Center opens to meet need for new teachers

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Oct. 29, 1998 | 11:10 a.m.

After months of delivering mail to schools, Karen Cefalo wants to work in one.

"I think I have a lot to offer these kids," said Cefalo, a mail courier for the Clark County School District. "I've overcome a lot of hurdles in my life. I think I could be a good role model."

Cefalo is one of more than 300 "support staffers" -- secretaries, aides and bus drivers -- who are now enrolled in education classes at Southern Nevada Community College.

The state's college and university system has teamed with the school district to devise plans to meet the growing demand for teachers in booming Clark County. Part of the solution is expanding education course offerings at the state's community colleges and encouraging support-staff workers to become teachers.

The school district hires roughly 1,500 teachers a year. But in past years, UNLV has produced only 300 to 400 of them, forcing the district to do exhaustive nationwide searches.

Last year, CCSN had about 80 education students. But by dramatically increasing the number of introductory education classes -- including several formerly offered at UNLV -- the college now has 570 education students.

The college offers a number of Saturday and night classes to accommodate working people.

"They can take their first two years with us, their credits are now directly transferable, and they can start at UNLV as juniors," said Warren Shillingburg, one of the college's three full-time education instructors.

On Wednesday, the college officially unveiled the Paul Laxalt Education Center at CCSN's Cheyenne campus. The 2,000-square-foot space was recently renovated to house faculty offices and a resource center for education students. It was named for the former Nevada governor and U.S. senator credited with bringing the state's first community college to Elko.

The grand opening of the center was symbolic of the state's commitment to new programs designed to produce more teachers, said Richard Moore, CCSN president.

"There has always been this demand to teach teachers in Nevada," Moore said. "We will meet the need."

Several students said the community college's education program was a better fit for them than UNLV's.

"It's about half the price, and the classes are smaller," 28-year-old Krista Dean said.

Dean said she has worked for more than eight years as a respiratory therapist. The single mom has long wanted to try teaching, but said the time was never right.

"The whole school here is smaller -- you don't have to walk from one end of UNLV to the other," Dean said. "It's not as intimidating, especially for us old people who are going back."