Board selects new school names

Four new school names were recommended and approved by the Clark County School District Board of School Trustees. These schools will open in August 2009.

The new institutions will be Henry and Evelyn Bozarth Elementary School, Mark L. Fine Elementary School, Charlotte and Jerry Keller Elementary School and Vincent L. Triggs Elementary School. The schools do not have specific addresses as of yet, but their cross streets are Ford Avenue and Torrey Pines Drive, Aviary Way and Virage Park Drive, Egan Crest Drive and Severance Lane, and Cedar Avenue and Christy Lane.

Specific namesakes were not assigned to exact locations as of press time.

Suggestions for school name dedications are reviewed by the school name committee, which is made up of school board trustees Terri Janison, Sheila Moulton and Shirley Barber; school district representative Deborah Franklin; and community representatives Punam Mathur and Jose Troncoso.

Applications have a set of standard questions, which include the nominee's occupation, employment in the school district, education-related positions held outside the district, involvement in organizations or activities for the betterment of children and any government service history.

After the recommendations are submitted, they are reviewed by the school name committee. Once the applications have been looked at, committee members go around and nominate their picks for the namesakes. The first four applications to receive the vote of four of the six members of the committee become the namesakes.

"There were over 90 that we went through this year," Janison said.

Namesake applications not used go back into the pile and are looked at again during the next round of reviews. For instance, the Rev. Jesse Scott, who has a school opening in his name in August, submitted his letter of intent to be a namesake 10 years ago.

"There were people who spoke up on my behalf," Scott said. "I was thankful that they finally considered me."

Scott previously worked with the NAACP and the Equal Rights Commission.

"It means a lot," he said.

Because the application is pretty standardized at the moment, Janison said the committee may meet again this month to discuss changing the form to better reflect the array of people who are applying for namesake recognition, but as of now, no date has been set.

"The people that submitted, it really goes across the board," Janison said.

As for the 2009 namesakes themselves, Dr. Henry Bozarth is a former director of education for the school district who earned a doctorate degree in education from the University of Texas before moving to Las Vegas. His wife, Evelyn, earned a triple degree in math, biological science and education. She taught elementary school in the city, and in the 1960s wrote the math curriculum for the district's third-, fourth- and fifth-graders.

Developer Mark Fine created the district's School-Community Partnership Program and has been on the board of the Clark County Public Education Foundation since its creation 15 years ago.

Charlotte Keller was a special education teacher in the school district for 19 years, and her husband, Jerry, was sheriff for Clark County from 1995 to 2003. He established the Citizens' Police Academy and the Citizens' Youth Academy.

Vincent Triggs earned a master's of science in education from California State University at Hayward. A former school teacher in the district, Triggs eventually became a spokesman for employment and independent living opportunities for Nevadans with special needs.

Also, he founded the Nevada Association for the Handicapped, which is now Easter Seals Southern Nevada.