The academic struggles of too many Clark County students are well known. The successes much less so.
While test scores in the Clark County School District remain stagnant, there are pockets of high achievement both within and outside the district. Consider the robotics team at the Cadence campus of the Coral Academy of Science in Henderson.
The campus is one of six in Southern Nevada run by the academy, a public school charter authorized by the state that operates outside the school district, serving more than 5,500 students in grades K-12 “motivating them toward STEM careers by providing the necessary tools to help develop 21st-century and leadership skills.” The academy has a five-star rating based on state metrics and graduated 99 percent of its students in 2024 and 2025.
For the third straight year, a seven-member team of middle school students from Coral Academy has qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championship next month in St. Louis. The teenagers prevailed last week at the Nevada state championships, held at Green Valley High School. A team from Northwest Career and Technical Academy, a magnet school within the Clark County School District, will also move on to St. Louis.
The competition involves designing and building a functional robot that will compete to win a specific game, selected anew each year. This year’s event, the Review-Journal’s Spencer Levering reported this week, consists of “directing a robot to place softball-sized blocks into horizontal tubes at varying heights.” Teams get extra points for meeting additional requirements.
The team and its robot — known as Spider — have already participated in competitions in Utah and Arizona. Now they’ll head to the world championships as Nevada state champions, where they’ll face around 500 formidable foes, both domestic and international. “Those Chinese robots are a whole different beast,” team member Hazelle Ritchie, 13, told Mr. Levering.
This is the third straight team that Alvin Simogan, a Coral Academy robotics teacher and coach, will take to world championships. He calls this year’s group his “dream team” and attributes their progress to supportive parents and an eagerness to tackle the tough subjects necessary to succeed. The students spend up to 10 hours a week after school on the robot project.
The Coral Academy team is but one example of exceptional talent in Southern Nevada’s schools. There are many more. All stand as a tribute to the importance in education of engaged teachers, parental participation, relentless encouragement and high expectations. Whatever happens in St. Louis, the Coral Academy kids are already winning.
