Garcia extends deadline for reassignment of teachers

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, July 15, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

Today was the deadline set by Clark County Superintendent Carlos Garcia for lawmakers to approve a budget in time for him to reverse his order that 411 literacy, technology and gifted and talented education specialists be reassigned to general classrooms.

Now with the Legislature and the state schools budget on hold due to a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge, district officials say they'll try to wait until the end of the week before making the reassignment of the specialists permanent for the school year beginning Aug. 25.

"We'll hold out as long as we can," said Agustin Orci, the school district's deputy superintendent of instruction. "It's difficult to know exactly where our point of no return is in this, but I'd say it's approaching fast."

Garcia ordered a hiring freeze June 17, saying the district could not make offers to new teachers without knowing whether the money would exist later to pay them.

After a lawsuit in federal district court argued that the state Legislature violated citizens' rights by using a majority to pass a tax plan to pay for the state education budget, a federal judge ordered that lawmakers stop work on the tax plan and called a hearing for Wednesday morning.

That has put the schools on hold.

The final schools budget seemed at hand after Thursday's Nevada Supreme Court ruling, which allowed the Legislature to break the impasse by passing a tax plan with a simple majority.

Garcia said Thursday he was "cautiously optimistic" the district would be able to resume making job offers to new teachers this week, eliminating the need for the specialists to fill some of the nearly 1,000 openings for teachers.

"Now I'm dropping the optimistic, just call me cautious," Garcia said this morning. "Anything could happen Wednesday, and all we can do is hold our breath."

The school district has enough funds on hand to make payroll Aug. 5 -- after that, the coffers will be empty, Garcia said. If the Legislature doesn't approve a budget by August, and the expected Aug. 1 payment from the Distributive School Account doesn't arrive, the district may not be able to begin the 2003-04 academic year as scheduled.

"We can't open schools without teachers, and we can't hire teachers without money," Garcia said. "I'd call that a vicious cycle."

Clark County School Board member Susan Brager-Wellman said she, too, had hoped a final resolution was at hand with the Supreme Court ruling.

"I appreciate that (the 24 lawmakers) feel strongly about this, but the right time to hash all of this out was during the legislative session, not now when our children will be hurt," Brager-Wellman said. "I hope they remember this the next time they want to complain that we aren't doing a good enough job educating kids. They're the ones making it impossible for us to do what needs to be done."

The latest dramatic judicial turn in the budget logjam outraged parent Teri Witzel.

"Our children have been completely and totally forgotten," said Witzel, a member of the Katz Elementary School PTA who organized several parent rallies to urge lawmakers to end the impasse. "How many schools are going to have to shut down their computer labs because they don't have specialists? How much further are test scores for our at-risk kids going to plummet because they don't have reading specialists to help them?"

Calling the federal lawsuit "a frivolous and dilatory act," Ken Lange, executive director of the Nevada State Education Association, urged the 24 lawmakers who signed on to it to reverse their course.

"They lost their initial battle to use our kids as pawns in this political game and now they're trying to do it again," Lange said in a written statement Monday. "We urge these obstructionists to abandon their political agenda and do right by the children of this state -- fund the education budget and let the students, teachers, support professionals and parents get on with the business of planning for a successful 2003-04 school year."

School board member Denise Brodsky echoed Lange's sentiments, saying the lawmakers who didn't get their way during the legislative session now seem determined to hold up the process as long as possible.

"Every day we delay is a day against kids," Brodsky said. "It's ridiculous how this saga just goes on and on."

Sheri Messel, whose son is finishing third grade at Kesterson Elementary School in Henderson, said she's having a tough time explaining to him that his favorite part of school -- the Gifted and Talented Education program -- may not continue next month.

"It may not be a big deal to some of the lawmakers, but it's important to my son," Messel said. "Las Vegas is a thriving area, there's billions and billions of dollars coming out of here. I find it hard to believe some of that money can't go to the school district so we can keep the enrichment programs."

Witzel said she is organizing a community rally for Wednesday at 9 a.m. outside the George Federal Building on Las Vegas Boulevard, where federal judges will meet over the phone with their peers in Reno.