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StumbleSuperintendent reaches out to retired administrator to boost struggling schools
Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Walt Rulffes
Karlene McCormick-Lee retired from her senior administrative post with the Clark County School District in June, but she could soon be back on the payroll as a consultant.
The Clark County School Board will be asked Thursday by district staff to waive the mandatory one-year “cooling off” period, a regulation since 1989. The intent was to guard against former employees using the inside track to win consulting jobs.
If approved by the School Board, McCormick-Lee would earn $700 a day for the projected 52-day contract, with her compensation not to exceed $40,000. She retired as superintendent of the Superintendent’s Schools region, and had been associate superintendent of research and accountability.
Skills of an individual occasionally are needed to complete a project, and it’s more cost-effective to hire the former employee for a limited contract, district officials say.
McCormick-Lee’s hiring is one of those situations, according to Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes.
Rulffes wants to assign McCormick-Lee to work with the district’s empowerment schools — previously among her duties — and also oversee applications for federal grant money to help states turn around their lowest performing schools.
Rulffes said as many as 15 district campuses might be able to share from $5 million to $10 million. McCormick-Lee has developed strong professional relationships with organizations that will likely be involved in the expansion of the empowerment program, such as the Lincy Foundation, Rulffes said.
“They all have the highest confidence in her abilities, as do I,” Rulffes said.
•••
With Gov. Jim Gibbons planning a special legislative session, agencies, including public education, are being asked to adjust budgets for cuts of 1.3 percent and 3 percent.
Gov. Jim Gibbons
At Thursday’s College of Southern Nevada Board of Regents meeting, Chancellor Dan Klaich said, “We’ve met every single budget reduction expected of us and done it in a responsible manner.”
But Klaich said he plans to urge the governor to look beyond education for savings in state dollars, noting the hard hits endured over the past 18 months.
He noted that the registration surcharge students pay per credit hour — $6 at UNR and UNLV and from $3.50 to $4 at the state and community colleges — brings in $6.6 million annually. A 1.3 percent cut to higher education “wipes that out, plus another $400,000,” Klaich said, essentially canceling “the contribution the students thought they were making to their education this year.”
The system’s campuses need to do a better job getting the message to the public of how the cuts have hurt, Klaich said. He noted that UNLV has lost 100 tenure-track professors but is still teaching a record number of students.
Requiring professors to teach more classes means less time for research, which brought in $145 million in grants last year, Regent Steve Cobb said.
But not everyone will object to putting a heavier load on faculty, Regent Dorothy Gallagher said.
“Some will say, ‘It’s about time,’ ” Gallagher said. “They don’t think professors spend enough time teaching.”
“I think that’s anecdotal bunk,” Klaich countered, drawing loud applause. “If any of us think teaching is an easy job, let’s trade. I’m deeply indebted to the teachers and faculty of this state. When we hear things like that we should call it exactly what it is, and not step in it.”
•••
Clark County is one of nine school districts invited to a summit Monday with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in Washington. The topic: How can the partnership between districts and labor groups support and drive efforts to turn around chronically low-performing schools?
Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, which represents a majority of the more than 18,000 licensed personnel, and Rulffes will participate.
Rulffes told the Sun on Friday that Clark County was chosen because of its success with the empowerment schools program, the career and technical academies and the interest-based collective bargaining method used in negotiations with the teachers’ union.
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This is an example of the CCSD letting the retired administrators ripoff the school district.
There is only one possiblity to stop the robbing of the Nevada retirement system. These retired employees should not be allowed to be rehired and draw their retiremnt at the same time. This continual ripoff of the retiremnt system is a taxpayers dilema. A state law should be passed to stop the rehiring of past employees drawing from the retirement system. The rehiree's are to be in critical positions only. Is a librarian a critical jOb? Are school mentors , specialists , and consultants critical jobs? I think not. The retirees and their sponsors can't be trusted to do the right thing, so we have to eliminate all rehiring of retirees. It's a shame people can't be trusted. Who do you think is gong to retire and join the school police?
r.
I am totally opposed to the "double-dipping" that government retirees use to profit from the government system. I have even personally met "triple-dippers" on the government payroll.
Many of these types have connections on the inside to make a nice big fat paycheck, with luxurious health and medical benefits, and they make it off of the money we fork over in taxes.
Totally opposed.
But in this case, I will make an exception. Just this once. Rulffes is doing what he can get the pathetic Clark County school system off its back.
