This program is brought to you in part by the Erika Lewis Endowment Fund.

♪♪♪ 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 Mauricio Marin.

-And I'm Melinda Malone.

Welcome to Student Spotlight.

-We've got a lot to share with you in the next half hour.

-Meet this incredible student athlete from Spring Valley High School.

We'll tell you what makes her a national standout.

-Then why social workers are teaming up with CCSD School Police.

I tag along to find out how this new program is helping address students' needs.

-And students at Mabel Hoggard Math and Science Magnet Elementary School have this month's newsbreaks.

Did you know Hoggard has more than 100 animals on campus?

-Plus we sit down with the winning team from this year's African American History Challenge.

What these Centennial High Schoolers learned in the big competition.

But first, training for a career in cosmetology.

February is National Career and Technical Education Month.

The Clark County School District offers a variety of CTE programs ranging from graphic design to physical therapy.

But the cosmetology program at Southeast Career and Technical Academy is the only one of its kind in the state of Nevada.

♪♪♪ Here at Southeast Tech, we have a cosmetology program that you're in for about three years.

(Loki Roark) So you can learn different aspects of doing hair, doing makeup, doing nails and doing all sorts of different beauty-related and cosmetic tasks that you might learn in the actual salon.

Welcome to the salon at Southeast Career and Technical Academy, a hands-on lab for students who want to pursue a career in cosmetology.

(Micah Johnson) Since I was a little kid, I always had like those cute little Barbie dolls that just has the head without the body, and I'm always just braiding it or doing something new to it.

It was just super fun.

And senior Micah Johnson definitely has talent.

I had the chance to sit in her chair for a quick hairstyle.

So I'm just going to part half right here since you already have your side falling.

-I love it.

Not only did this teenager have her professional demeanor down, but take a look at the end result.

I love it!

-I'm glad you do.

(Maxi Stuber) So usually our students that come in here I'd say already have a passion for an area.

They already know, like they've been doing hair at home or at nails at home, so what we're looking for them is just to be passionate and, you know, just to pull through.

It is a tough program because of so many hours they have to clock in, so we just ask for them not to give up and just to pull through every day and be the best they can be.

The salon is regulated by the Nevada State Board of Cosmetology, and students put in the hours so they can get licensed upon graduation.

(Jazmin Venner-Charris) You are expected to accrue your 1,600 hours here in the program, and it's very important that you come every single day because every single hour counts.

-And when you do that, it basically opens up so many more doors that previously might have not have been opened if you had to go to a school after high school, because very few students have that option of being able to go right into working after they graduate.

Working and earning money in a salon.

We actually have quite a bit of students, and some of mine personally actually have gone and, you know, are working at the hotels and making tons amount of money, because usually what happens is we make connections with the industry and they want our students first.

Or perhaps an entrepreneur.

I plan on opening up my own little rental shop just to see how I can do it on my own for a while and do the extensions and try to build my clientele up.

I'm just going to keep building up and saving up money so I can rent my place out, decorate it however I want to, become my own boss and, you know, put myself out there in the world.

-Because of the pandemic, members of the public have not been able to book services at the salon.

However, we hope that this may change soon.

And here to talk about programs and all the other amazing magnet opportunities that exist in the Clark County School District is Rachel Reid, CCSD's director of magnet schools.

Welcome, Rachel.

-Thanks so much for having me today.

-So we know there's a fee for the program at SECTA, the cosmetology program.

Is there typically a fee for magnet school programs?

(Rachel Reid) No, not typically; another program similar to cosmetology though is the private pilot program at Rancho High School.

Students in that program can earn their private pilot's license before they graduate, so there is a fee involved.

But other magnet programs typically don't have a cost associated with the program.

-Awesome.

I'm sure parents will be happy to hear that.

So magnet programs aren't just at high schools, they're throughout the District.

Can you talk a little bit about that.

-Sure.

All students in kindergarten through grade 12 can attend a magnet school program.

Students in elementary school and middle school can apply to programs based on their interest, what they want to participate in.

In high school most of our programs are interest-based as well, but there are programs that have criteria or minimum qualifications in order to participate, such as our high school STEM programs.

Our high school performing arts schools also require an audition to attend those programs.

-So what's the benefit of attending a magnet school, and what's that process like?

-Our magnet schools offer innovative, specialized curriculum in areas that are aimed to prepare students for their future.

Students are more engaged in their learning, they attend school at a higher rate, and they also graduate at a higher rate.

-So what if a student is attending a magnet school but decides they don't like it?

-So that's a great question.

When students accept a seat at a magnet school, they are committing to remain at that school for the entire school year, whether they like the program or not.

