Titus to teachers: State needs long-term fix

By Jeremy Twitchell

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 | 7:02 p.m.

Rep. Dina Titus told educators Thursday afternoon that while the economic stimulus package will help Nevada's schools, there is still much work to be done at the state level.

The federal stimulus package signed into law this week could provide Nevada school districts with more than $622 million over the next two years, but Titus told educators at Del Sol High School that they need to encourage legislators to work on a long-term fix for education funding.

"(The stimulus) is not the end-all," Titus said. "It is going to be slow and tough. But it will help us get over the hump."

Titus appeared at a rally put on by the Nevada State Education Association, Clark County Education Association, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and several other groups to call educators and parents to action in the budget debate that is going on in Carson City.

Titus said she voted for the stimulus because it represented the swift and bold action she felt was necessary to prop up the economy both nationally and locally.

"It used to be said that Nevada was recession-proof," she said. "They used to think that if people anywhere in the country had two nickels to rub together, they'd come here to try and change their fortune. That's just not the case anymore."

Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, said the stimulus money comes with the caveat that states maintain education funding at 2006 levels and warned that Nevada may lose its share of the money if proposed cuts to education become law.

"The hard work has been done by our leaders in Washington. Now we need to do our part here locally to make sure we get the money into our system so that we can keep the federal money," Murillo said. "Our message is to Carson City: Make sure you find the money to fix the problem that got us here in the first place."

Titus said she worked with several legislators to create a waiver program that could allow states to receive federal funds despite budget cuts, but that even with the waiver program, Nevada needs to come up with a long-term solution.

Del Sol Principal Betsy Angelcor said she was pleased to host the rally, because it gave her a chance to put the effect of education cuts in perspective. She met today with her 110 teachers and gave them the grim news that based on preliminary projections, 15 of them won't be back next year, she said.

"It was very depressing, especially for the teachers that have only been here for a year — the ones that moved out here from Ohio and other places," Angelcor said. "They spent a lot of money moving out here, and now we're telling them that they might not have a job."

Angelcor said her school will have to offer its Advanced Placement courses online through the school district's Virtual High School system next year. It will also cut back on art and music classes, while the dance program is going to be scrapped altogether.

She said the school recently began registration for next year, and she's already getting calls from parents upset about the lack of offerings.

She hopes that turns into action.

"It's really hard unless it impacts your own kids," Angelcor said. "I have to be honest: I think that 90 percent of our parents don't understand how these cuts can affect their children. … They're kind of like any one of us — you don't really care until it affects you."

Henderson teacher Mike Wiatt, who teaches at Jim Thorpe Elementary, said he attended the rally to voice his concern that legislators might be lulled into a false sense of security by the stimulus and fail to take action on the state's budget.

"Then the work that we really need to be doing, which is changing our tax structure, won't get done," he said. "I think we have a tremendous opportunity to get that done right now, and if we don't grasp it, we may lose it. I think legislators are willing to listen right now, and that they could get the votes together to do it."

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].