Columnist Susan Snyder: Area schools are cutting to the chase

Tuesday, May 7, 2002 | 8:30 a.m.

The day after Clark County School District officials unveiled $12.6 million in proposed budget cuts, a New York schoolteacher e-mailed me asking about life in the Las Vegas Valley.

Aside from the usual queries about housing prices, the availability of rentals when your family includes furry, four-legged members and what areas have the most crime, she wondered whether we need teachers.

I wondered whether the fact that we're opening 12 to 16 new schools a year looked like a typo. And I wonder if it scared her half to death.

But it is interesting to learn that people looking to move here are looking at more than sunshine and tourism hype.

This woman and her husband first e-mailed me in April. They had been online reading about the community and checking out housing prices. We hear so much about how low our housing prices are compared to California's. It was odd to hear someone say the Las Vegas Valley "seems pricey." And it was interesting to see what else they picked up in their research.

"The schools seem not very predictable," they wrote.

They're predictable. We can predict without question that we will need more of them than we have, and that we will have to cut corners to get there.

This latest round of proposals calls for, among other things, cutting middle school athletics, increasing third grade classes to 22 pupils and increasing to three miles the distance a high school student must live from school before getting a ride on the bus.

That last one undoubtedly means more families will be trying to squeeze a ride to school for their teenagers into already crowded morning routines. It will increase the number of cars driving through each school's neighborhoods and increase the traffic jams that make streets in front of the schools dangerous for kids on foot or bikes.

Last month district officials said they would have to cut back on the offerings at alternative high schools and replace programs with distance learning and independent study. This, for students who likely wouldn't be in alternative high schools if they had good independent study habits.

When alternative and extracurricular programs such as sports, clubs or the arts are shaved our youngsters don't have the opportunities to stay busy and engage their brains in activities that can head off pregnancy and crime.

District officials and teachers are doing the best they can. But it is unfortunate that a state so adept at attracting people from all over the world to a snippet of civilization carved from an inhospitable desert can't come up with some sort of solution to its constant education funding problems.

But we're not attracting everyone -- certainly not some of the people we need. At least one teacher from New York is having second thoughts about bringing her talents here.

"Suicide, teenage pregnancy, a lot of lower-paying jobs and a lack of united community appear scary," she wrote. "I was told by a housing agency that the population grows 6,000 people every month? A high population must mean higher crime.

"(Residents) moving in and out makes me wonder if this would be a good choice after all."