert and Trustee Katie Williams spoke with students at Shadow Ridge High School about everything from being back in the classroom to extracurricular activities to testing and COVID concerns.

The superintendent invited a few students to the Vegas PBS studios so the conversation could continue.

(Dr. Jesus Jara) Well, it's good to see you guys again, and I'd love to just hear a little bit more about some of the things you're thinking about and really looking forward to this school year as you come back.

And you guys are all seniors, ready to graduate, ready to leave us.

But before we get started, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Just give me a little bit about you and who you are.

We'll start with Isabella.

-Well, I'm Isabella Padilla, and I'm in student council, I'm the publicist on eboard, and I'm in theater, and I really enjoy all my extracurricular activities.

-So you go to school for extracurricular and you just kind of learn math and stuff?

-Well, I do like the learning portion.

-Okay, good.

Just want to know.

So Haley, tell me a little bit about who you are.

-Yes.

So I'm Hailey Morrow.

I'm also a senior at Shadow Ridge High School, and I'm the student body first vice president so I'm in charge of like spirit, school spirit and things like that, and I love to play sports.

I play softball and I love coming to school.

-Excellent.

Jacob.

-I'm Jacob Lucero.

I'm also a senior at Shadow Ridge.

I'm in student council, I'm a representative of the senior body.

I love playing baseball, and currently I love psychology, favorite class.

-Excellent.

Well, good.

And Ruby, tell me a little bit about who you are.

-I'm Ruby Cervantes.

I'm also a senior and I'm highly active in theater, and I'm the theater president so I overcast everything to do with theater.

I'm also participating in STUCO and helping them with their activities.

-Excellent.

So very accomplished, very involved in school, been obviously successful and looking forward to just continuing, you know, just graduating.

So as you think about coming back, we've been in school a week.

What are you most looking forward to this academic school year, and you can take it away, one of you.

Each one of you can answer the question, but we can start here with you, Isabella.

What are you looking forward to this school year?

-I think what I'm really looking forward to this year is just seeing all the teachers.

I feel like my education was really affected last year, not having that one-on-one face with the teacher, and just being back.

I've learned so much more and retained so much in my math class.

I've always struggled in math, and having that teacher there has been like so helpful.

-Excellent.

Just in one week-- that's so good to hear.

I'm sure they'll be proud of you and I'm sure they're excited to have you back.

So Hailey, tell me a little bit about what you're looking forward to.

-Yes.

So we just finished our first week of school, and I can feel how strong and excited the environment has been at school.

I can feel how excited everyone is to be back and to be in person and see everyone and learn together with the teachers.

-Jacob.

-I have to agree with Izzy.

I'm just so excited to be back in school.

I can remember pretty much everything I learned from this morning.

I could barely do that when I was online.

And I just feel so much more motivated to get out of bed every day and come to school.

-Excellent.

Ruby.

-I agree with all of them, just as well as actually doing something again and keeping busy and doing all the clubs and activities as well as learning itself.

It just really like puts more joy back in.

-As far as extracurricular activities, I know you got athletes, you got sports, you have theater, everything else so it's really comprehensive in what you're looking at here in front of me.

But tell me your style of learning, you know, obviously with distance education it was a little bit of a struggle and I get it, it was tough.

I mean, it's tough for me.

But tell me a little about what your thoughts are on the best way you learn, and then also what are the activities you're looking forward to as we send you off on your way into the real world, if you will.

-I learn the best hands-on, activity based.

I love to do like for example, labs in science.

Our teacher already has us buying latex gloves to dissect frogs in anatomy later this year.

And as far as what I'm looking forward to, it's all about being there and having connection with all the students and teachers.

-Isabella.

-So as much as I am a visual learner, I'm really excited that we brought technology into our learning.

I feel like having that teacher there at the front of the classroom but also writing down notes on our laptops, because we are moving more into technology.

It's so much nicer having both because I love the teacher and I also love the computers.

-So that's good, you guys, that's great because you're the digital natives.

You were born, you know, in an age where you've been on phones and on computers, so this is like what you're saying, Isabella, it's combining the two.

But really from what I'm hearing is that all of you are so engaged in that social aspect of being a kid which is so great to hear, and I'm glad that Shadow Ridge has provided that opportunity as a school.

So that's exciting.

So tell me, you know, as a superintendent, I want to hear from you.

