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We lived off Alta and almost Rampart in Summerlin for almost 10yrs so we are aware of the area. But we are referring to the ones that are on the "other side" of town such as anything past the strip and past Eastern or towards NLV like MLK area. We lived down the street from a teacher that was so frustrated due to the amount of non english speaking kids and the amount of kids that parents just didn't care with kids that couldn't even read a simple book by the 2nd grade.
And Henderson High School isn't that great from what I have seen first hand on the type of kids that go thru there!
IMO over crowding and lack of funds and again parents lack of role in there childs life plays a part of it all. I am not saying that we are perfect parents but we do our damnedest to make sure our kids get to most that we as parents can offer in way of an education. If that means I have to learn something new then so be it. All we can do is try! Where as there are so many that rely solely on the education system to do all the work for them.
Not saying Washoe Valley school system is perfect when its not and frankly there is not a school zone where we currently live that is.
We are wanting to relocate for the simple fact of if we have to be some place that we have to work hard, pay bills, put our kids thru school, deal with crime, traffic, ups and downs of an economy that we have no idea where its going to go.
I can't really put my finger on what is wrong with Nevada Schools, it's certainly a lack of funding but seems to go beyond that, my granddaughter stayed with us last year and attended one of the highest rated elementary schools in Reno, she was almost a year ahead of her classmates in reading and math but was considered 'on level' in her prior school in Northern California. The thing that disturbed me was the inordinate amount of testing, it seems that every third week they had some sort of test which usually took several days.
Testing seems to be the "soup du jour" these days in all districts. But I think we have a lack of qualified individuals in administration. There's nothing wrong with coming up through the system, but fresh blood from outside the area would bring some welcome relief. I feel that this district is a bit top heavy with too many adminstrators. And in the 30 years I've lived here I have never heard a great idea from any of them.
The standards for Nevada students are very low compared to some other states. And Nevada parents/families seem to be more transient and work more hours for lower wages than in some other parts of the country. Transient students have a difficult time assimilating to new schools on a regular basis. And parents who are working more for less have very little time to spend with their children or go to school events. I was surprised how poorly attended school functions are these days. And there are virtually no longer stay-at-home moms to help out in the classroooms these days. So classroom populations are going up, teachers have more to teach, and they have less help for the little things. Teacher salaries and benefits in NV are something out of the stone age. Add in that the kids come to school without having breakfast (or even dinner last night besides a bag of chips and a soda), brought no lunch or lunch money, did not do the homework, and the teacher cannot reach the parent to discuss problems...makes for a very sad educational environment. My husband taught in the district for several years and yet we homeschooled our daughter because, even at one of the best schools, she was bored to tears waiting for the slow students to catch up and teachers did not have the time nor energy to differnentiate lesson plans to accomodate the kids who "get it" the first time. There is also a lack of discipline support in the district. It seems every class has kids who are constantly holding things up due to behavior and nothing is ever done. Teachers feel a lack of support from principals at many schools, as always there are some that are better than others. There are also some schools that are well known to have parents populations that dictate almost everything that is done at those schools outside of what is mandated by the district. More and more work is being delegated to para-professionals (no degree required for the librarians, computer aides, etc) and they are really not qualified to be "teaching."
We chose to homeschool. Even then our daughter aced the entrance exams to UNR at the age of 15. So even higher education here has pretty low standards. Her classmates at UNR were very slow academically. She is now in grad school in TX and experiencing the same phenomenon there, only worse due to the ESL problems. She teaches classes of undergrads who cannot read, write, or speak English though they have been in the US all their lives. I'm not sure what the answer is here but I know for sure that we need to ramp up our standards and expect more of parents.
The standards for Nevada students are very low compared to some other states. And Nevada parents/families seem to be more transient and work more hours for lower wages than in some other parts of the country.
Yes, the standards in Nevada Schools are definitely very low, I was surprised at how low they were. I know that Nevada just loves to blame it's educational problems on transient families and ESL kids, but the school that my granddaughter attended in California had a highly transient population and about 40% ESL kids. We were amazed to find out that in spite of the challenges the teachers in her California school had she was almost a year ahead of standards in Reno. And we are comparing one of Reno's best elementary schools (Caughlin Ranch) with a school in California that had pretty crappy ratings.
We want to re locate back to Reno. Yep of our own free will. Negative Nellys and Neds bring on your on words of wisdom. Maybe we didn't think of something when we came up with this idea of moving back. So if you can think of something that I missed please feel free to throw it out there.
