By Breven Honda
For every high school principal, a new school year provides new beginnings with a lot of pride. 
For Virgin Valley High School Principal Stephen Waite, he cannot wait for the 2025-26 school year to begin.
“Very excited,” Waite said. “We have a lot of veteran teachers that I think are quite good. We go back Aug. 11.”
Waite, who is entering his second year as principal, bleeds green as he also graduated from Virgin Valley High School in 1994.
“Virgin Valley, it’s home,” Waite said. “I actually wonder, I not sure this is accurate, if I might have spent more time on Virgin Valley campus than any human being on this planet, between time as a high school student and time as a teacher.
“It’s like Disneyland for me. I love that place.”
As Waite begins his second year as principal, he learned a lot from last year.
He said the biggest thing he took away from last school year was the relationship between students and teachers.
“Something I knew before, but was re-emphasized, and that just the importance of people, both the student and the teacher, front office,” Waite said. “So, far and away, the most important thing on any campus are the human beings on that campus. That’s teachers being in the right mindset and the right place to teach kids who need to be in the right place in the mindset.
“There’s a lot of distraction with both of those. Kids can come with struggles and of course, teachers have their own ups and downs. But no question about it, if you can take care of a person, that person has the best chance to be educated.”
As a result, Waite ensures he has a strong mental health program.
“We’ve put a lot of money into our mental health therapist, Glen Horlacher, who is like just salt of the earth type person, great individual,” Waite said. “I relearned the power of helping people be emotionally strong and take on the ups and downs of not only being like a teacher, educator, student, but also being like a human being.”
While focusing on having the right mentality, Waite is also focusing on academics. He is aiming for students to have higher ACT test scores as well as aiming for a higher Star Rating, given by the Clark County School District.
He said getting a higher star rating is a sign of a well-rounded successful academic school.
“Every school has given up to a five-star ranking,” Waite said. “A year ago, Virgin Valley was a three. We’ve done a lot of work to become a four, but one of the challenges is to become a five. And the five, I think, is within our reach, if you’re looking at all of the areas that we have to and they’re all student-based successes and teacher-like focus.
“It’s a challenge in the fact that, I don’t know if we’ve ever been a five-star school. All the nuances and the smaller goals that are needed to reach such a goal are so positive, like fighting against chronic absenteeism, or improve ACT scores or ensure that there’s engagement with community in the school.”
Virgin Valley remained a 3-star school in 2023-24 as it improved its total index score 4.5 points to 63.5 points. The school also saw at 15% improvement in 2023-24 in English Language Arts proficiency as well as small increases of about 2% in math and sciences proficiencies, respectively.
The school also saw its chronic absenteeism rate drop from 31.4 to 29.4 in 2023-24, showing that students are remaining in the classroom and not having unexcused absences.
The star ratings from the 2024-25 school year has not been unveiled.
On the extracurricular side, Waite is hoping for more success in athletics, robotics and the arts.
“Athletics are a fun part of high school, so I would love to see multiple state championships,” he said. “My theater department, I got down to the final two to win what would be considered State Theater. It’s effective in the fact that it helps kids perform better in classes because GPAs have to be high and those teachers require a lot.
“We have a robotics class I’d like to see expand. I think our student council does a phenomenal job. I expect they’ll do exceptionally well this year. They maintain a very high standard for student council.”
Over the summer, the Virgin Valley High School gymnasium earned some renovations, refinishing the gym floors.
As a result, it made the court and floors look brand new in a project that was completed by the Clark County School District.
“Clark County School District goes above and beyond when it comes to the gym floors. We redid the floor. We didn’t re-decal the floor. We just resealed the floor,” Waite said. “We are having CCSD come in, and they are reassessing the bleachers because we’re having problems. Sometimes, the East Side pulls out in front of the west side, and they kind of collapse, so they’re going to redo the bleachers. We are doing a new shot clock this year for basketball. So that required some wiring and some electrical work.
“There was also a deep clean of the foyer. This is minor, but you step into the bathrooms now, and it’s a recoated bathroom, so it looks clean all the time, as opposed to something that might have looked dirty. That’s a shout out to our custodian crew.”
Although it has been eight years since the gym was originally renovated, it now looks as if the gym was new. The foyer has also added an athletic wall, honoring different awards, such as state championships, like on the athletic side.
“If you’re a step in the gym and look at it, a lot of ways, it is the same floor, but obviously it looks shiny and new, and it’ll be fun,” Waite said. “If you go in the main hall of the foyer, there’s a new academic state championship wall, which I like. We want to win athletic championships, but it is wonderful when our athletes not only perform on the field but nail the classroom as well.”
As the school year arrives this month with the first day on Aug. 11, Waite hopes that students will go to class and learn something with respect.
“If you’re going to come and go into class, you might as well learn something,” he said. “So, the simplicity of why we’re there is like, ‘Go learn.’
“I would also say that every Bulldog is welcome. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you love, as long as you’re good, kind and respectful, you’re 100% welcome on that campus, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure you have a place, a classroom, an extracurricular spot you can go.”
