Teacher transfer policy showing some results

Monday, May 17, 2004 | 11 a.m.

A new regulation intended to bring stability to struggling schools by restricting teacher transfers appears to be paying off, Clark County School District officials said this morning.

This is the first year of a regulation that requires all teachers to spend at least two years at a campus before they can transfer. The policy was put in place primarily to help at-risk campuses, which typically have the hardest time retaining staff.

Each April the district opens its teacher transfer season, during which licensed personnel may apply for openings at other campuses. This year 1,419 teachers -- 9.3 percent of the 15,200 licensed personnel -- asked for transfers, according to district records.

That's a much smaller percentage of transers than the district saw in April 2003 when 17.5 percent of Clark County's teachers asked to be moved to different schools, said Lina Guiterrez, executive director of licensed personnel for the district.

"This is a huge difference," Guiterrez said. "There's no question the regulation has helped."

In 2002 the district proposed requiring new teachers to stay three years at a school while their more experienced colleagues could seek transfers after just two years.

The Clark County Education Association opposed having any tenure requirements for transfer requests, arguing that it would discourage badly needed new teachers from coming to the district and force people to stay at jobs where they were unhappy. The district and the teachers' union brokered a compromise with a two-year "tour of duty" required for all teachers -- veterans as well as rookies -- prior to transfer.

The regulation was supposed to take effect last year but was delayed after the teachers union complained that not all of the 1,600 new teachers hired for the 2003-04 school year had been told of the change. The district agreed to put off enforcing the regulation until last month's teacher-transfer season.

Also playing a part in the reduced number of transfer requests may be a new incentive approved by lawmakers during the last legislative session. Teachers can earn retirement credits when they accept hard-to-fill assignments such as mathematics, special education or when they sign on with at-risk schools.

Some teachers have mixed feelings about the new regulation. James Peal, a technology specialist at Green Valley High School, said he agrees frequent staff turnover poses problems for the district. But at the same time Peal remembers his first classroom assignment seven years ago -- teaching special education at Helen Herr Elementary School.

"I thought elementary was what I wanted," Peal said. "I was so unhappy (that) I'm not sure I would have stayed in education if I hadn't been allowed to transfer after that one year."

While the district is struggling to keep teachers in one place, it has been a longstanding policy to move principals after five to seven years at one campus. That practice usually results in requests for transfers from staff who want to follow their principal or are reluctant to work with the newcomer, Guiterrez said.

At Sunrise Acres and Lunt elementary schools, both principals have been reassigned, resulting in a typical exodus of staff, Guiterrez said. Lunt leads the district with 20 transfer requests and Sunrise Acres was second with 18.

Sunrise Acres Principal Arturo Ochoa said he is taking six of his teachers -- the maximum allowed by the district -- with him to his new post at Ruby Thomas Elementary School. Ochoa said he has mixed feelings about the district's policy of moving principals every five to seven years regardless of whether they are running successful campuses.

"I worry this is going to hurt the academic programs at Sunrise Acres drastically," said Ochoa, who spent nine years at the campus near U.S. 95 and Eastern Avenue. "It's not that I don't think I'm replaceable, it's just that losing this many people at once is going to be a stumbling block for the kids."

Offering incentives to teachers in exchange for staying in at-risk schools is a short-term solution, Ochoa said.

"It takes a special kind of person to commit to working in this type of challenging environment," Ochoa said. "Your heart has to be here -- it can't be because you want a bigger paycheck."

At Lied Middle School 17 teachers will leave at the end of the school year for new assignments, but just eight of those are transfer requests. The other nine are positions that are being eliminated because Lied's enrollment will drop from 1,550 to 1,300 with the opening of Seville Middle School in August.

Typically the seven campuses managed by Edison Schools Inc. have had a higher number of transfer requests than other district campuses. This year only Ronnow-Edison Elementary School made the district's Top 5 list with 13 transfers.

Some people are leaving because they aren't happy with the demands of the Edison model, which requires teachers to follow regimented curriculum and instructional methods, Ronnow Assistant Principal Rebecca Lopez said. And with 14 new schools opening in August, there's also competition from poaching principals looking for staff of their own, Lopez said.

"We have teachers who live on the other side of town and new schools are opening two blocks away," Lopez said. "It's understandable that someone might like to work closer to home."

At Park-Edison Elementary School, Principal June Fortuna said she's "ecstatic" to only be losing four teachers for the coming academic year. It's a feat made even more remarkable because Park will switch from a year-round school to a nine-month calendar, which means a pay cut for staff, Fortuna said.

"We're talking (about) a $6,000 cut for most teachers, $10,000 for a music specialist," said Fortuna, who expects her own pay to drop by about $10,000.

Fortuna arrived at Park in 2002 after five years as principal of Beckley Elementary School. Fortuna said while she had been reluctant to make the switch at the time she now believes it was the right thing to do.

"Sometimes it's when you get too comfortable in a situation that things begin to slip," Fortuna said. "When my school is running automatically and the teachers know what their goals and purposes are and everyone's working together, that's when it's time for me to move on."