LAS VEGAS -- The Clark County School District superintendent said a recently upgraded facility in Las Vegas will help meet the needs of the county's special need students get jobs and gain independence.
About 150 special needs students attend the Variety School, an $18 million dollar facility located at 2800 E. Stewart Ave.
"My son can't wait to come to school," said Amy Johnson, a mother of a student attending the Variety School. "On weekends he can't wait to come to school, after school he's ready to come back to school. It makes me so proud that they care so much about him."
Johnson's son was born with brain damage. She said other schools didn't have the resources he needed.
"If you don't have the right tools, it doesn't work," she said. "And these teachers and the faculty here, they do the job and they do it right."
School district superintendent Dwight Jones said after that after partnering with the Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center, teachers at the school are better equipped to help students.
"There were amazing things going on in the old Variety School, but the new school just offers so many additional opportunities and so many vocational opportunities for the kids," Jones said.
Students will have the chance to learn job skills in a number of settings, including a green house, kitchen and graphic center.
"We're able to provide them with life skills, so they can become productive citizens when they leave this school," Variety School Principal Tyler Hall said. "I think our big center is focusing on behavior and centering on life skills and vocational skills."
About 34,000 students are enrolled in special education in Clark County. Of those, over 3,000 have been diagnosed with autism.
A ribbon cutting to mark the opening of the renovated Variety School.