Many of the schools are an abomination at worst, and laughable at best. Rulffes has his work cut out for him. The ridiculous position of the CCEA and test scores will keep Clark County schools at the bottom for a very long time unless Rulffes does something about it.
So now Rulffes is doing something about it.
WIZARD-Ruffles is trying to take care of his friends as usual. He wanted to hire Dr. Rice to hire and retain teachers with the University system and the district fo about $100,000 a year. She had that job for years and what were her results? People wised up and said, "no". The state legislature is going to get rid of this conspiracy.
"...Clark County is one of nine school districts invited to a summit Monday with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in Washington. The topic: How can the partnership between districts and labor groups support and drive efforts to turn around chronically low-performing schools?..."
WHY IS THE CCEA THE ONLY "LABOR GROUP" ATTENDING...?
This is a thinly disguised effort to subordinate the test scores issue, and to weaken No Child Left Behind. Plain and simple.
How much do you want to bet that a few unannounced "Politicos" show up, too. Plus you know that there's gonna be lots of "behind the scenes" commandeering of opinion, position, and strategy.
These things are nothing more than a cover for a "Party Summit" that is called to make "5 year plan" pronouncements (you remember those from the U.S.S.R., don't you).
Here are the pronouncements that your tax dollars will be paying for:
1. Test Scores As A Measure Of Teacher Pay Must Be Wiped Out (aka "reformed")
2. Test Scores As A Measure Of Education Funding Must Be Wiped Out( aka "reformed")
3. School Districts Should Be Allowed To Continue The Practice Of Letting Students Miss As Much School As Possible
4. Taxes Must Be Raised On Anyone Making Anything Regardless Of School Performance Results
5. Large Corporations Collecting Big On Government Welfare Programs Must Continue To Be Allowed To Collect Big (since they are "donators").
6. "Politicos" will be scouting around for "donation-ists", glad-handing the fray, and getting more "Party-Freebies" (aka free 5 star dinners, cocktail parties, golf).
So there you have it. The "Party Summit". And we paid for this tripe with our tax dollars.
What's worse is that this could have been accomplished with tax-money saving webconferencing software. A lot less. And it would have had a tremendously better outcome, too.
rascal:
If there is a pattern of abuse, then it absolutely needs to be completely exposed. I agree.
However, on the Legislature getting rid of the practice, take a peek at who's donating to whom.
Here's an official campaign donation link that will tell the tale:
http://redrock.co.clark.nv.us/campaignfi.........
$700.00 a day? does that includes lunch and the full hour of work?
$700 a day and my school doesn't have enough people to run it. How sad indeed.
No more waivers for the superintendent and his friends. Ruffles and the CCSD Board are the poorest elected officals we have in the state of Nevada. If they don't like something they change the policy or go around the open meeting law. I'm sure we have an employee capable of handling the job , Walt. They are robbing the taxpayers, it's that simple.
When will our two local papers begin to call for the resignation of Walt Rulffes? When will the two local papers begin to demand that this school board stop catering to Rulffes and his cronies?
Students don't have enough textbooks, paper is rationed to teachers even for test writing, and the administration continues to load the docket with retired, former local administrators for a unknown number of politicla jobs. The "good ole boy" network begun under Kenny Guinn continues unabated, unrestricted and continues to send this district into financial oblivion.
It is time to stop the mollycoddling of the administration, fire 50% of all administrators throughout the district and stop the 'double-dipping' of these nerdy clowns from enriching their final retirement pay checks.
A new TV reality show will soon be filmed in Las Vegas, and will be called "Can You Top This Stupidity"... basically the show is a national challenge to find another school district anywhere in America that is run more incompetently, rehires more of its own former administrators, refuses to hire more certified teachers, wastes more money, and produces students with less academic achievement than the CCSD.
The CCSD is becoming a real embarassment to the taxpayers of this county and yet the school board and its crony administration continue on their merry way of doing more of the same in the way of failing to truly educate our students.
A major Grand Jury investigation of every facet and aspect of the district from top to bottom needs to be given a thorough, independent and in depth investigation. Finances, hiring pracices, purchasing procedures, bond issue financing, adminsitration of testing and all other aspects of district operation must be completely investigated.
I'm sure they could find someone competent to do the job for much less than $700 a day. That is $3500 a week or $182,000 a year.