Parents, teachers vow to fight on

Friday, July 25, 2003 | 11:21 a.m.

The legislative session may finally be over, but parents and teachers said Thursday they have no plans to ease up pressure on lawmakers who they saw as standing in the way of education funding.

About a dozen people, holding signs bearing the names of Republican Assembly members who voted against tax increases, gathered outside the Clark County School Board meeting to express their displeasure.

"We're happy to finally get the money but we're unhappy that they didn't fix the problem," said Rosanne Bennett, an elementary school counselor. "We're going to be right back where we were in 18 months, fighting the same fight."

Ruben Murillo, vice president of the Clark County Education Association, which represents the majority of the district's teachers, agreed.

"The past six months were basically for naught," Murillo said. "We needed a broad-based business tax and what we got were increases generally aimed at the working people while big industry got away again."

The delay by lawmakers in passing a budget forced the district to freeze hiring of new teachers and reassign specialists to fill vacancies in general classrooms. District officials have said they hope to return the specialists to their original assignments as soon as qualified teachers are found for the classroom positions.

But the budget came too late to return the 411 specialists -- for literacy, technology and the gifted and talented programs -- en masse.

"That's going to have a long-term effect on our students, and that's something people like (Assemblyman) Bob Beers need to be held accountable for," Murillo said.

Parents also need to be held accountable, said D.J. Stutz, the new president of the Nevada PTA.

"My hope is that what's happened will make parents wake up and realize they can't rely on lawmakers to make the changes happen for them," Stutz said. "Parents need to be involved on every level, they need to take an active role if we're going to come together and force people to see education as a priority."

Beers said this morning he's heard from about 100 parents and teachers since Monday and that 80 percent support his actions during the legislative session.

"It was the Assembly Democrats who held the budget hostage to a non-education tax increase," Beers said. "And it was the Clark County School District administration who made the decisions to cut the specialists and turn things into a dramatic PR stunt, not the Assembly Republicans."

Teri Witzel, a PTA member at Katz Elementary School in Summerlin, said she plans to continue organizing parent meetings and rallies during the interim in advance of the next state election.

"We're not going to forget what they did to our schools, our teachers and our budget," Witzel said.