For one time only, administration finds additional $15 million for books, supplies

By Emily Richmond

Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Beginning next month, Clark County schools will share $15 million in funding for instructional supplies, restoring about half of what was cut by lawmakers this summer.

The money is coming from administrative departments, which were asked last spring to hold off on major purchases in addition to making cuts, said Jeff Weiler, chief financial officer for the district.

With state funding for education reduced by 14.5 percent, the district has already trimmed more than $130 million from its operating budget. During the special legislative session in June, lawmakers also reduced the district’s allocation for textbooks and instructional supplies by 50 percent.

“It’s a challenge, definitely, and certainly not one we went looking for, but staff is stepping up,” Weiler told the School Board at last week’s meeting. “We’ll weather it somehow.”

While praising the district’s response to the fiscal crisis, School Board President Mary Beth Scow worried that it would give lawmakers a reason not to restore funding.

“People take more and more on, and things happen so well that it looks easy when it’s really not,” Scow said. “It’s taken a toll.”

Although the money will help ease the sting of the cuts this time around, there’s another looming concern.

“This was a one-time thing,” Weiler said. “We wouldn’t be able to replicate that, if the state continues to cut textbook funding in the future.”

Board member Terri Janison said she’s long had concerns about the enormous amount spent annually by the district on textbooks, and wondered whether there weren’t more cost-efficient alternatives given the wide range of online technology available.

Weiler assured Janison that the district is indeed looking at how textbook dollars are allocated and spent.

“This is one good thing we get out of austere times,” Weiler said. “It provides us with some opportunities to reexamine our practices.”

Additionally, the district is surveying principals to find out what cuts they’ve already made, and to gather input from school communities as to what should be next on the chopping block.

While schools look forward to next month’s infusion of cash, community groups and businesses have rallied to help. This week, big brown trucks will deliver classroom supplies to 15 campuses, thanks to a donation drive organized locally by a women’s leadership group at United Parcel Service.

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Citing concerns about student safety, the School Board voted Thursday to end junior traffic patrols.

Elementary schools had been allowed to organize the volunteer squads, made up of students armed only with a sash and a “STOP” paddle. That’s not much defense against an SUV, particularly those driven by harried motorists using school zones as shortcuts.

Even though the regulation prohibited students from directing traffic, the very act of helping other students across the street came with an expectation that drivers would yield to the junior patrol, said Kaweeda Adams, the district’s director of instruction and facilities administration.

Adams requested input and about 40 percent of elementary principals responded. None has junior traffic patrols in place, and all of them supported ending the patrols, Adams said.

Last year, 14 students were struck by motor vehicles either on or near campuses, according to the district’s risk management office. Most of the injuries were minor, but all had the potential to be “very serious,” said Kim Krumland, coordinator of risk and insurance services for the district.

Student crossing guards “just didn’t seem like a good idea anymore,” Krumland said. When the regulation was adopted in 1963, “We were a much smaller district and it was a much different time,” Krumland said. “This is not the same world.”

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The Green Valley High School community has raised more than $14,000 for student LaQuan Phillips, injured in a Sept. 5 football game and recovering from a bruised spine at Sunrise Hospital.

Green Valley students held a series of “miracle minutes” during the academic day, passing the hat in classrooms and the cafeteria. Each collection session lasted three minutes, to correspond with the number on Phillips’ football jersey.

Michelle Matherly, an English teacher at Green Valley and student council adviser, said she’s been impressed, but not surprised, by the efforts on Phillips’ behalf.

Help has also come from other campuses. Thurman White and Greenspun middle schools collected $400 and $1,651, respectively.