Charting a course

Up to 450 students sought as new facility prepares for opening

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As LeAnn Putney and Connie Malin prepare for the fall opening of the their new Sunrise-area school Innovations International Charter School of Nevada, they are led by a simple motto -- "think globally, live locally."

Putney, director of research and development for the state-funded charter school, and Malin, chief education officer, said their goals for the K-12 Innovations International Charter School of Nevada will include serving students who are not yet fluent in English and instituting a global curriculum meant to teach students about other countries and cultures, as well as helping them develop a future career path through mentoring and career development programs.

"We want to bring foreign languages in, but we really want students to understand that they are part of a huge global community," Putney said.

Putney and Malin met in the late 1990s, when Malin enrolled at UNLV as a graduate student in education. The women often talked about what they'd like to see in a school, and found they had similar ideas. About three years ago, they started to go ahead with their ideas and start a school.

"We formed a committee that searched out and researched charter schools for one year, and we formed a local committee of community members and experts to put the school together. It was a humongous team," Malin said.

This year, Putney will serve as the president of the board of directors for the Innovations International Charter School of Nevada, and Malin will serve as both chief education officer and principal. As the school grows in the next few years, Putney and Malin plan to expand the student body and staff.

"We're bringing what we've learned about education, and expanding it to a whole school," she said. "This is sort of our dream school."

Because Innovations International is a public school, there is no tuition fee, and students are currently being enrolled on a first-come, first-served basis. Malin said all classes will include 25 or fewer students per teacher, and the school's ideal enrollment this fall would be between 400 to 450 students.

The school's programs will be fully inclusive of students with special needs, from those with learning disabilities to those deemed gifted and talented. Malin said the school will start with English and Spanish dual language immersion classes, and will later add French and sign language classes.

Though students in grades K through 5, 6 through 8, and 9 through 12 will attend classes in different areas of the school, students in all grade levels will work together each day during the school's global curriculum.

"As part of the global curriculum, children will work together in a variety of different aspects," Malin said. "One will be the school's international justice system, which will include making and looking at policies and procedures to follow here in the school, and will follow current events throughout the world. It'll be a weekly class and will be tied to the classroom curriculum."

In addition to helping students follow international current events, Malin said programs such as the international justice system will help students to feel more responsible for themselves and their school by letting them have a voice in determining how their school works. As part of the global curriculum program, Malin and Putney also hope to bring the local community into the Innovations International Charter School of Nevada and make its environment more relevant to "real life."

"We want community members to come into the school and show students the businesses they work in, so kids can learn to do similar tasks within the school" Malin said. "The result will be things like the school student police force -- if a student is running in the halls, they'll get a ticket from the students' police for running in the school. Then the students will pick a student lawyer, and they'll set up a student-run courtroom, and the student will go to court."

Putney and Malin also are hoping to institute a banking institution and in-house communications, including a television station and a publishing company as part of the global curriculum program.

"With the house TV network within the school, students will be the reporters and they'll see what's happening in the world inside and outside of the school, and then turn around and report to the school community," Malin said. "We might set up a publishing company where kids could publish a book they write in class, or a school newspaper."

Putney said the career path programs students take part in will be determined by their interests, as well as the availability of community mentors.

"In 11th and 12th grade, students will go out into the community and spend time shadowing their mentors at work," Malin said. "They'll earn credit for job shadowing as work-service. We hope that as seniors, they can earn a small paycheck and have an idea of what their interests are when the graduate."

Putney said the ideas the school is founded upon represent the best of the educational research she has followed over the years as an associate professor at UNLV. Malin also has provided research insight, and previously served as the assistant principal at Odyssey Charter School.

Innovations International is located at 1600 E. Oakey Blvd., in the original Temple Beth Shalom building. For more information, call 371-1946 for English or 524-4726 for Spanish, or visit www.iicsn.org.