LOOKING IN ON: EDUCATION

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons wants to import Edmonton, Alberta's "empowerment schools" model, which gives individual campuses nearly complete control over budgets, staffing, instructional methods and other operations.

But some Nevada educators wonder whether Edmonton's lessons will translate to Clark County, given the vast differences between the two communities.

Edmonton, with just over 1 million residents, is 85 percent white. Asians make up the largest minority group, accounting for about 11 percent of the population. Hispanics and blacks each make up less than 2 percent of the population.

In fact, the community is so homogenous, the school district doesn't bother to track the ethnicity of its students. By comparison, state and federal law requires Clark County to not only keep track of diversity demographics, but show scholastic improvement for each minority group.

In Clark County, the student transiency rate is 40 percent, compared with 7 percent in Edmonton. The Canadian district has 199 schools and takes on about 200 new teachers each year, compared with over 3,000 annual new hires in Clark County.

But the jaw-dropper came in an interview Friday with Tammi Parker, executive director of Edmonton Public Schools.

When asked whether her district was responsible for hiring its own support staff, such as food service workers, bus drivers and school nurses, Parker replied, "We don't have school nurses."

What happens when a child becomes ill at school?

"We call the parents," Parker said.

When the reporter remarked that it was difficult to imagine a school without a nurse, Parker said she was equally miffed.

"On our side, I can't imagine paying education dollars for people who aren't in front of students, teaching," Parker said.

A story in Wednesday' Sun, showing demographic comparisons between Clark County and Edmonton, left at least one reader crying foul. Via a grouchy voicemail message, the caller suggested the Sun had erred in describing the Clark County School District as a "minority majority," with Hispanics accounting for nearly 40 percent of enrollment and black students for 14 percent.

The caller pointed to the accompanying graphic, which showed demographics for the greater Las Vegas area put the Hispanic population at 26.1 percent and blacks at 9.4 percent.

"Do you increase everything by 50 percent?" groused the caller, who did not leave his name or contact information.

To clear up the confusion, it works like this: The percentage of minorities in the school district is higher because many families have more than one child.

As is tradition at the governor's State of the State address, seats were set aside Monday night for the superintendents of Nevada's 17 school districts. That would seem appropriate, given how the governor's motto is "Education First."

But the location was less than ideal.

"There were rickety folding chairs set up behind the last row of real seats on the second level," said a nearby spectator.

"That's 'Education First?' "