Legislation targets school principals

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, March 10, 2003 | 9:25 a.m.

A bill that would impose tougher punishments on principals for failing to properly handle troublesome students is being considered by the Assembly Education Committee.

Backed by the teachers union, AB 218 would allow school districts to withhold salaries of principals who do not follow the state-mandated procedure of reviewing disciplinary complaints lodged by teachers.

The bill allows the principal to appeal the decision by seeking the support of the school's teachers. If a majority of the teachers at the school vote in favor of the principal, the pay won't be docked.

"This will put administrators on notice," said Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association representing the majority of the county's teachers.

The bill was introduced late last month by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson. Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Education Committee, said the bill was a result of complaints from teachers that habitually disruptive students were being returned to the classroom.

Too often principals ignore proper procedure and make their own determination on how a situation should be handled and the teacher's concerns are ignored, Holloway said. And teachers who complain about the principal to a region superintendent often face repercussions, Holloway added.

But administrators from the Clark County and Washoe school districts testified there is no widespread abuse of the law by principals that would necessitate changes to the state statute.

Ralph Cadwallader, former assistant superintendent in Clark County and currently executive director of the National Association of School Administrators, said a principal's supervisor should decide whether that principal acted appropriately. Letting the teachers vote would be like allowing bank tellers to decide whether the bank president had earned his paycheck, Cadwallader said.

Nevada schools are already required to have written discipline plans in place and to follow those plans, Cadwallader said.

Williams asked that each school district provide the committee with a summary of complaints about the handling of discipline cases.

"That will give us a better idea what we're looking at," Williams said.

A date for the bill to come back to the committee was not immediately set.