School Board to spend money on more assistant principals

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

Clark County School Board members voted Tuesday to spend $1.375 million to ensure all larger elementary schools have a vice principal and also called for a renewed push during the next legislative session for funding to reduce class sizes.

The Clark County School District is seven employees short of its goal of having one assistant principal at every elementary school with at least 500 students, said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction.

Since 2001 the School Board has trimmed $90 million from its operating budget and frozen hiring for several positions, including elementary school assistant principals. That meant smaller campuses shared one vice principal between them.

The School Board gave unanimous approval to a revised budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which includes $11 million to be spent on staffing. The new positions include 15 assistant principals, 20 computer strategists to maintain elementary school networks and train teachers as well as additional custodial staff.

The district is required to submit its final budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year to the state by Jan. 1, 2005. The School Board will vote on the revisions Dec. 9.

School Board President Susan Brager-Wellman said she has been fighting for the past decade to ensure that elementary schools have the support they need from the first day of operations.

"When we open middle and high schools they're fully staffed. Why is it when we open elementary schools they don't have everything they need also?" asked Brager-Wellman, whose remarks drew applause from an audience made up primarily of district staff.

"We say we're going to catch up now, but every year we open new schools, and every year we get further behind."

If the School Board decided to allocate one assistant principal to each of the district's 179 elementary schools, another 23 people would need to be hired, Orci said. School Board member Ruth Johnson asked district staff to back up their request with an explanation of the benefits the additional administrative positions were expected to yield.

"There's no guarantee that student achievement will increase (with the additional assistant principals)," Johnson said. "It might make us feel good, but how have you determined that this is the best use of the money?"

The success of students hinges on the quality of curriculum and instruction, Superintendent Carlos Garcia said. And without enough assistant principals to make regular visits to classrooms, there's no way to adequately supervise teachers and ensure students are getting what they need, Garcia said.

School Board member Denise Brodsky said she wanted to see the district return to the smaller class sizes it had in 2000 -- prior to the deepest of the budget cuts. District officials said that won't happen anytime soon.

The district received a waiver from the state to increase its class sizes two years ago. Those waivers shouldn't be considered permanent, Brodsky said.

To reduce the district's kindergarten class sizes to 25 students for each teacher -- two students fewer than the current ratio -- the district would need to hire 46 additional teachers at a cost of $2.1 million, said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations for the district. Bringing the district's fourth and fifth grades classes back to a 25 to 1 ratio -- from the current level of 30 to 1 -- would cost $14.6 million, Rulffes said.

"The truth is we don't have enough money to return to the class sizes we had four years ago," Rulffes told the School Board. "As management we try to do the best we can with the dollars we have."

Garcia said he and the state's other 16 local superintendents met with Gov. Kenny Guinn last month in Carson City and were told "very politely" that there's little likelihood of there being substantial cash on hand for educational initiatives. But that doesn't mean districts should give up, Garcia said, or stop reminding the public of the impact of crowded classrooms.

"People need to know what this is doing to our students and our teachers," Garcia said.

For the first time since 2002, the district's operating budget includes an ending fund balance that is 2 percent of the total revenue, Rulffes said. Because of budget uncertainties the School Board agreed to waive its regulation requiring the district to meet the 2 percent threshold.

The $108.3 million mark was reached this year thanks to savings from the energy conservation program, as well as delays in hiring and vacancies, Rulffes said.