Schools expect influx of new students

Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.

The Clark County School District is bracing for an influx of new students: Hurricane Katrina refugees on their way to Southern Nevada.

The central office has been fielding calls from parents asking whether they can enroll their children even if school and vaccination records have been lost to the floodwaters, said Walt Rulffes, interim superintendent of the district.

"We know there are students en route to us right now," Rulffes said. "Apparently there are quite a few people living here with roots in Biloxi, Alabama, Louisiana."

In addition to the hurricane victims planning to stay with friends and family, it's also logical that people whose resort industry jobs have been washed away would see Las Vegas "as a place they could market their skills," Rulffes said.

"We're going to do everything we can to help families and students make a smooth transition," Rulffes said.

Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, urged the School District to offer jobs to teachers from the hard-hit Southern states. The recommendation was backed Thursday by the local Asian, Latin and Urban chambers of commerce.

Clark County currently has about 300 teacher vacancies for the current academic year. The bulk of those openings are for special education teachers while the others are mainly secondary math and science positions.

"Offering teachers from the states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi an opportunity to teach in our school district for the current school year will meet a documented need and allow several hundred people an opportunity to maintain their careers and keep their families together," Horsford said.

Horsford told the Sun he would like to see the businesses and residents of Clark County offer assistance in relocating the teachers and providing temporary housing. He compared the circumstances to the days and months after Sept. 11 when there were thousands of laid-off workers needing assistance.

"I view this as another opportunity for Las Vegas to show what a big heart it has," Horsford said.

Rulffes said he has let the Council of Great City Schools know Clark County "would certainly accept applications from people who wanted to relocate."

However the district "does not want to do anything that gave the impression that we were trying to capitalize on this tragedy," Rulffes said. "We are going to follow the proper protocol."

At least one teacher whose job washed away has already contacted Clark County directly.

"The person wanted to know if they could apply even without (hard copies of) credentials," Rulffes said. "There are people out there who have lost everything."

In an article posted Thurday on the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, the city's interim schools superintendent said it "may be prudent" for the system's teachers to "seek work elsewhere" and encouraged them "not to wait."

George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources for the Clark County School District, said after she reading the article she contacted the Louisiana Department of Education.

"In response to the (New Orleans) superintendent's comments we wanted to find out how we could be of help and what the appropriate steps might be," Rice said.

Teachers from New Orleans and other flood-ravaged areas may not have access to transcripts, license materials or references, Rice said. Louisiana education officials are planning to set up a hotline for outside school districts to verify a teacher's standing, Rice said.

One option for Clark County may be to offer teachers a short-term contract, Rice said.

"We could tell them, 'There's no penalty when your home school is ready and you want to leave,'th" Rice said. "That would be the ethical thing for us to do."

Robert Carlson, director of management services for the Council of Great City Schools, said one North Carolina district has already notified the organization that it intends to offer jobs for 12 to 15 New Orleans teachers.

Officials from the Guilford County School District in Greensboro -- made up of 108 campuses and more than 67,000 students -- have made it clear that the jobs will be short-term, Carlson said.

"This is not about stealing bodies, it's about making sure people who were employed in New Orleans have an income until they can get back home," Carlson said.

Given its size and the number of vacancies it has to fill, the Clark County School District would need to be "very, very sensitive" before making any bids for New Orleans teachers, Carlson said.

The district's regular recruiting operations have earned a national reputation for creativity and aggressiveness, prompting visits from educators in other states hoping for a few pointers. But now may be a time for restraint, Carlson said.

"It's a delicate line between offering assistance and being seen as invading districts that are under duress to satisfy your own need for more teachers," Carlson said. "If you could somehow assure the district you're receiving people from that when their schools open back up, their teachers would go back. It might go over better."