Crisis makes withdrawn bond effort fortuitous

By Emily Richmond

Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

A silver lining has emerged from the Clark County School District’s decision to pull its proposed $9.5 billion bond measure from the November ballot.

Given the turn of events in the stock market, the bonds would have been a tough sell, according to Jeff Weiler, the School District’s chief financial officer.

“There’s almost no one issuing bonds right now,” Weiler said. “It’s so crazy out there right now, rates are way up. Fortunately, we don’t need to be out in the market.”

The School District has sold all the bonds it needs to finish the current capital campaign.

Voters in 1998 approved a $3.5 billion bond measure, which swelled to nearly $5 billion thanks to high property values and a flood of sales tax revenue. The district was able to build 101 schools, instead of the 88 promised to voters.

The remaining dollars will now have to see the district through the next two years of construction.

The district’s investment portfolio, accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars, has also been protected from the worst of the stock market turmoil, Weiler said. District policy allows only the most conservative and highly rated investments, such as money market accounts and government securities.

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Four of the five charter schools sponsored by the State Board of Education failed to comply with requirements that all teachers be highly qualified and maintain appropriate licenses and certifications, a new audit shows.

The Nevada Education Department conducts annual audits of state-sponsored charter schools. The results will be presented when the State Board meets Oct. 11 in Las Vegas. At the same meeting, board members will consider sponsorship requests from four new schools.

Silver State High School, which is in its fifth year serving at-risk students in Carson City, had two teachers on staff who had not completed required coursework. Coral Academy of Science, which opened in 2007 in Las Vegas, had four teachers who had not met the requirements for “highly qualified” status and a fifth teacher lacking coursework.

At Nevada Connections Academy, a distance education program launched last year, one teacher was teaching courses that were not covered by his license and a second hadn’t completed coursework for a full license. At Nevada Virtual Academy, also an online school that opened in 2007, a teacher was found to be working with an expired license.

Nevada State High School, a dual-credit program that allows 11th and 12th graders to enroll in college-level classes, was the one campus in full compliance on teacher licensing. Former State Board of Education member John Hawk and his wife, Wendi Hawk, started the school in 2004.

Other than the teacher licensing issues and some problems meeting special education requirements, all of the charter schools were found to largely be in compliance when it came to daily operations, governing board oversight and fiscal management.

All five schools were identified as “high achieving” for 2007-08 under the federal No Child Left Behind law. (Three of the schools opened in 2007. Typically a school’s first-year scores are considered the baseline against which future performance is measured.)

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Bob Miller Middle School will host a political forum Tuesday, with candidates for state Senate, Assembly and School Board. The candidates represent districts within the Green Valley school’s attendance zone boundaries.

Assembly District 21 candidates Jonathan Ozark and Ellen Spiegel have confirmed they will participate, as have School Board District A candidates Edward Goldman and Deanna Wright.

State Senate District 5 incumbent Joe Heck has said he will attend. Challenger Shirley Breeden had not responded by the Oct. 1 deadline.

The doors will open at the school, 2400 Cozy Hill Circle, Henderson, at

6 p.m., with the forum scheduled to start at 6:30.