They can withdraw at the end of the school year and return to their zoned school, but they are committed to being at the magnet school for the whole year.

Conversely, they don't have to reapply to attend that school in the following years.

-I see.

So if parents are hearing this and they want to learn more about magnet programs, where can they go?

-They can visit our website at magnet.CCSD.net or follow us on social media.

In the fall we host several events for families to attend such as magnet fairs and parent workshops.

I also recommend visiting individual school websites and attending the events that those schools host as well.

-Awesome.

So Magnet Schools of America has recognized many of our magnet programs this year.

Can you talk a little about that.

-Sure.

We are excited that our schools earned 38 awards this year.

Every year they apply to the Magnet Schools of America organization and earn awards based on five pillars that help us shape our magnet school programs.

Annually, we celebrate our schools and the awards that they've earned at our national conference, the Magnet Schools of America National Conference, and this year we're really excited that we get to host the conference here in Clark County in April.

-Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, and we'll list all of the schools and programs that are recognized by Magnet Schools of America at the end of the program.

And we'll send it back to Mauricio.

-Now to a new initiative from CCSD School Police.

Social workers are now embedded within the department to help with mental health outreach and better assist kids.

I had the chance to learn more about the program.

(Sgt.

Jennifer Brooks) I love working with the youth, the opportunity to give them a positive impression of law enforcement and help mold them into their future.

So having a social worker with us, the ability to call one out, we can call right away and say hey, this is what we have going on, see if we can get them on-scene to identify additional services that we can provide to them to help them with some of the issues they may be struggling with just outside of following any type of law or school rules, so mental health type services.

(Lori Smith) I've been practicing for over 20-ish years.

The police social workers, we have been with the police-- embedded in the Clark County School District Police Department since September.

We get referrals from the officers.

So what they try to do, we want to do more prevention before apprehension so when students get citations and police officers think you know what, hey, maybe they may benefit from social work interaction, maybe it's mental health services, homelessness or things like that, especially food and home insecurities.

When police officers see that, they reach out to the social workers and do a referral, and we say how we can support.

-I hope that they feel more comfortable interacting with us and coming to us for help.

A lot of times people are sometimes frightened and nervous when dealing with law enforcement, especially our youth.

I hope they see us as an extension of the social worker, your teacher, your site-based counselor.

I hope they know that we can also get them connected with services to help them, not just take them to juvie.

-Just recently working with a student-- can't give a lot of details-- but was struggling with mental health issues, had a few citations.

One of the officers actually reached out last week and met with the mom, talked with the mom and now the student is getting the treatment they need.

-There was a lot of challenges bringing, you know, everybody back together after being separated for so long.

Social media is another challenge nowadays.

A lot of positive and negative things can occur on social media, and some of the kids coping with that need a little assistance.

-Now with the police officers, we can work together side by side instead of waiting until something happens whether there's a citation or an arrest.

Instead of waiting, now we can go together and work as a team and get the services they need.

♪♪♪ CCSD Police has an anonymous Operation Crime-Free Schools hotline.

That number is 702.799.0228.

-Next let's head to Mabel Hoggard Math and Science Magnet Elementary School.

Students there have our first newsbreak.

-Hi, my name is Camila.

-I'm Marcel from Mabel Hoggard Elementary School.

-We're the first elementary magnet school established in Las Vegas.

-We're here for your first newsbreak.

-You can wear a mask if you choose to, but masks are no longer required on CCSD campuses.

That's because the governor ended the statewide mask mandate for Nevada.

However, masks are still required on school buses.

-In February we recognized school counselors.

National School Counseling Week always falls on the first week in February.

Thank you to all of the School District counselors who help kids like us succeed, including our school counselor, Ms. Ross.

-We are also celebrating Chinese New Year at our school.

We love learning about the Chinese New Year dragon dance, and 2022 is the Year of the Tiger.

-Did you know our school has animals?

We'll tell you more about that later.

-But for now back to the Vegas PBS studios.

-Thank you, Camila and Marcel.

February is also Black History Month and when high school students across the valley compete in the African American History Challenge Championship.

This year's championship featured the teams from Arbor View High School and Centennial High School.

The challenge is an academic match-up where students test their knowledge of Black contributions to the world.

And the 2022 winners, the team from Centennial High School.

Welcome, thank you so much for being here.

Introduce yourselves.

-My name is Zaniya Hardy, and I'm a senior.

-My name is Natasha Johnson, and I'm a senior.

-My name is Saedy Dickerson, and I'm a senior.

-My name is Lyracai Taylor, and I'm a freshman.

