LOOKING IN ON: EDUCATION

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Sometimes it's hard not to blame the messenger. Particularly when the message is that a school schedule is being changed and the messenger is the school principal.

Erin Cranor, the mother of four Clark County School District students, has a novel suggestion that could do much to preserve a principal's relationship with the campus community: Find another messenger.

Cranor's remarks came last week at a meeting of the Superintendent's Year-Round Study Group.

The decision as to whether a school moves to a year-round schedule rests with the district's central office. So why, Cranor asked, are principals the ones forced to spread the word, especially since parents rarely celebrate the news?

When the announcement comes from the principal, it leaves some parents wondering if the switch isn't being done to boost school administrators' salaries, Cranor said. Principals at year-round schools are paid about 12 percent more than their colleagues at nine-month schools.

The principal's relationship with staff, students and parents sets the tone for everything that follows, said Cranor, a member of the district committee that makes recommendations on school boundaries.

The news should come from the region al office so the "principal is protected," Cranor said.

It would also help if parents and teachers were warned as early as possible. Cranor told the Sun on Thursday that at Tomiyasu Elementary School, where her two youngest children are students, families are already being warned that too many students could trigger a scheduling switch for the 2008-09 academic year.

"Families deal better when they know it's coming," Cranor said. "Don't try to sneak it up on them."

Can't make it to School Board meetings? Audio recordings, conveniently arranged into snippets for each agenda item, are now available online on the district's Web site. Although the online format isn't the easiest to access or particularly user-friendly for first-timers, it is an improvement over having to request your own copy of an audio or video recording.

To listen to the audio recordings of meetings since Sept. 20, go to the School District 's Web site (ccsd.net) and follow the links to the board meetings. Then click on "reference materials" for the meeting you wish to hear. After that, choose the agenda item from the left-hand column and click on the audio file icon.

Users of iTunes know the software automatically assigns a genre when audio files are downloaded - George Strait is country, Eric Clapton is rock, etc. One has to wonder if some Apple employee actually listened to a School Board meeting or if assigning the files to the "blues" category is just a lucky quirk. But few veterans of the Thursday night marathons would quibble with the choice.

Scam artists are attempting to capitalize on the ol' team spirit in neighborhoods surrounding Shadow Ridge High School.

For the record, the school's football team doesn't need new safety pads. And even if it did, players wouldn't go door to door asking for money to pay for the equipment, as some people are reportedly doing.

"It's ridiculous," said Bill Garis, athletic director for the Clark County School District. "Players have all the protective gear they need."

Garis catches wind of such scams three or four times a year, involving schools throughout the Las Vegas Valley. He occasionally gets calls from local businesses wondering whether a school is really selling ad space in a deluxe souvenir calendar with the season's line up . ( Usually it's not.)

District regulations discourage door-to-door soliciting by elementary school students. Most of the district's campus fundraisers ask students to sell items such as cookie dough or wrapping paper to their own families and immediate circle of friends. However, more enterprising youngsters are known to stake out entrances to grocery stores and knock on the doors of strangers' homes.

If you're unsure whether a fundraiser is on the up and up, Garis recommends contacting the school .

"We encourage everyone to ask, 'Is this legit ?' " Garis said. "That's the only way to shut these things down."

An announcement on Shadow Ridge's Web site alerts visitors to the scam.