Schools with good ideas share $56 million jackpot

Monday, July 23, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

Handing out that $56 million was no cakewalk.

There were 12-hour days, paper cuts and eye strain, sorting through, reading and re-reading applications from nearly 500 Nevada public schools that wanted money for new programs.

The judges loved one principal's idea - to enlist older students as tutor s for younger siblings.

But they were puzzled by another principal's proposal - to improve writing skills by sending students on a field trip to Ely.

In the end, money was promised to a wide spectrum of programs, from technical education to teacher training.

"It's a remarkable opportunity for our schools," said Gloria Dopf , Nevada's deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction. "What's exciting is seeing the range of ideas and solutions being proposed."

The 2007 Legislature set aside $69.5 million for school innovation and improvement grants during the biennium. Recipients in the first round of awards, totaling nearly $56 million, were announced this month.

The money was parceled out by the Commission on Educational Excellence - three teachers, two administrators, two principals and one parent chosen by Gov. Jim Gibbons. Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of public instruction, serves on the commission but does not vote on allocations.

After complaints from educators that last year's grants were unfairly distributed, lawmakers revised the commission's guidelines. Among the changes:

Schools submitted more than $161 million in grant requests - more than $92 million alone from Clark County campuses. Requests by 72 schools were fully funded. But an additional 105 schools, including 53 in Clark County, were shut out.

Schools were happy even when their full requests were not granted. Detwiler Elementary School in Las Vegas wanted about $530,000, and got $40,000 less - but still enough to help train new teachers on campus. Principal Amy Siembida will also hire someone to work with families of students struggling with attendance and behavior issues.

Cambiero Elementary School will use some of its $670,000 grant to reach out to families , too, by hiring bilingual staff to work with parents and translate material into Spanish.

The money will also allow the school to expand a writing program, developed as part of a $200,000 grant from the commission last year.

Fay Herron Elementary School Principal Kelly Sturdy, who got grant money last year to buy some hi gh -tech equipment, hoped to get a whopping $991,914 this time so the school day could be extended by 49 minutes. That would help the entire school, she said.

The commission didn't give her a dime.

She was disappointed, but not entirely surprised.

She might have tried for a bunch of smaller requests, but decided to not be bashful.

"We can't get where we need to be by cobbling together programs, doing a little something here and a little something there," Sturdy said.

"It just wasn't our turn this time," she said.

One of the chief complaints from educators last year was that there didn't seem to be any consistency in how the grants were awarded.

Caroline McIntosh, assistant superintendent in White Pine County and a member of the commission, said this time "we all committed to following the rubric, there would be no deviation. We were much tougher on ourselves."

The commission also demanded evidence, not just anecdotal accounts, that earlier funding had made a difference, McIntosh said.

Some of the applications were overly ambitious, given the relatively small pot of money available.

"Sometimes you've got to focus on something besides the sky," McIntosh said. "The requests were not supposed to be a wish list. We were looking for targeted programs backed up by sound data."

Hollingsworth Elementary School, which got nearly $500,000 last year for a parent-education program, submitted the largest request of any Nevada school this year - $1.4 million. It would pay for a longer school day.

The commission gave it $93,000 to pay for interactive display boards.

Part of the problem was that Principal Doug Wilson was unable to provide the commission with evidence that the first round of grant funding had made a difference at Hollingsworth. When the deadline arrived for applications, the results of the statewide standardized tests were not yet available. Wilson had only the district's internal interim assessments to demonstrate student progress.

"I understand they had to judge us against the same standards as everybody else," Wilson said. "I guess the good news is that means the money's being allocated fairly."

There may be a few lingering issues of fairness, including whether the state's rural school districts have staff with the experience necessary for writing applications that capture judges' interest. McIntosh said White Pine County will receive more than $1 million in grants, but small districts were awarded much less.

"There may need to be some more help offered by the state about how to navigate the process," McIntosh said. "That's how we can level the playing field."