By Emily Richmond

Sun, Mar 23, 2008 (2 a.m.)

As the State Board of Education prepared to approve a controversial moratorium on new charter schools, member Barbara Myers got up and walked out, refusing to vote.

Now, Myers says, she’s being punished for refusing to fall in line and support the moratorium. She says that board member Cindy Reid is scheduling meetings at a time inconvenient to Myers.

Both Reid and Myers are on a three-member committee on charter schools. Myers says she requested the appointment because the committee has not had a Northern Nevada member in two years. She was appointed March 8.

Following her appointment, Myers asked Reid, the committee’s chairwoman, to reconsider the committee’s practice of convening at 1:30 p.m. on Fridays, before the full board’s monthly meeting. A teacher in Lyon County, Myers says it would be difficult for her to leave work and make the earlier meeting time.

Reid, wife of Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, declined the request, and suggested that an alternate state board member from the north could take Myers’ place if the time was inconvenient.

Myers told the Sun she considers that punishment. “The message is, ‘We don’t want to hear from her, because she doesn’t agree with everything we want to do,’ ” she said.

Reid said she would like to have accommodated Myers, but no other time slot was available. The situation is “absolutely not” an attempt to silence Myers, said Reid, who described her colleague as a “very thorough and detail-oriented person ... she adds a lot to the board.”

In an e-mail that Myers says she sent to more than 100 “educational stakeholders,” she wrote that Reid “needs to see her position is contrary to the very spirit of the Nevada Revised Statute that created this subcommittee.” Myers said the situation is upsetting enough that it will likely be a factor in her decision whether to run this year for a third term.

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After months of uncertainty, 1,900 retired Clark County teachers can breathe a sigh of relief — for now.

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that 150 retired Las Vegas policemen are entitled to subsidized health care coverage through the state’s employee benefits program. If the cops had been found ineligible, about 3,500 other public employees, including the 1,900 teachers, would have been forced off the plan as well.

“We are certainly very pleased,” said Judith Hamblin, president of the Clark County Retired Education Association, which advocates on behalf of retired teachers. “A lot of us would have been left without a way to afford health insurance.”

Still unresolved is the fate of health care coverage for future retired teachers. Nonstate public employees have until Sept. 1 to retire and sign on for the subsidized health care. After that date, retirees will be eligible only if their employer sends all active workers to the state plan as well.

The 2007 Legislature changed the eligibility requirement to keep the state plan from being swamped with expensive retiree health care costs without the benefit of active employees also paying into the system.

Fearing that hundreds of teachers might retire early in order to meet the state’s enrollment deadline, the School District and the Clark County Education Association are negotiating an alternative health care plan. No specifics have been announced, although both sides have indicated they are close to an agreement.

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The Clark County School District wants the public’s help in shaping a long-range plan intended to improve everything from campus climate to student achievement.

In 2007 auditors, hired by the Legislature to examine the district’s operations, criticized the district for lacking a strategic plan. The School Board responded by creating a committee to guide the process, which will include a series of public input meetings.

The meeting schedule is: Monday, 5 to 7 p.m., Del Sol High School, 3100 E. Patrick Lane; Tuesday, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., Northwest Career and Technical Academy, 8200 W. Tropical Parkway; Wednesday, 7 to 9 p.m., Durango High School, 7100 W. Dewey Drive; and Saturday, 9 to 11 a.m., Sedway Middle School, 3466 Englestad St., North Las Vegas.