Schools deciding where to spend new state funding

Manuel Majano, 13, wants to join the Army — after he goes to college.

Daniel Lopez, also 13, wants to join the Coast Guard out of high school and use his military benefits to help pay for college. Oh, and he’s also going to be a professional soccer player. So is 12-year-old Abel Silva, who is going to be an artist as well.

But first, the task at hand: mastering the English language.

“Sometimes I have a difficult time talking English,” said Daniel, who said word definitions can trip him up. “It takes me time to learn it.”

The three boys — all of whom started eighth-grade at Garside Junior High School in Las Vegas on Monday — are among the 378 students at the school who are benefiting from a new vein of funding this year: the so-called weighted funding formula.

The new program approved by the Nevada Legislature last session allocated $1,200 per student for children who score in the bottom 25 percent on state tests, are either learning English or living in poverty and do not attend a school that already receives Zoom or Victory funding from the state. Those programs also target English language learners and children in poverty, but Zoom and Victory funds are used schoolwide whereas weighted funding targets specific students.

Under the Clark County School

WEIGHTED

Leventhal. “I wanted to take away any type of threat they may have felt by seeing me. My intent was to disappear and not be any kind of threat to the people in the wash.”

But on cross-examination from Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan, the Idaho man admitted that he had also brought a pistol and 250 rounds of ammunition on his trip to the rural town in southeastern Nevada.

The prosecutor pointed to statements Drexler made to undercover FBI agents, in which he said he wanted civility among the authorities.

Creegan displayed an image that appeared to show Drexler, dressed in camouflage pants and a green vest, staring down the barrel of his longgun.

He said he wasn’t taking aim. “I wasn’t pointing my gun at anyone,” he said. “I’m not looking through the sights. That’s the only way I could look through the crack. … I doubt I could have hit the (BLM) truck that day.”

But he later said his gun was pointed “in the general direction” of law enforcement officers, and “I thought they were going to kill me.” U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro ordered jurors to disregard the latter statement.

Closing arguments are expected to begin Tuesday in the retrial. The first trial ended after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision on charges against Drexler and three

others, including Eric Parker, who also was photographed in April 2014 pointing a long gun through a barrier on the I-15 overpass.

Parker’s testimony was cut short last week after Navarro ruled that he made statements to jurors that were prohibited during trial.

Two other defendants, Steven Stewart and Ricky Lovelien, told the judge they do not intend to testify.

The four men had driven to the rural Clark County town in support of rancher Cliven Bundy, who prosecutors allege conspired to thwart the federal government’s roundup of roughly 1,000 cows from public land.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.