Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LOOKING IN ON: EDUCATION:

Grants aplenty, but can matching funding be found?

Education

TIFFANY BROWN / LAS VEGAS SUN FILE

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced this month that $650 million in grants is available to help schools reach goals such as closing gaps in achievement.

Walt Rulffes

Walt Rulffes

A $650 million grant initiative, announced this month by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, holds a wealth of opportunity for the Clark County School District, but meeting one of the key requirements won’t be easy.

To land the money, school districts must secure matching funding from the public or private sector, and “dollars are hard to come by right now,” Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes said.

Competitive grants will be awarded in three categories, with the largest portion going to expand programs with a proven track record in key areas such as closing achievement gaps, recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers and improving graduation rates. The second-largest portion of the grant money will go to initiatives that have shown early signs of success and need money to expand. A small number of “seed money” grants will go to new programs with high potential.

Rulffes said he’s looking at districts in other states that are facing challenges similar to Southern Nevada’, such as a high percentage of English language learners and a stagnant graduation rate. If Clark County teamed up with another district on the grant application with the intent of sharing best practices, it might improve the odds of getting the requisite matching funding from national organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rulffes said.

Many local organizations contribute, but there are others “who want to help but haven’t gotten a real push from us yet,” Rulffes said. “I think if we came up with something truly innovative, we would find people willing to contribute.”

• • •

The Clark County School Board will hold a community outreach meeting Tuesday in West Las Vegas to discuss dropout prevention, how money is allocated and ongoing issues of equity in educational opportunities.

School Board member Larry Mason said the district is launching a series of such meetings to gather public input to help guide discussion and decisions.

“We hope to get a good turnout and have a productive dialogue with the community,” Mason said, adding that he hopes to hear from people who might not otherwise have an opportunity for a face-to-face exchange with School Board members.

One of the more pressing topics will likely be the district’s Prime Six campuses, which have been the focus of scrutiny in recent months. A review by UCLA researchers — hired by the district to conduct an evaluation of student data — found several elementary schools serving West Las Vegas students are highly isolated by poverty, ethnicity and language barriers.

The community meeting will be at 6 p.m. at Kermit Booker Elementary School, 2277 Martin Luther King Blvd.

• • •

Here’s some good news — but hold your applause: Nevada’s public school students showed improvement in mathematics on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

“That’s some of the best news we’ve heard in a while,” said Keith Rheault, Nevada’s superintendent of public instruction.

But there might be a downside on the horizon.

The improved achievement can be traced back about three years, which is when schools began offering intensive tutoring to struggling students as well as implementing new instructional programs and advanced professional development for teachers. The initiatives were paid for with school improvement grants from the state, funding that was eliminated last spring as a result of the statewide budget shortfall.

The Nevada Education Department is fighting to keep up the teacher training in math and English language arts, Rheault said, in the hope that “there won’t be too big a drop-off” in student test scores.

The test is given every two years to students in grades four and eight. Nevada is one of eight states to show significant improvement among fourth graders and one of 16 states that had measurable gains among eighth graders. Progress was particularly strong for Hispanic students and students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals.

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