Bill targets growing pains of Clark County district

Benjamin Grove

Monday, March 15, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

A proposal to carve Clark County into smaller school districts has resurfaced in Carson City.

Assemblywoman Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, is sponsoring a bill that would launch a plan to "deconsolidate" the 203,000-student district when it reaches an enrollment of 300,000. District officials estimate Clark County will have 300,000 students by 2005.

"I'm tired of us saying we can't do it," Tiffany said. "I want us to find a way that we can do it."

Lawmakers and parents who believe the district has become unwieldy, impersonal and bureaucratic have studied the issue for years.

Proponents argue that smaller districts ultimately would be more efficient and more accountable.

"My feeling was that when you have a district this big, you cannot create change," Henderson-area parent Marcia Garcia said. "Reconfiguration is a tool to help us revamp the district to make it better for our kids."

Garcia has been a leader in the group Citizens for Community Schools, which has lobbied during past legislative sessions to splinter the district.

"It's not like we can sit and catch our breath," Garcia said. "The district constantly gets bigger and the problems get worse."

Garcia favors a proposal that would create a district including Henderson, Boulder City, Laughlin and Searchlight. She fends off those who say she wants to create a wealthy district.

"Everybody thinks the streets are paved with gold here," Garcia said. "We have our share (of low-income areas). We're not just taking the rich kids."

Lawmakers in 1957 created the current system of county school districts in Nevada -- the boundaries of each school district are the same as the county lines. The action melded several smaller districts in Clark County into one. At the time, the new Clark County district had 20,240 students.

Since then, growth has left the Clark County School District bursting at the seams and scrambling to build enough schools.

A tangle of problems has choked past proposals to split up the district. Among them: how to divide the debt created by Clark County school bonds, how to achieve racial balance and how to create equally funded districts.

Roughly 64 percent of the school district's budget comes from county taxes, including 39.4 percent from sales taxes, 21 percent from property taxes and 3.5 percent from motor-vehicle taxes.

"Until they come up with a way that is equal to the inner city, I'm going to be against deconsolidation," School Board member Larry Mason said.

Board member Sheila Moulton added, "We would have to be very careful."

The issue was last analyzed in depth in a study by a Berkeley, Calif.-based research firm called Management Analysis & Planning Associates. The $300,000, 244-page study completed in 1996 examined school-district splits in all 17 Nevada counties.

The study examined some of the complications attached to splitting up Clark County and essentially concluded that a breakup would be difficult but not impossible. The study created several hypothetical ways to split the district.

"The same issues the MAP committee found still exist," Superintendent Brian Cram said.

"They had great difficulty matching up the assessed valuations and racial compositions."

Cram added that county residents should vote on the issue before it ever becomes a reality.

"Deconsolidation is much like divorce," Cram said.

"You split up everything and then you say, 'You're on your own.' While I don't want to say it shouldn't be considered, you want to roll out all the facts before you do this."

Tiffany hopes her newly introduced bill will receive a hearing from the education committee this month.

The bill calls for the creation of a legislative subcommittee to study different methods for reconfiguring the 7,910-square-mile district after it reaches 300,000 students. The subcommittee also would study new ways to deal with growth. The subcommittee would eventually submit its best proposal to the Legislature.

"It's a different approach to the same question," Tiffany said.

"This is not a study -- it's a plan. All of these questions that were raised will be addressed and successfully answered."