Nothing, not even snow day, free

Steve Marcus

Richard Elliott tries to catch a snowflake on his tongue as teacher Melinda MacLean takes a video of his family Wednesday at Bartlett Elementary School in Henderson.

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Dec. 19, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When record snowfall blanketed the Las Vegas Valley in 1979, the Clark County School Board and the superintendent agreed to cancel classes.

“We all decided we had to make up the day, and we brilliant School Board members scheduled it for Saturday,” said Bob Forbus, who served on the board from 1979 to 1986. “Kids don’t like school on Saturday. Did you know that?”

Forbus had that fact pointed out to him after one enterprising student distributed a list of the members’ home telephone numbers.

“We were getting calls at 1 a.m. on Saturday,” Forbus recalled with a laugh. “Kids were saying, ‘We’re getting ready to go to school. Gee, hope we didn’t wake you.’ ”

This time around, it was Superintendent Walt Rulffes who made the call late Wednesday to cancel classes, as the snow piled up and roadways became hazardous. The primary concern was the safety of operating the district’s school buses, which transport more than 80,000 students a day.

The fallout from a “snow day” extends beyond the need to make up the instructional time.

The city’s “Safe Key” program, which provides early morning and afternoon enrichment programs, was also closed Thursday because most of the centers are at schools. That left many families scrambling for child care.

Forbus, for whom an elementary school was named in 2006, said the decision to cancel classes “is a tough call for any superintendent to make. But it’s a problem when you’re trying to move this many kids and buses.”

Rulffes has determined the lost day will be made up.

“My recommendation,” Forbus said, “is that he doesn’t schedule it for a Saturday.”

•••

School administrators were expected at work Thursday — but teachers stayed home — just in case students showed up and needed an adult’s assistance.

Nearly all of the students at Kermit Booker Elementary School walk to campus on Martin Luther King Boulevard. About 50 children showed up on time for class Thursday despite the announced closure.

Principal Beverly Mathis said the students expected it to be “business as usual” because they saw her car parked in the faculty lot. And she was waiting outside, as always, to offer hugs, handshakes and greetings.

Rather than being thrilled by a day off, most of the students expressed disappointment.

“Our little people love school,” Mathis said. “I told them, ‘You can go back home and read a book there, and come right back here tomorrow.’ ”

•••

The dark clouds of the nation’s economy have a silver lining for the School District — the number of teachers calling it quits in the first quarter of the academic year is down 35 percent compared with last year.

Since August, 139 teachers, including retirees, have left, said Martha Tittle, the district’s chief human resources officer. That’s compared with 215 exits from August to Dec. 13, 2007.

With the economy slumping, Clark County teachers who in other years would have transferred to schools in other districts “don’t have jobs to go to,” Tittle said.

Another factor: The valley’s dismal housing market means many people can’t sell their homes for anything close to what they owe on their mortgages. That’s another hurdle for teachers hoping to move.

Tittle said there might be a spike in early retirements at the end of the academic year, when the window closes on an incentive program for teachers with fewer than 29 years on the job. As part of a plan to trim $120 million from the district’s operating budget, the School Board voted Thursday to suspend the incentive program, saving $2.5 million annually.

The district has long struggled to reduce teacher turnover, citing the expense of recruiting and training replacements. One initiative intended to help with that goal, a teacher-mentoring program, is also on the cut list, for a saving of $2.7 million.