Another rally for school funds set for today

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, June 23, 2003 | 11:03 a.m.

Following the lead of their comrades in Summerlin, parents at Lamping Elementary School in Henderson were scheduled to hold a rally today to urge lawmakers to approve a budget that funds education by July 1.

With two days remaining before the Legislature starts a second special session, parents and educators are intensifying their efforts to see a budget quickly passed.

The event will be at 6 p.m. in Lamping's multipurpose room, 2551 Summit Grove, Henderson.

Another rally, organized by the same parents who planned the Katz Elementary event, will be held Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Guinn Middle School, 4150 S. Torrey Pines.

Clark County School District officials say the uncertainty over education funding has hamstrung the hiring of new teachers, leaving nearly 1,000 open positions for the 2003-04 academic year which begins in August. To fill the vacancies, 411 literacy and technology specialists, as well as teachers in the Gifted and Talented Education program, have been reassigned to regular classrooms.

Last week's event outside Katz Elementary School, which drew more than 200 attendees, inspired plans for a second rally, said Jan Bennett, president of the the Lamping PTA in the southeast region of the Clark County School District.

"We've been getting a lot of calls from parents asking what they could do, and this seemed like a positive way of contributing," Bennett said. "We want to send a message that our children's education is not something that's negotiable, and we will not allow our children to be used as political pawns."

In the wake of the Legislative deadlock, Lamping Principal Michael O'Dowd has been in frequent contact with his school's parents, sending letters home detailing the latest developments.

Lamping's literacy specialist has been reassigned to a classroom at a different elementary school for August, while the technology specialist and GATE teacher are headed for middle schools, O'Dowd said.

O'Dowd said he was taking some comfort in Superintendent Carlos Garcia's pronouncement last week that if funding is approved by July 1 displaced teachers may be able to return to their original assignments.

Some lawmakers have spoken out against the district's decision to reassign the teachers, saying the move was more of a publicity stunt than a necessity.

Assemblyman Walter Andonov, R-Las Vegas,sent a letter Friday to Superintendent Carlos Garcia questioning the reassignments.

Canceling the GATE program and reassigning the specialists has caused unnecessary fear among parents, Andonov said. If Garcia truly felt it necessary to make cuts it should have been to central administration or other non-instructional areas.

"Your role as superintendent is, first and foremost, to make decisions that are in the best interest of the students in the CCSD," Andonov wrote. "It is not to make decisions that smack of political manuverings or enhance any special interest agendas."

Garcia said this morning the reassignments were necessary to ensure every classroom had a fully qualified teacher when school starts in August. Cutting central administration -- which makes up just 3 percent of the district's overall budget -- wouldn't solve the teacher shortage, Garcia said.

"We need to use the employees we already have because we can't hire more at this point," Garcia said. "This isn't about money, it's about the legislative deadlock causing our inability to appropriately staff our schools."