School districts across U.S. share ideas at LV meeting

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 | 8:47 a.m.

Frank Till, superintendent of public schools in Broward County, Fla., said Thursday he had no qualms about his district losing its spot as the nation's fifth-largest to Clark County.

"We'll have more stability in our school staffing, we'll have time to think about projects and ideas that have been on hold while we've dealt with our growth and we won't have to hire as many teachers," said Till, who was one of nearly 1,000 educators from 64 urban school districts taking part in a conference this week in Las Vegas.

"Bigger isn't always better," Till said.

There were plenty of lessons to be learned at the Council of Great City School's 48th annual conference, hosted by the Clark County School District and held at the JW Marriott Las Vegas in Summerlin. Work sessions ranged from techniques for maximizing per-pupil funding to strategies for recruiting -- and keeping-- minority teachers.

Skip McCrea, a firefighter and member of the Pittsburgh City Schools Council, attended a seminar on school construction and renovation presented by Clark County and Atlanta Public Schools. Pittsburgh could hardly be more different than Las Vegas, McCrea said. Last year, as Clark County opened 12 new campuses, Pittsburgh shut down 10 schools, McCrea said.

Some of those buildings dated to the early 1900s, McCrea said.

"We're a little bit older than Las Vegas," McCrea said with a laugh.

But Pittsburgh's financial straits are no joke. The city has gone bankrupt, forcing the school district to consolidate facilities and look for sites that could possibly be converted into housing or retail space that could generate revenue, McCrea said.

"We're trying to decide which buildings are worth the investment of renovations and which are the white elephants," said McCrea, whose district has about 34,000 students and 90 schools. "I'm here to find out how other people are managing their facilities so that we can avoid mistakes."

In 1997, Atlanta voters approved a new sales tax to pay for school construction and renovation, with an emphasis on "deferred maintenance," said Valerie Thomas, executive director of facility services for Atlanta Public Schools. The district has since completed 63 projects, reducing portable classroom space by 34 percent and lowering the average school building's age to 19 years from 63 years.

As in Clark County, where a $3.5 billion capital improvement plan is under way, Atlanta has often struggled to find surplus dollars for facilities upkeep, Thomas said. The district has 85 total campuses, including two new schools and four facilities that were rebuilt, Thomas said.

"There are times when the money weren't there and we had schools that were 30 years behind on maintenance," Thomas said. "When funds are limited, does it go into the building or into the classroom?"

Steven Cantrell, chief research scientist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said his organization is struggling with many of the same issues as Clark County, from outdated computer systems to a surge in immigrant students. The districts share something else, Cantrell said -- students.

"It seems like there's a bridge from Los Angeles to Clark County,' said Cantrell, whose district is the nation's second largest with more than 800,000 students. "We lost 10,000 kids in each of the last two years. I can only imagine how many of them wound up here."

Clark County School Board member Ruth Johnson said she was pleased to see many of the policies and procedures used by the district held up as examples of "best practices" during workshop sessions.

"We're ahead of the curve," Johnson said.

For Clark County Superintendent Carlos Garcia, the conference was something of a validation.

"We never see ourselves the way others see us," Garcia said. "We get hit pretty hard with the criticism sometimes, but the truth is we're doing some great things here. When you listen to some of the problems schools in other cities are having, you realize in a lot of respects we're very lucky.

"We need to stop looking at our glass as half empty and realize it's half full."