District’s new teachers fewer than in recent years, full of enthusiasm

By Emily Richmond

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Some came from across town to attend this week’s new-teacher orientation, excited about their first classroom jobs. Others, with decades of experience, arrived from as far away as New York and New Jersey.

It was the smallest crowd in years, reflecting how growth in the Clark County School District has flattened, diminishing the need to recruit several thousand new teachers. Still, Coronado High School’s cafeteria, filled with 360 new teachers, was brimming with enthusiasm.

Among those in the crowd: Bridgette Carter, who taught for seven years in Alabama before her soldier husband was reassigned to Las Vegas. Because Carter’s skills as an autism expert were in high demand, she quickly landed a position at Mountain View Elementary.

Carter said she was worried that she might feel a little lost in the nation’s fifth-largest school district. She’s glad that her rookie class was the smallest group the district has added in about 10 years.

By the end of the second day of orientation, Carter said the experience “was awesome ... I’m really looking forward to getting into the classroom.”

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The finer points of hand-washing and the best technique for covering coughs and sneezes will be some of the first lessons district teachers will review with students when the school year starts Aug. 24.

The district’s flu response plan was tested in May, when the nationwide outbreak of the H1N1 virus — also known as swine flu — reached Clark County. Diana Taylor, director of health services for the district, said school nurses will review best practices with staff at each campus.

In a telephone news conference with reporters this week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said public schools will play a key role in preventing the spread of the flu. In addition to educating students and parents about preventive measures, campuses are logical locations for wide-scale vaccinations. The H1N1 vaccine is in production and expected to become available in October.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that it doesn’t appear that closing schools significantly reduces the total number of flu cases in a community. He recommended that local and state officials weigh the potential loss of valuable class time for students — and lost wages for parents who lack emergency child care — against the possible benefit of fewer cases of flu.

If schools must be closed, districts should be ready with alternative means of instruction, such as online classes, Duncan said.

But ultimately it comes down to common sense.

Parents know when their children are feeling sick, Duncan said. And when they are, keep them home from school.

• • •

Nevada education officials aren’t willing to accept that the Silver State might be disqualified from competing in the “Race to the Top” — the name of a federal $5 billion initiative to reward states and schools that show a commitment to innovation and reform.

The proposed requirements of the initiative include that states cannot have any law that prohibits the use of test data in evaluating teacher performance.

Nevada is one of four states that have such a provision on the books.

The situation was the top topic at a recent meeting of the Nevada Association of School Boards in Ely, Vice President Carolyn Edwards told her Clark County colleagues at Thursday’s meeting.

“I can tell you this battle isn’t over,” Edwards said. “Two of the three other states (that might be disqualified) are California and New York.”

Los Angeles Unified is the nation’s second-largest school district, with about 800,000 students. New York City Public Schools is the country’s largest district, where enrollment tops 1.1 million.