-My name is Akaiah Orr, and I'm a senior.

-My name is Jordan Jones, and I'm a freshman.

-Well ladies, first of all, thank you so much for being here.

Congratulations on your big win.

I know your trophy is just a testament of all the hard work, all the knowledge, all the training you did to prepare for this, and it all went to a great achievement.

Look at that, congratulations.

Natasha, I want to start with you.

The first question I was hoping to ask was the competition featured various categories.

How did your team prepare for this?

(Natasha Johnson) Us as a team, we prepared by splitting the categories up, and then everybody picked their own category.

So we went off that and we made a group chat to make sure everybody was studying and stuff, and that's what we did.

-That's really awesome.

How long did it take you to prepare?

-So we got the questions December 13, and just from there we were studying hard.

-That's really awesome.

Lyracai, was there anything you learned that you didn't know before while preparing for the challenge?

It seems like you guys took on a wealth of knowledge to prepare and make sure you were ready to go.

What did you learn from this?

(Lyracai Taylor) I hate to admit, but an awful lot.

Not a lot of Black history is around, and some of it is very hard to find, not easily accessible.

So I think through this challenge, not only I get a chance to get out and compete with my BSU, but I also got to learn a lot more about my heritage and Black history altogether.

So really an awful lot that I learned.

-Is that something you think you'll take with you to possibly share with your siblings or with classmates?

-Yes, most definitely.

Even like going through my day-to-day life if I hear things or people I'm like oh, that's so-and-so, they did this now.

So it's like, you know, nice to carry on.

-Oh, that's terrific.

Jordan, what was it like to compete against other schools?

I know this was the championship you ladies ultimately won.

What was it like competing against other schools?

(Jordan Jones) It was slightly nerve-racking because it's like the pressure is on, and it was very difficult because we had to make sure that we were able to say what we needed to say and answer correctly before the other team but not before the mediator was done speaking.

So it was challenging, but it was also really fun to get to meet other BSUs.

-Did you compete against-- how many other schools, was it a handful or what was the-- was the championship the hardest part for you or leading up to it?

-The championship was probably a little bit easier than the round before when we competed against Arbor View again and we beat them.

But competing against them the day before, it gave us a little bit of confidence to go into the championship, knowing that we could do it again.

-I can imagine it was such a large a feat, but it was, I believe, you're the only all-female team that competed in this.

Does that mean something more special to you?

(Akaiah Orr) It means a lot to me to be able to-- it's like Black power as I look at it, like strong female leads and everything.

We're great at it, we excel.

All of us excel in everything we do, so it was actually a nice experience to have with each other, just kind of a memory that we all share together.

-That's awesome.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that.

Saedy, what was it like when you won?

I believe 135 points.

What was that feeling like?

(Saedy Dickerson) For me?

Well, for I guess my whole team, we was all like pretty proud of ourselves and excited.

So yes, we were pretty proud.

-And for someone who hasn't done this before or students thinking about doing this next year, what would you share with them, any recommendations?

Any thoughts that you have for them?

-Yes.

I would say don't get discouraged if you get a question wrong.

It is okay, because you're still going to get more questions right than you are going to get wrong, so just let it go if you get it wrong.

-That's awesome.

Well, thank you so much.

Zaniya, thank you so much for that.

What's the biggest takeaway from this experience that you had?

It sounds like you ladies were training for months on end, probably building stronger friendships.

What did you take from all this?

(Zaniya Hardy) I would say just the whole experience of myself and getting closer with my BSU members.

I think it was a great experience for us.

I definitely want for the next years to come for more students and more schools participate because it would be fun for them too and a great way to learn about our history and our culture.

-Nice, appreciate it.

Well, thank you so much.

I do have one question for each one of you, just a one-word answer for the experience that you had for all of this.

I'll start with you, Natasha.

The one word that comes to mind when you think about this championship and this whole experience.

-Amazing.

-Wow.

I'm so sorry.

Um, it was-- -I think wow is a great word.

-Yeah, wow.

It was very wow.

-Absolutely.

-It was very empowering.

-It was different.

-It was-- it was fun.

-Nice.

-Encouraging.

-Encouraging.

Those are all strong words.

I'm so glad you were able to experience this, and thank you so much for sharing your experience with us today about this.

And as we mentioned Arbor View placed second, and we also want to give a shout-out to the third place winners from Desert Oasis High School.

Great job to all of you.

And if you want to watch the challenge, you can find the championship round on the website, Vegas PBS' website that is, vegaspbs.org.

-Thanks, Mauricio.

At Spring Valley High School, one student athlete earned an honor that sets her apart from basketball players nationwide.

