School officials relieved, ready to move forward

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

The news that the Legislature had approved a budget spread quickly through the Clark County School District community today, as teachers, administrators and parents celebrated the end of seven weeks of anxious uncertainty.

"We're feeling excited and happy, two emotions that have been long overdue," Superintendent Carlos Garcia said this morning. "We want to thank the Legislature for passing this, and now we need to move forward as quickly as possible."

George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources, said the district will immediately resume making job offers to teachers.

KLVX Channel 10, a public television affiliate of the school district, has volunteered the use of its fund-raising phone bank for calling teacher job candidates and letting them know a budget has been approved, Rice said.

"We have to notify the folks who have stuck with us and try and get them on board as quickly as possible," Rice said.

Because of the budget impasse, the district froze hiring June 17 with about 1,000 teacher positions still to be filled. The district cut that number by 411 with the reassignment of literacy and technology specialists, as well as gifted and talented education teachers, to regular classrooms.

The district had hoped to return those specialists to their original assignments if a budget had been approved by last week. The plan now will be to return specialists one by one -- beginning with the gifted and talented teachers -- as soon as a qualified teacher is hired to fill the classroom position, Rice said.

Garcia, who has been out of town at a leadership conference, said he has instructed his cabinet to review the approved budget today and determine its impact on Clark County. One significant issue remains: whether the funding exists for a $2,000 signing bonus for new teachers, Garcia said.

For Teri Witzel, a PTA member at Katz Elementary School who organized several community rallies urging the Legislature to pass a budget, Monday's vote was "a day late and a dollar short." Students will lose out because they won't have access to the Gifted and Talented Education program or literacy specialists, and school computer labs will be under-utilized because the technology specialists won't be there to help, Witzel said.

Clark County School Board President Sheila Moulton said while she, too, is grateful to have a budget, she's also concerned about the long-term effects the impasse will have on the district.

"I'm concerned about morale," Moulton said this morning. "We've taken our employees through some hard days, and you never want to do that to someone."

Another issue is future recruiting efforts, Moulton said. The district hires about 1,600 new teachers each year and will need at least that many for the 2004-05 school year, with 13 new campuses slated to open, Moulton said.

While the budget vote was good news, Moulton noted the approved education funding wasn't much of an increase over the previous year.

"We're still not getting closer to the national per-pupil average, and we're still not seeing the funds we need to increase instructional minutes and decrease class sizes," Moulton said. "Those are all things that will have to happen before we can really see improvements to the quality of education."

The School Board was slated to discuss contingency plans -- including delaying the start of school and cutting programs and personnel -- at its Thursday meeting if a budget was not approved by then.

It now appears the state's Aug. 1 payment from the Distributive Schools Account will arrive on time and it won't be necessary to borrow $40 million from reserve accounts to keep the district running, said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations.