District plans less expensive replacement for tutoring

By Emily Richmond

Monday, April 20, 2009 | 2 a.m.

When Karla Barajas moved from Mexico to Las Vegas four years ago, she struggled with English.

Her freshman and sophomore grades were mostly C’s and a few D’s.

Now a senior at Liberty High School, Barajas earns A’s and B’s, and will attend college in the fall to pursue a nursing career.

The turnaround came last year when she was chosen for AVID, an intensive tutoring and mentoring program designed to boost middle-of-the-road students to the next level. Advancement Via Individualized Determination was created by a San Diego teacher in the 1980s and has since spread to schools nationwide.

AVID teaches students time management, effective note-taking and study skills. The one-on-one sessions with her tutors made an immediate difference, Barajas said.

“Sometimes I didn’t understand everything that was said in class,” Barajas said. “They explained it to me.”

The Clark County School District is dropping the AVID program, in place at 32 campuses serving about 2,500 students, to save the annual $2.5 million in costs for teacher training and program support. District officials are planning to create an in-house version that offers similar structure and services at a lower cost.

Barajas understands the budget crisis driving the district’s decision, disappointing as it is. The slumping economy is one reason she’s going home to Mexico for college, where she can live with family and save money. But she also believes she owes the Clark County School District for the investment it made in her, which is why she plans to come back to Las Vegas and work as a nurse.

“I want to give something back,” Barajas said.

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In case you wondered if your television was acting up during Thursday’s live broadcast of the School Board’s discussion show, the answer is no.

During the first 20 minutes of the hourlong “School Matters” broadcast on Vegas PBS Channel 10, the sound was out of sync with the picture. Some viewers were reminded of badly dubbed Japanese monster movies that were once a staple of late-night television.

Fortunately the technical difficulties were resolved by the time the discussion turned to the prospects for key education bills in the Legislature. The panelists — School Board members Carolyn Edwards and Sheila Moulton, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler and Joyce Haldeman, associate superintendent of community and government relations — also answered questions from viewers submitted by e-mail or telephone. Dave Courvoisier, news anchor for KLAS-TV Channel 8, served as moderator.

The questions included one from a new arrival from California, who wanted to know whether the district is hiring teachers for the 2009-10 school year. The answer is yes, provided they’re qualified in a high-need area such as special education, math or science. The district isn’t sure how many regular classroom teachers it will need until the dust settles from the reduction of school staffing levels as a result of the budget cuts.

Edwards said she’s been encouraged by the support for legislation that would create a rainy day fund for education. Because of a complicated formula, tax revenue earmarked for education does not always go to schools, and can be diverted to the state’s general fund instead. Creating a so-called “education stabilization fund” would protect schools during economic downturns, Edwards said.

One concern, Edwards said, is that some lawmakers are talking about amending the legislation to put a cap on the amount of money that would go to the fund.

“Why would we cap something we don’t have yet?” Edwards said.

•••

The School Board will decide Thursday whether a revised meeting format is giving its members more information and the public a louder voice.

For the past two meetings the School Board has piloted a return to the format used by other elected boards in Southern Nevada, which allow the public to speak following the panel’s discussion of an agenda item and before it’s put to a vote. Typically the School Board limits public comment to a one-hour period before the start of the meeting’s business.

The revised format worked smoothly at the March 26 and April 2 meetings, and School Board observers are optimistic the pilot program will be extended.

“There might not be a need for so much public comment if people know where the board members are headed,” said Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, president of Nevadans for Quality Education. “Before, it was a guessing game.”