We were there when this exceptional point guard found out she was selected as a member of the 2022 McDonald's All-American team.

♪♪♪ (Billy Hemberger) It's special.

You know, I know the kind of kid that she is, right?

So basketball doesn't define who she is as a person, whatnot.

But for her to be recognized and honored for what she deserves and what she has earned, that's definitely special.

It's special to her, special obviously to our program, and it's special-- it takes a village, right, to help kids and there's a lot of people that had a hand in this.

But so happy for her and her family.

(Dwight Gayles) Just watching her grow up as a kid and falling in love with the game, it means everything, man.

The sky's the limit for the kid, man.

♪♪♪ (Aaliyah Gayles) My dad's always on top, my mom's always on top, especially my coach, Billy Hemberger.

I appreciate that.

The support is just off the chains.

-Congratulations on the selection of your nominee as a 2022 McDonald's All-American.

Thank you for taking the time to nominate this exceptional student athlete.

Aaliyah Gayles, congratulations again.

(cheers and applause) ♪♪♪ Aaliyah is the only player from Nevada on the roster.

The 45th McDonald's All-American game is scheduled to take place in Chicago this March.

-Now let's head back to Mabel Hoggard Math and Science Elementary for our second newsbreak.

-Hi, I'm Benjamin, and this is one of our chinchillas.

-And I'm Claire from Mabel Hoggard Math and Science Magnet School.

-This is your second newsbreak.

-At our school we have over 100 animals like Bandit the chicken.

-This is Snowflake, and he's been at our school for a very long time.

-We get a chance to play with the animals during Zookeepers Club before school.

We really enjoy collecting the eggs from the chickens and ducks.

-And don't forget about running and playing with the goats.

Mabel Hoggard was the first Black licensed teacher in Nevada.

She taught first and second grade in the Clark County School District for 24 years.

-She retired in 1970.

She also did a lot of great things for our community like volunteering for the Red Cross.

We are proud to go to school here.

-We hope you liked learning about our school.

Come back and visit.

-Now let's send it back to the studio.

-Thank you.

From animals to archery.

When the final bell rings at C.P.

Squires Elementary School, the multipurpose room transforms into a training ground for more than 20 fourth and fifth graders.

Cade Cridland has more.

♪♪♪ Squires Elementary is a school full of champions, but these champions participate in a sport much older than football, soccer or baseball.

♪♪♪ Squires is home to the eight-time Nevada State National Archery in Schools Program champions.

(Sherry Jones) I think they kind of get thought of a little bit as the underdog, and a lot of people don't think that an inner city school would excel at archery.

It makes me happy that these kids actually want to continue with the program and do this and excel.

They do a very good job, and I'm proud of them.

Every year I get more proud of them.

Sherry Jones has been a part of the program for over seven years.

Unlike previous years, this championship team was brand new to the sport.

This year our whole team was brand new.

We had to start all over.

Usually we have fifth graders that were in fourth grade archery.

This year it was brand new fourth and fifth grade so we started from scratch.

But these students didn't let the challenge of learning a new sport deter them; in fact, for many of the archers, a positive "team first" mentality helped push them to the top.

(Diani) The teamwork that goes into archery is that we all work together, shooting together and doing like confidence in ourselves.

(Savannah) I really like to go to state with the team, and I feel like since it's such a great team, that's why we did so good.

(Melissa) It's fun because it's not about winning.

It's about having fun.

(Jesus) What goes through my head is sometimes I say I can't do it, but I never give up.

And sometimes when I say I can't do it, I just think that thought doesn't even exist or that I didn't even say that, and I say that I can.

(Colin) What made me want to do archery is I have all my friends here, and I also knew the coaches were amazing and I couldn't have any other coaches, someone as great as this.

For Jones, her students' growth mindset is infectious.

It's also good for me to see them do well.

It's very heartwarming that they want to do it and they want to continue with it.

I'm hard on them.

I push them because I know they can do it and I want them to be their best, and they keep coming back.

-The Squires team will head to nationals at the end of April.

To learn more about the program, visit squireselementary.com.

-That does it for this edition of Student Spotlight.

We appreciate you watching.

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

They could end up on the program.

Email the Clark County School District's Communications Office at communications @nv.CCSD.net.

-Also, we want to let you know about a new education newsletter called the Vegas PBS Community Classroom.

Sign up for free at vegaspbs.org/education, and stay connected to the latest updates on educational resources, parenting tips, upcoming events and much more.

-We'll leave you with the names of the CCSD 38 magnet programs recognized this month by Magnet Schools of America.

See you next month.

♪♪♪