School officials ready to help Katrina victims

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005 | 11:43 a.m.

With about 800 Hurricane Katrina survivors expected to take up residence in Nevada, officials for Clark County's schools -- public and private -- say they are ready to help.

Keith Rheault, state superintendent of public instruction, asked school districts Monday to enroll the students as quickly as possible.

"These children may well have experienced traumatic events and need our help in Nevada to ensure that their education continues with as little delay as possible," Rheault told the state's 17 local school superintendents in a memo sent Friday.

Students must be immediately enrolled even if they arrive in the district without the proof of residency or health records typically required, Rheault said.

Federal funds designated for homeless students may be available to cover the costs of books, supplies and even clothing for the new arrivals, Rheault said.

Charlene Green, associate superintendent of student support services resources for the Clark County School District, said her office is working with the Southern Nevada offices of the United Way and Catholic Charities to identify and process newcomers.

Students will be assigned to schools as soon as their housing location is known, Green said. The district will "do everything possible" to find available classroom seats at schools close to the temporary housing, Green said.

"We don't want to have to bus kids across town if it's avoidable," Green said.

The School District has been told to expect anywhere from 100 to 500 families to arrive in Clark County in the coming weeks, Green said.

Clark County School District officials are also investigating whether teachers from New Orleans may be qualified to fill some of the more than 200 vacancies still remaining for the 2005-06 academic year, which began last week.

The superintendent of New Orleans' public schools, in an interview published in the Times-Picayune newspaper, encouraged teachers and other school employees to look for new jobs.

Walt Rulffes, interim superintendent of the Clark County School District, said hiring teams are en route to Jackson, Miss., Shreveport, La., and Dallas to look for potential new employees in the midst of the thousands of evacuees.

"We can't create new jobs, but we would certainly like to try to offer positions to displaced persons where we have vacancies," Rulffes said.

In an open letter Friday, the local Asian, Latin and Urban chambers of commerce urged the district to offer as many teaching jobs as possible to educators whose jobs were swept away with the floodwaters.

The district needs special education teachers, along with teachers certified to teach high school mathematics and science. More than 70 bus driver positions are also available.

But those jobs require skills and experience, Rulffes said. And the district has no plans to skip over its own background check requirements, he said.

"If they have no records, and we can't contact anyone, it may be difficult," Rulffes said. "The Louisiana Department of Education said they would facilitate the search for lost records, and that's a big step forward. But we can't waive our precautions before we put new people and kids together."

As for students, the district will do what it can to ease the transition from temporary shelters in Southern states to Clark County, Rulffes said.

"There may be some remediation necessary and possibly some students will need additional counseling," Rulffes said.

The Clark County Public Education Foundation is planning to establish a special fund to assist students and their families forced to relocate by the hurricane damage. A portion of the proceeds from the foundation's annual benefit, set for Sept. 24, will be earmarked for the fund, spokeswoman Judy Steele said.

The county's private and parochial schools are also preparing for students relocating from hurricane-ravaged communities albeit on a smaller scale than the district.

Kevin Dunning, executive director of Faith Lutheran's junior and senior high schools, said the families of five students -- from both Mississippi and Louisiana -- have inquired about enrolling. Two students were being tested at the Las Vegas campus Monday, Dunning said.

The nationwide network of Lutheran high schools is coordinating efforts to offer seats to students displaced by the disaster, Dunning said.

"We've offered to take some of the kids if it can be worked out, and we may take on a teacher as well," Dunning said.

Tuition assistance is being handled "on a case-by-case basis," Dunning said.

Bishop Gorman High School has already enrolled two students who are coming to stay with relatives in the Las Vegas area, said school spokeswoman Rachel Wilkie of Rogich Communication Group. Bishop Gorman will also be considering possible scholarships on an individual basis, Wilkie said.

Officials at The Meadows School, co-founded by Mayor Oscar Goodman's wife Carolyn in the early 1980s, said they will be meeting with several displaced families this week to discuss the possibility of enrolling students.

Scholarship funds may be available to qualified families, said Bob Ryske, head of The Meadows School. While the school has only a handful of open seats for the current school year "we're eager to try and be helpful," Ryske said.

Several other local private schools, including Hillcrest Academy at MacDonald Ranch in Henderson, Warren-Walker School in Green Valley and Milton Schwartz Hebrew Academy in Summerlin, also said they have yet to be contacted but would be glad to hear from families.

The Hebrew Academy is working with national Jewish organizations to determine whether there are students in need relocating to Las Vegas who may want to attend, a spokeswoman for the school said. The Alexander Dawson School, also in Summerlin, has had inquiries from several families affected by the hurricane but no definite plans for enrollment have been made, a school spokeswoman said. Both Alexander Dawson and the Hebrew Academy are planning campus fund-raising events to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina, officials said.