Funding for special education sought

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, July 1, 1998 | 11:34 a.m.

A special panel of Nevada lawmakers will send a strong message to the 1999 Legislature: find a way to fund special education.

"Special education continues to be an unfunded mandate," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas. "It hasn't been our unwillingness to look at the issue. It's been our unwillingness to put up the money."

Giunchigliani led a six-member panel of lawmakers in the past few months who have studied complex issues tied to special education in Nevada, everything from how to discipline students to teacher training. The panel also examined student discipline issues.

On Tuesday night, panel members completed a list of recommendations for 1999 legislators to consider for new laws.

As expected one of the most significant issues facing the committee has been financing special education.

The state money that trickles to special education students is simply not keeping pace with the staggering cost of teaching them, officials have said. Special education students -- an ever-growing population -- now make up slightly more than 10 percent of the Clark County School District's nearly 200,000 students.

In the district, officials say the state pays about $28,000 for each of its 1,152 special education teachers. But the actual average salary for each teacher is slightly more than $48,000, leaving the district to scrape its general fund to make up the difference.

Clark County Schools officials say they use a total of about $67 million out of the district's general fund to pay for special education, because the state also does not pay for special transportation costs, aides, nurses, psychologists or therapists.

One panel member, Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, said the state may need to consider another formula for financing special education.

"It's not a matter of just funding it, but how you fund it," Washington said.

Lawmakers will take up the issues in the 1999 session, which begins in January.

Local education officials said they hope lawmakers will heed the panel's recommendation.

"This is a significant start," Annie Barclay, a data analyst for the Clark County Schools special education department, said of the panel's recommendation. "The issue is: where does it go now?"

Other recommendations by the panel:

* Draft a law that provides money for tuition-free summer and Saturday school for students with discipline problems.

* Draft a law that provides more money for training special education and regular education teachers.

* Amend a law aimed at truants to allow school districts to cite students for truancy when a parent directly requests it. The panel also recommended another amendment to the truancy law: do not force principals to report all truants to police. Some students are likely to attend school again with other interventions, the panel said.