Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Bill for schools may result in more positions

A bill draft request by Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, which he hoped would reduce the number of Clark County School District administrators, would actually allow 88 new positions to be added, according to an analysis of district statistics.

Beers is seeking to prohibit the Clark County School District from having its number of non-school site administrators exceed the number of campuses. Beers' formula would actually allow the district to hire more than 80 additional administrators.

According to figures obtained by the Sun, the Clark County School District's 2004-05 operating budget calls for 1,022 total administrators, with 809 assigned to school sites in positions such as principal, assistant principal or dean. There are 208 administrators assigned to central administration, including the superintendent's office and the five district region offices, and five administrators who oversee and bus maintenance personnel and drivers.

That brings the district's non-school site administrative staff total to 213 -- 88 positions fewer than would be allotted under Beers' plan of one for each of the 301 schools.

Beers told the Sun in light of the latest figures his bill draft request may need to be revised.

"We're still collecting data at this point," Beers said. "My central argument hasn't changed -- there are too many administrators that spend very little time interacting with students and who are out of touch with what's happening in our classrooms."

On Monday's edition of "Face to Face With Jon Ralston," broadcast on Las Vegas ONE, Cox Cable channel 19, Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said the perception that the district is bloated and top-heavy is inaccurate.

A legislative audit, ordered by the 2003 Legislature and set for release Thursday, will show Clark County spends about 3 percent of its operating budget on administrative costs, one of the best ratios in the nation, Garcia said. The audit will also show the district's administrator to student ratio is on par or better than other school districts of similar size, Garcia said.

In a Monday interview with the Sun, Garcia said he believed the audit, conducted by legislative staff, would "exonerate" the district of allegations that it has too many top-level administrators.

"When people hear the numbers, and not just the unsubstantiated opinions, I expect a lot of our critics will come around," Garcia said. "It's easy to criticize instead of looking for solutions to the real things that are standing in the way of student achievement, like the fact that our funding levels are barely keeping up with our growth."

Beers, who also appeared on Monday's program, said the staffing ratios are just one factor in the overall student achievement equation.

"When you get to the quality of service provided, we have big problems in Clark County," said Beers, who was elected to the Senate this year after three terms in the Assembly. "Almost a fifth of high school students were denied a diploma because they couldn't pass the math proficiency test. That's a level of failure that keeps me up at night."

Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, has also submitted a bill draft request that renews his attempt during the 2003 legislative session to limit the number of school administrators in both Clark and Washoe counties. Conklin said Monday he is seeking to limit Clark County to no more than one administrator per 352 students and Washoe to one administrator per 311 students, the same ratios he sought in 2003.

The bill draft request doesn't require massive firings in order to attain that ratio, Conklin said. Instead positions could be eliminated through attrition as older administrators retire, Conklin said.

"With the district as big as it is, there's supposed to be the benefit of economy of scale," Conklin said. "Every school needs a principal but I'm not sure every school needs a dean. Each time an administrator is hired that's a salary that could have covered three or four new teachers."

With 280,834 students and 1,022 administrators, Clark County's ratio this year is 275 to one.

The legislative audit of Washoe County School District, completed this fall, shows a ratio of one administrator per 343 pupils in 2003, compared with a statewide ratio of one administrator per 358 pupils.

In the 2000-01 academic year, the most recent year for which figures were available, Nevada had the eighth-highest administrator to student ratio, with one administrator per 1,528 students. The national average that year was one administrator per 816 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The fact that the administrator-pupil ratio calculated by the legislative auditors and the ratio reported by the U.S. Department of Education's clearinghouse are so far apart demonstrates the difficulty in comparing such statistics, said Doug Thunder, assistant superintendent of finance for the Nevada Department of Education.

"Administrators can be a more subjective head count than licensed personnel, when all you really need to do is figure out how many people have active licenses and are working in the classroom," Thunder said. "What we call transportation and food service support other people may call administration."

There may not be a "magic number" for administrator to student ratios, Thunder said. The big picture, including staffing levels for support employees and teachers as well as overall funding, are key components to evaluating student achievement, Thunder said.

Only two states, Arkansas and Utah, had overall school staff to student ratios higher than Nevada's, according to the NCES report.

"In reality Nevada is very thin when it comes to administrative help," Thunder said. "We've got a lot of staff out there wearing two or three hats and doing more with less."

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