While Vaughn Middle School has started facility improvements with a modernized version scheduled to be completed oner the next year and a half, there are community concerns of what this means for its own staff, Pine Middle School and the school district at large.
The current version of Vaughn was built in 1956, while the new version will have a three-story building enough for about 1200 students, with a modern robotics lab, classrooms with areas for UNR student-teachers to observe and a temperature controlled state of the art gym.
However, several locals have reached out to us in recent weeks fearing other schools could be closed down or merged, specifically in areas with low income populations, as other overhauls are being planned, creating longer commutes for less affluent kids, a trend experienced nationwide.
One of these concerns is that students at Pine Middle School could be absorbed into the new Vaughn. The distance between the two schools is about 10 minutes by car and over an hour on foot.
At a meeting dating back to 2023, different options were presented for the future of Pine, including becoming a PreK through 5th elementary school, and rezoning its Neil Road area population for middle school. Another option reiterated at a meeting in 2024 is to make Pine a PreK through eighth grade school.
Traner Middle School is another school which was identified in a study by the firm CannonDesign that should be included in the district's so-called Facility Modernization Plan (FMP), which for many has created confusion rather than clarity.
At Vaughn itself, a reader who wished to remain anonymous wrote to us that “all the the staff, including [the] principal, everyone, will have to re-interview to keep their jobs after the new building is finished.”
According to a U.S. News and World Report ranking, Vaughn ranked 16th in Washoe County middle schools, with over 80% minority enrollment and 100% economically disadvantaged students, with 34 full-time teachers and a 20 to 1 student teacher ratio.
Pine ranked 11th in Washoe County, with 77.4 minority enrollment, 100% economically disadvantaged students, 46 full-time teachers and an 18 to 1 student teacher ratio.
We presented these concerns to the Washoe County School District, to which Public Information Officer Victoria Campbell responded by email, indicating: “We’ve been working toward some of these decisions since the 2023 Facility Modernization Plan was approved about a year ago. As we return from Winter Break, we anticipate that the Zoning Advisory Committee, Capital Funding Protection Committee, and Board of Trustees will be taking up some of these questions in the coming months. While our agendas have not been finalized yet, please stay tuned of those public meetings. Similarly, the recruitment process never stops at WCSD and all of our posted opportunities can be found publicly online.”
Campbell linked to a video released five days ago, titled Structural Steel at Vaughn Middle School, giving an update on construction there, with an anticipated completion by the 2026/27 school year.
The district’s website has a page dedicated to the modernization plan which indicates that: “in 2022, Washoe County School District (WCSD) started on a journey to plan for substantial improvements to the facilities and educational experience for all 61,000 students in our district. To accomplish this, we hired an innovative firm to investigate current conditions, future demands, and resources associated with WCSD’s school facilities. CannonDesign, the company hired, was tasked with developing a comprehensive Facility Modernization Plan (FMP) for WCSD for a 10+ year horizon. The 18-month study started in July 2022.”