Teachers relieved GATE reopened

Wednesday, July 30, 2003 | 11:30 a.m.

Just a week after Gov. Kenny Guinn signed the Legislature's budget bill into law, Clark County School District officials on Tuesday restored the Gifted and Talented Education program and brought back more than 100 literacy specialists.

With a state schools budget in place, the district moved to restore many of the cuts made during the legislative budget deadlock, and will have the teachers back in their specialized programs this fall.

"It's wonderful. Our staff has been working around-the-clock shifts to get the teachers hired," said Clark County School Board President Sheila Moulton. "We've still got a lot to do to be ready for the start of school, but we've faced tight situations in the past and managed to get it done."

The district reassigned 411 specialists -- 209 techonology specialists, 111 literacy specialists and 91 Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program teachers -- last month after Superintendent Carlos Garcia announced the Legislature's budget impasse had forced him to suspend hiring of new teachers. By sending the specialists to regular classrooms, the number of teacher vacancies was slashed from nearly 1,000 to about 600.

The return of the GATE teachers is expected to be finalized by Friday and the literacy specialists by early next week, said Lina Gutierrez, executive director of licensed personnel for the district. The district has not yet reassigned the technology specialists in their original assignments, but hopes to do so, Gutierrez said.

The district's announcement during the budget debate that it was cutting the popular programs, bringing outcries from parents, was criticized by some Republican lawmakers as a political move to try to force the budget stalemate.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Henderson, one of the staunchest holdouts in the budget impasse and a vocal critic of the school district, said the speed of the specialists' return to their assignments raises questions about the necessity of reassigning them in the first place.

"The important thing is that our children got their programs back, but I think anyone out there who feels like they've been manipulated should call their school board member and complain," Beers said. "Remember the story of Chicken Little?"

But district officials dispute Beers' claim, saying it was a revised interpretation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, handed down earlier this month by state education officials, that sped up the process.

The specialists were able to be returned quickly when federal education officials confirmed the district could hire teachers even if they hadn't yet passed all of the newly required exams, said George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources.

Under the federal legislation, teachers at Title I schools -- high-risk campuses that receive extra federal money -- are now required to be "highly qualified" when they are hired, which means having at least three years experience and passing several exams.

School district officials were told teachers at all schools had to pass those requirements this year, but a revised interpretation of the law from the U.S. Education Department sets the deadline as July 2006. That has given the school district more leeway to assign staff and hire new teachers to take over the classroom assignments given to the specialists, Rice said.

"If teachers had to jump through all of those hoops before we could hire them, there's no way we could have put any of the specialists back," Rice said this morning.

With the new interpretation, the district was also able to offer jobs to more than 200 University of Nevada, Las Vegas, graduates who completed their student teaching assignments in Clark County schools, Guiterrez said. The district plans to offer study sessions to help the new hires pass the new exam quickly, Guiterrez said.

If the choice comes down to putting a substitute in the classroom who meets the new federal requirements and a permanent teacher who still needs to pass an exam, Rice said she'll go with the permanent teacher.

"In this instance I think it would actually be better for the kids for us to be out of compliance for a few months than to disrupt their classroom experience by having substitutes come and go," Rice said.

The number of vacancies is still hovering near 450, and in past years 150 teachers typically resign in August, Rice said.

Katherine Beal, a GATE teacher, said Tuesday she was "ecstatic" to learn she would continue her work at Guy Elementary School in North Las Vegas.

Beal said she was "bounced around" in a succession of assignments over the past five weeks as district officials tried to fill classroom positions. After being told she would teach seventh grade, Beal was reassigned to another school's fourth-grade classroom, followed by jobs teaching kindergarten and then third grade.

"(The district) was doing a pretty good job given the task they had to do, but it was really chaotic," Beal said. "I would have tried to do my best in any of the assignments, but I can honestly say teaching kindergarten is way out of my league."

Teri Witzel, a member of the Katz Elementary School PTA, also praised the district's efforts.

"They stepped up to the plate when they needed to, although this whole mess never should have been necessary," said Witzel, who organized several community rallies at the height of the budget crisis to urge lawmakers to finalize education funding. "I'll feel a lot better when I hear the technology specialists are back where they're supposed to be, too."

The biggest hiring challenge is at the secondary school level, where 150 math, science and special education teachers are still needed, Guiterrez said.

"We're having a very difficult time finding teachers in those fields," Guiterrez said. "Just like every other school district in the country."

What will help, Guiterrez said, is the Legislature's approval of a $2,000 signing bonus for new hires and retirement credits for teachers in those hard-to-find fields.

The highest number of teacher vacancies in the district is at Lynch Edison Elementary School, which had 10 open slots Tuesday. Principal Deborah Slauzis said that's down from 14 just a week ago. Since the budget was approved last week she's hired four teachers for the campus, which is managed for the district by Edison Schools Inc.

"I feel like we're catching up," Slauzis said. "The downside is that some promising candidates have told me they're no longer interested. Whether that's because of the problems with the state's budget or the lateness of our offers, it's hurting us that people don't want to come here."

Lynch's pool of job applicants was already smaller than other campuses because some teachers didn't want to work at an Edison school, which requires longer hours and a regimented curriculum, Slauzis said.

Slauzis said she's concerned that she'll have to rely on substitute teachers, at least initially.

"When the students arrive you want them to have a sense of belonging right from the beginning, with a teacher who's there for the long run," Slauzis said. "I don't think the students get off to the same strong start when its a substitute."