Superintendent says growth not impacting Fernley schools yet

Robert Perea, the Fernley Reporter

Lyon County School District Superintendent Tim Logan says the questions that comes up most often whenever he meets with various groups around the county are about enrollment and capacity of schools.

So when he spoke to the Fernley City Council at its Oct. 16 meeting, that was the first item he brought up.

Logan said before coming to the council meeting, he toured the Victory Logistics District and several potential new housing developments. However, while all of those portend growth in the future, he said the district hasn’t begun seeing the impacts yet.

“It’s not like we have this big inundation of students that are coming with all this new growth,” Logan said. “There’s potential, I’m not saying there’s not. As you see all these houses, I just don’t want you to think that the school’s in a panic, because we’re really not.”

Logan said as of its initial count day, Fernley schools have seen an increase in enrollment of 33 students spread over the six schools from last year, and he said the district is in a healthy situation capacity-wise.

“You want to be at capacity,” he said. “You don’t want buildings that have empty classrooms.”

Logan said the schools the district would most currently watch in terms of enrollment and capacity are Fernley Intermediate, Silverland Middle School and Fernley High. He said when the Boys & Girls Club moves to its new location when the Community Response and Resource Center is completed, that will open up four classrooms at FIS.

“We’ll need to do some remodel, but that helps with our capacity a little bit there,” he said.

At FHS, he said the new gymnasium will free up some space for reconstruction of the main building if it becomes necessary, and opens up the potential for a culinary class and other things using the old kitchen facilities.

Logan said the district is working on a master facilities program now to figure out where its needs are and what future numbers project.

Logan said one reason he and other district officials toured the industrial park is that getting students out of the classroom and into work environments is part of the new direction education is going.

‘Our education system’s changing,” Logan said. “It’s not sitting in rows and learning math and science, it’s career and technical education, it’s work-based learning, it’s getting out into businesses. Our classrooms are going to start going more out in the community as time goes on.”