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Board renews High Desert Montessori charter for three years; principal outlines improvement steps
Summary
Trustees approved a three‑year renewal of High Desert Montessori School’s charter. Principal Eric Perez described steps to raise star ratings, including interventions for chronic absenteeism, hiring an interventionist for math and Heggerty for phonemic awareness.
The Washoe County School District board approved a three‑year renewal of the charter agreement for High Desert Montessori School (HDMS) at its Dec. 9 meeting after district staff and the school’s principal outlined performance challenges and improvement steps.
Eric Perez, HDMS principal and executive director, said the school is in year two as a 1‑star school and that the Montessori pedagogy can present challenges in translating to SBAC/Smarter Balanced metrics. Perez described a plan to reduce chronic absenteeism, hire an interventionist focused on math word‑problem skills, implement Heggerty phonemic awareness instruction, and focus on WIDA growth for multilingual learners.
Trustee Westlake, who pulled the item from consent to ensure transparency, said she wanted the public to see the district’s plan to support the school rather than automatically approving a three‑year contract. After hearing staff and the principal, the board moved to approve the three‑year renewal.
What happens next: district staff will monitor implementation of the intervention plans and report back on progress to the board.