If you were sitting in my chair, you know, you can have the job anytime you want, especially-- if you had the opportunity-- and by the way, I love my job because this is one of the things that I get so excited to just hear from you.

What is the one thing that if you were in my chair, in my seat as a superintendent, you know, kind of the one, what would you change, what would you improve, what would you continue doing, and we'll start with you, Ruby.

-I think with me being very active in like performing arts and theater, and there's also all those other performing arts but for me theater, I think just getting back into it and being able to put on shows again and just get that rolling as well as everything else.

But just to be there and actually be able to start doing things again is what I would be more pushing towards is to just do more things.

-Excellent.

Jacob.

-I think, well, I spoke to a kindergarten teacher that I'm close friends with, and I really think that we should keep the kids motivated to be their own person and not already have them focused on standardized testing.

We need them to just be who they want to be so they can be the best kind of person in our world when they grow up.

-Perfect.

Hailey.

-So if I was superintendent, I would keep school open as long as we can.

I think that-- and keep activities in person too because I feel like those in-person activities are what allow kids to find like who they are, find what they're interested in and prepares them for the next level whether that be college or working or things like that, and that's what gives them the best opportunity to learn.

-Excellent.

Isabella, wrap us up.

-All right.

Well, if I was superintendent, I think that I would definitely think about opening up a new school because we are so overpopulated right now and it's really hard, especially during COVID.

It's just hard to have restrictions but also have 40 kids in the same room as you.

So I think that's one of the big things I'd really want to look into.

-Well, absolutely.

Well, you heard it here, right?

I mean, from our kids, advice, which is great.

So I look forward to getting an email, get an invite to your theater performance, so let me know when.

And baseball and softball, let me know.

I'd love to go see it.

So thank you for coming in.

I really appreciate it.

(all) Thank you for having us.

-Thank you, Dr. Jara.

Now we head over to Green Valley High School, home of the Gators, for our first Student Spotlight newsbreak.

-Hey, I'm James Steffen from Green Valley High School, and we're here for your first newsbreak.

The Back to School Reporter has a ton of information for parents and students for things like transportation, food service, resources and important dates like winter break.

If you didn't get a hard copy, don't worry.

All the information is also online in both English and Spanish at backtoschool.ccsd.net.

So you might be wondering about this TV studio we're standing in.

I'm from GVTV that provides information to Green Valley.

So if you want to catch any of our news stories throughout the year, you can go to gvtv.org.

-Thank you, James.

Thousands of kids from around the valley spent the summer being challenged to have fun and earn cool prizes, but the most important thing they worked at, keeping school skills sharp.

We went to the Windmill Library to learn more about the Las Vegas Clark County Library District's Summer Challenge, which is where we met Clayton, a third grader at Judith Steele Elementary School.

-My name is Clayton, and I'm in third grade.

I go to Judith Steele, and I'm eight and I'm in third grade.

(Shana Harrington) The Summer Learning Challenge is the Las Vegas Clark County Library District's biggest initiative all year long, right?

So we've done it-- libraries across the country do it every year to really prevent the summer slide which is, you know, what happens over the summer is kids lose up to three months of reading, science and math skills, and we seek to really make sure that doesn't happen.

-Every time I read, I would get this thing from the library.

And every time I read, I cross it off.

And when I cross it off, there's three levels.

And then when I'm done crossing off one level, I go to the library and get a free book that you can keep forever and you don't have to check out.

-It's awesome.

We just recently started partnering directly with CCSD.

We've always partnered with them to get out to the schools, but this year they were able to distribute these wonderful logs to 110,000 students, so our reach was huge this year.

We really saw a huge upswing in kids coming in.

What are your favorite types of books to read?

-Magic Treehouse.

So it's about these characters named Jack and Annie, and they always go on an adventure inside this magic treehouse.

-It's so important to really connect kids with books and to share their passion and, you know, in school they're going to be required to read, so make sure you set aside time for fun reading as well.

-My mom and dad always tell me to read, but sometimes I don't want to.

But then when I actually like read, I actually do want to.

-You can learn more about the Las Vegas Clark County Library District at lvccld.org.

-The Clark County School District has more than 42,000 staff members from transportation to food service to teachers and administrators.

They all play a critical role in a student's success.

This school year there are more than 40 new principals heading up CCSD schools.

Dr. Jara caught up with three of them.

-Thank you for joining me here this afternoon at Vegas PBS to chat with me a little bit about your new position as school building principals.

