Record number of teachers are turning down job offers

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

Nearly a quarter of the teachers offered contracts to work in Clark County classrooms have turned the offers down, a record rejection rate that school district officials are blaming on the legislative budget stalemate.

"School starts in six weeks, and we need 600 more teachers," said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Clark County School District. "We're in an unprecedented predicament."

Of the 918 job offers that have been made to teachers, 24 percent have been rejected, said Lina Gutierrez, executive director of licensed personnel for the Clark County School District. That's up from a rejection rate of about 15 percent in previous years, Guiterrez said.

The uncertainty over school funding, including whether a promised $2,000 signing bonus for new hires will be honored, is discouraging teachers from coming to Nevada, Gutierrez said.

The district typically hires 1,600 new teachers each year. In previous years 1,000 of the positions would have been filled by April 1. As of this week, the district has only received 602 acceptances, Gutierrez said.

"We're trying to keep morale up, but we're getting scared over here," Gutierrez said. "I'm afraid when we finally get a budget it's going to be too late to find a lot of those teachers."

Clark County Superintendent Carlos Garcia announced June 17 that the district could no longer continue making job offers until the final funding levels from the state were determined. By reassigning 411 specialists and gifted and talented teachers, Garcia cut the number of open teaching positions in half.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, has suggested the reassignment of the specialists and suspension of the Gifted and Talented Education program was a "publicity stunt" designed to stir up public support for the proposed tax increases -- an allegation Garcia has vehemently denied.

Garcia has said if the budget is resolved by July 15 he's prepared to send the reassigned teachers back to their original jobs. While that would be considered a victory by many, it would also mean the school district's teacher vacancies would climb back up toward 1,000, Gutierrez said.

Further complicating the issue are new federal requirements imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires districts hire only "highly qualified" teachers for Title I schools. Campuses with many low-income students may receive extra federal funds and are designated at Title I schools.

Traditionally Title I schools have always had a tougher time finding teachers than campuses in more affluent areas. The new federal credentials requirements just shrinks the candidate pool even further, said Teddy Brewer, principal of Tom Williams Elementary School in North Las Vegas.

At Williams, a Title I school that has been designated by the state as needing improvement, Brewer has three teaching positions to fill by the start of the 2003-04 academic year in August. Two teachers, one from Iowa and one from California, called last week and said they had changed their minds about working at the school, Brewer said.

"They both said they didn't feel comfortable making the move here with all the uncertainty," Brewer said. "It's frustrating, because the further we get into the summer the fewer people we have to choose from."

Brewer was able to place her reading specialist, Debra Roberson, in a third classroom assignment. But if the district's specialists are restored to their original assignments, that will leave Brewer scrambling for another teacher.

Roberson, who taught 15 years in Arizona before moving to Clark County last year, said she's torn between wanting to continue as a reading specialist and her concern for the third graders she's temporarily assigned to teach.

"I'm worried they're not going to find someone in time and they'll have to put substitutes in there," Roberson said. "That's not fair to the kids, they deserve a teacher who's going to stick with them from the first day of school to the last."