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No words of wisdom from me, but in about 2 weeks our house will be listed for sale, it's a nice house if you are looking for one. After 14 years in Reno we are moving back to California. South Meadows is not a ghetto, it's quite nice, in fact there are very few unsafe areas of Reno. I am just ready to move. I don't like living in an HOA, we really miss the shopping and cultural events in Northern California and that's where our kids and grandkids are.
My biggest criticism of Nevada is the useless part time legislature that is basically owned by casino and mining interests, and the apathy of locals; it seems like nothing phases them. But the apathy might be a very rational response in an environment where most elected government officials won't even take the time to respond to correspondence from their constituents.
And it's sad, but this state doesn't seem to care much about it's residents, why else would they use 'greyhound therapy' as the de-facto treatment of the mentally ill, and allow the schools to be ranked dead last in the US. And I am amazed at how heavy handed Reno cops are, I have seen them treat the elderly homeless like they were gutter trash, harassing them for 30 minutes when their only crime appeared to be homelessness.
2sleepy. I would love to move back to Calif. I am a Southern Cal Native but find that I prefer the Norcal climate, and the natural beauty of the forest over my days of the beach and sand.
But, Calif will never be the Golden state that it once was. If we were rich and had to choose we like the little area of Grassvalley Ca. Puts us close enough to ALL the things we love. I am Japanese American and living here in the South I find us missing out on some of that culture.
Reno puts us close as we can affor to get to enjoy the all the things we love and miss.
Best of luck with your move back and hope you do not realize that after 14 years of being away that the grass is not green on the other side of the state line.
2sleepy.
Best of luck with your move back and hope you do not realize that after 14 years of being away that the grass is not green on the other side of the state line.
Thanks, and I have no delusions about California, I know it's expensive and crowded and all the other negatives but I was born in Northern California (as were my parents) and I really miss it. We moved to Nevada because my husband was offered a job here. I never wanted to move, but we did and I made the best of it, made good friends here and enjoyed all of the wonderful things that Nevada has to offer but it's just not for me.
Thanks, and I have no delusions about California, I know it's expensive and crowded and all the other negatives but I was born in Northern California (as were my parents) and I really miss it. We moved to Nevada because my husband was offered a job here. I never wanted to move, but we did and I made the best of it, made good friends here and enjoyed all of the wonderful things that Nevada has to offer but it's just not for me.
I was born in Pleasanton, lived there for 51 years, and have zero desire to ever go back. if I miss one thing it would be my walks in Sunol Regional park. Maybe growing up in a middle class town that turned yuppie, or for whatever reason I'll never go back. I even enjoy shoveling snow off my driveway here.
Funny, that you would want to go back, but we're are all different. Here you can drive on the freeways at any hour of the day. Men will still get a door for a women here. Good luck going back, and I hope you'll be happy there.
My 2 cents on schools. If your child is in a school with low standards that can work in their favor because they can get straight A's, and have a great transcript. When they get to college high school won't really matter. I went to the best public high school in San Francisco (Lowell High), graduated at the top of my class and went to UC Berkeley where the profs just shredded me. I switched to UCLA and breezed through in 4 years. Here's the truth that most people won't recognize. You just go to high school and college for the diploma. Almost nothing you learn has any lasting value in the world. You go to school to prove you can conform and do what you are told, no matter how irrelevant. When you get your first job it's the same. You are there to follow orders and figure out how to survive and thrive in the environment. I minored in English Lit. at UCLA and never learned to write until I took a Clear Concise Writing Class at work. I got an MBA, and the only thing of value I learned was the future value of money and interpreting statistics. Nothing I ever learned in school was job related. So if you want your kids to succeed, teach them to survive and thrive and excel in whatever environment they find themselves in. Don't worry about what they are learning. The only thing of value is to learn how to learn whatever is being taught. The subject matter itself is almost totally irrelevant to their future.
^^what he said^^ I have a daughter in grad school and she's still asking why she's doing it. She has always followed the money so she has no student debt, but there really is no point to the education she has gotten. K-12 was learning the basics to function as an adult in today's world (where most people function at a 4th grade level), undergrad was a lot of work and expanded a bit on the K-12 experience but not much for what you pay, and graduate school has been a total waste of time academically. She has so far had one class to learn how to be a grad student, one basic class in in her field, 2 statistics classes disguised as "research methods", and one subject class that ended up having a professor on medical leave for most of the semester. Her second year she has chosen one more subject class and the rest is about writing her proposal and doing her research. And some people pay for this!
I suggest to all young people today to never pay for your education. Find scholarships for your early education and get funded if you want to go to graduate school. Do not pay for the value of nothing.
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