Lyon County's late-start days

Gathered in a Dayton High School classroom, six teachers puzzled over an equation to determine the square root of the problem at hand: low test scores in math.

"They need more support," said algebra and geometry teacher Linda Howard, during the 7:30 a.m. meeting Friday. "They're not confident in their abilities."

It added up to an hour of professional development the Dayton High School way, which meant that students came in an hour late to give teachers time to work together.

"I think professional development is a good tool," Howard said. "We're always so busy doing something that we don't have any time to collaborate with each other."

Participating in the math discussion were vocation teacher Lee Volberding, substitute teacher Kryssie Beard, geometry and math proficiency teacher Gary Handley, history and culinary teacher David Palmer, long-term substitute teacher Will Bumgardner and Howard.

In other rooms, other groups discussed different subjects.

"I'm in favor of professional development because I'm able to communicate with my colleagues at each site," Howard said. "If we can't communicate how can we collaborate, how can we know what others are doing?"

Dayton High School chose a late-start schedule to allow staff, who would miss afternoon development time due to sports or other activities, to attend. At other Lyon County Schools, like in Fernley and Yerington, professional development occurs during a Friday early-hour release.

"It's awesome," said Dayton High School Principal Teri White. "Every school is handling it different. That's part of the neat thing about school improvement - it's based on your needs."

SB1, Nevada's version of No Child Left Behind, required all schools have an approved improvement plan by the end of 2004. That process began five years ago in Lyon County and has been in place for the past three years.

"What we do is sit down with the calendar and try to do two (professional- development) days a month," White said. "In December, we're only doing one day because of Christmas and we don't do any in June because of graduation."

Teachers' ideas on Friday for improving student's math proficiency scores included finding ways to support female students - whose sophomore test scores indicate 15 percent fewer of them passed compared to males - having a full-time English-as-a-second-language teacher on staff and making sure students are taught what they need to know from kindergarten on up.

Four times during the year, teachers from elementary, middle and high schools meet with each other.

n Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at moneill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.