Here joining me today, we have Principal Stephanie Auclair from Rose Warren Elementary School, Principal Brandy Kirkpatrick from Grant Sawyer Middle School and Principal Thomas Smith from Chaparral High School.

Again, thank you for taking time at this busy, busy time, you know, not only opening school but opening school under a COVID pandemic, so I really appreciate you spending time with me today.

So first question that I have is what are you looking forward to, and we'll start here.

What are you looking forward to, Stephanie, in your first year as a building principal?

(Stephanie Auclair) For my first year as a new principal, I just want to make sure that all the students and the parents are welcomed back into the building, and of course with our COVID restrictions and everything, you know, as much as possible.

But also just welcoming them when they first enter into the building, you know, the kids and everything, because the excitement that they've been-- we have all been waiting for, for the kids to come back into the building.

So that's what I'm looking for for this year is to also go strong with, you know, getting those kids caught up.

It's a restart, a restart from where we ended March of 2020.

-Yes, it's been that long.

Brandy, tell me a little bit.

(Brandy Kirkpatrick) I am most excited about getting kids off of technology and back communicating with one another.

I think they do enough of that at home, and I am so excited that they're going to have those opportunities to build relationships with the staff and other students on campus.

-Good.

Thank you, Brandy.

Thomas.

(Thomas Smith) I'm excited to have our families and our students back and that overall high school experience.

I can't wait for Friday night football and hear the marching band.

I can't wait to see the plays that we're going to have.

I can't wait till the art club begins to decorate our building again.

I'm excited for that.

-Yes.

See, I just talked to some kids, some high school seniors, and that's pretty much they're really looking forward to all the extracurricular, the activities of being in high school and I said well, how about education?

So yes, that's also important.

But really I appreciate the high school, and you have that as well in elementary and middle school, so thanks for sharing.

So second question, and we'll start with you, Brandy.

What really motivated you to become and want to be a principal?

-When I first started my educational career, I had an opportunity to work with many different types of leaders.

I really took some ideas from those leaders, and one, to be able to share those with more people along the Clark County School District, and I felt that my biggest impact would be to be a building leader in the sense that I get to have those lasting impacts, build those systems and structures in other schools that I've found to be effective in my other leadership capacities and really go forward with those and make an impact on more students in the Clark County School District.

-Thank you for sharing.

Thomas.

-Well, really how I started off in life, I really never thought I'd be here, so that's really why I decided that I want to go down this path in leadership is that I want to have that impact on every student that comes in our building, every student, a positive impact.

-Thanks.

Stephanie.

-What inspired me to go into leadership first was well, I started as a teacher in a multitude of different positions, but I felt that being a building principal, you're able to really truly become that instructional leader and lead that school.

Utilize your vision and your mission that you've always had when you were a teacher, so now you can actually implement it and make those changes, you know, the positive changes not only for children, but also your community in that building.

-Good.

Thank you.

So in your short tenure in the first year, what have you experienced to be the most rewarding part of the job so far?

Thomas.

-Already the rewarding part is seeing some students that you hear about that hey, watch this one.

This one may be trouble; this one may not be.

But we paint those positive deposits into that student, and already that student, some of our students are becoming our allies.

Some of our students are already growing, you know, from that social standpoint that we're now back into.

-Stephanie.

-For me, what I noticed is that with the kids, I mean, their facial expressions coming into the building, they are so excited.

Even with the mask on, you can tell that they're smiling, you know, because you can look at their eyes and everything.

But I think the excitement of the children walking into your building just makes my heart glow.

-Good.

Brandy.

-I'm actually going to piggyback off Stephanie and seeing the students be able to interact and be back on the campus and be part of the school community has just been the absolute most rewarding.

And then also to build a relationship with my new staff members.

We have a lot of new staff members at Grant Sawyer, and it's been nice to get to know them and acclimate them to the building as well.

-Thank you for sharing.

So this last question, you know, as a former high school principal myself and, you know, you guys get the pressure from central office.

You get the pressure from-- don't smile but, you know, you do.

You get the pressure from the state, the pressure from parents, pressure from kids and everybody.

And I used to say this when I was a principal, you know, our school principals are the most important staff members in a school district.

I still believe that and feel strongly that you are.

So you have all of this pressure, and you have all of the support.

How do you stay focused really, you know, with COVID and health, on student achievement.

