Special ed funding a concern

Monday, May 1, 2000 | 11:43 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Board of Education will be asked in June to guarantee that local school districts will not have to spend money out of their own pockets to reduce class sizes for a majority of the 35,000 special education students in Nevada.

The board earlier this year approved a regulation to reduce class sizes for special ed students and agreed to use $4 million in discretionary federal funds to accomplish the goal.

A legislative committee charged with reviewing state regulations on Friday rejected the board's plan unless it carried the guarantee that the districts would not have to spend their own money to comply with the reduction.

Assemblyman Greg Bower, R-Reno, the chairman of the legislative committee, said the panel would approve the regulation if the education board included the guarantee.

The education board initially agreed to reduce the class size for speech and language from 60 students to 50 students and the general resource room and early childhood programs from 24 students to 22 students per instructor. The regulation is to become effective this fall.

While school districts applauded the aim of the regulation, they criticized the board for not including money to hire more teachers. State legislators also said the board overstepped its authority in approving a regulation that required more spending than the Legislature approved for the program.

The board voted to use the extra federal money it had to finance the program for one year starting in July. It agreed that school districts would have to spend only the amount allocated from the federal funds to reach the goal. No sanctions would be imposed if there was not enough federal money to accomplish the goal. But the guarantee was not part of the regulation.

The legislative committee said it would not approve the regulation until the local districts were protected in writing.

Brad Reitz, director of student support services for the Clark County School District, told the legislative committee the district needed assurances not only that it would not be penalized but also that funding for the reduced class sizes will continue in future years.

Gloria Dopf, director of special education for the state, said she is including $8 million in the proposed budget for 2001-2003 to pay for the class-size reduction.

Dopf noted that the state started the program for the disabled in 1973 with full state funding. But over the years the local school districts have had to come up with a share of the money to meet rising expenses and growth.