Kind of just share with me a little bit about what that feels like because I think the public needs to understand and this community, you know, the amount of work you guys do to stay focused on everything but then remain focused on student achievement.

So tell me a little bit about what you're doing in schools.

-So what I've been doing in our building is the word is flexibility.

I have been advertising flexibility throughout my community, the teachers and the kids, because of all the different changes that are happening, and it could be day by day or weekly, but we work together.

And I've been telling my community, you have to be patient with me.

And if it changes, then we change together.

But where are we going?

We are moving forward; we can't go backward.

-Good.

Thank you.

Brandy.

-I spent a good chunk of my summer meeting with my staff, parents, community and students just to make sure that we were all on the same page with what we were looking for with student achievement, just to make sure that all students had access to that rigor of tier one instruction, especially coming back to buildings and they hadn't been in school for quite a while.

So to just ensure that everyone felt safe and comfortable.

-Very good.

Thomas, close us out.

-Absolutely.

So one, you have to communicate to all your stakeholders what the vision is.

If we keep the main thing the main thing, and that there's all this outside noise that we do have, but the main thing is we have our kids back in the seats, and now we have to make sure that we're getting every ounce of instructional time that we can because we don't know with this pandemic still going on when we may lose a kid to it or when a kid may have to go home and quarantine or a teacher.

So keep the main thing the main thing.

-I like that.

Well, let's close this out.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for really taking the time.

Flexibility, communication and the main thing the main thing.

I love it.

So thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

-Thank you, Dr. Jara, and to our new principals, have fun this year.

Now let's head back to Green Valley High School and GVTV for another newsbreak.

-Hey, I'm James Steffen from Green Valley High School, and I'm back for your newsbreak.

Students, parents and staff all have access to SafeVoice.

SafeVoice is an anonymous reporting system that was established by the Nevada Department of Education.

You can call the hotline at 1.833.216.SAFE.

Report online at safevoicenv.org or through a free mobile app on the Android or iPhone.

-Thanks, James.

When you visit Lake Las Vegas, you may notice the Lake Las Vegas Rowing Club out on the water.

It's the only rowing club in the state of Nevada.

-While most competitive rowing is done in a boat with four or eight rowers, the pandemic caused the club to focus on the boats that are called singles.

Two CCSD high school students caught on fast and placed very well this summer at nationals.

-My name is Bar Zituni, and I go to Coronado High School.

-My name is Meghan Schultz, and I go to Foothill High School.

We row.

This is a rowing club.

-Row five and five.

-It was my eighth grade year.

I had just quit cross-country, and I was told I have to find another sport.

And some of my sister's friends rowed, so we looked at that and I came, and it was the first sport that I looked at.

I tried it and I absolutely fell in love with it, and I've been doing it ever since.

It's been so much fun.

(Jim Anderson) So we normally do a lot of sweep rowing in the eights and the fours just like the colleges do, but with COVID and everything, we dropped down into singles.

So I had to buy a whole bunch more single shells, and then all the kids got into single shells for the whole last year and a half.

And two of them, Bar Zituni and Meghan Schultz, became the top of my program so we took them to club nationals this year out in Camden, New Jersey.

-We did amazing compared to what we prior would do because it was such a small club.

-Bar ended up 13th in the country and Megan 14th in the country, and they still got another year to row with me.

-It's really calming on the water.

Racing, there's like a lot of adrenalin and just like you really get into it and you kind of blank out and you just do what you can, you push through it.

But like during practices, it's just fun, it's relaxing.

It's hard, it's work, it's a lot of work.

-The feeling of it, it's-- you sit in the boat and you go hard and you just move the boat.

And you just kind of float in such a way that's just-- you can't explain it.

After I joined it for like a month, I knew I was going to stick with it no matter if I go to college or not or whatever happens.

The sport just has its own feel to it that I just love.

-Amazing job, Bar and Meghan, keep up the good work.

And a quick note, the water on Lake Las Vegas is typically like glass.

We were there on a rare windy day which makes rowing even harder.

Thanks for inviting us to practice and making it look so easy.

-That does it for this back-to-school edition of Student Spotlight.

We appreciate you watching.

-If you know of a student or staff member who you think we should spotlight, please let us know.

They could end up on the program.

Email Clark County School District Communications Office at communications@nv.ccsd.net.

-We're going to leave you with some scenes from summer graduation where hundreds of CCSD students received their high school diplomas.

Congratulations to all of the new graduates.

We'll see you next month.

♪♪♪