Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Education:

CCSD readies legislative wish list, starting with that funding formula

Zoom Reading Center

Paul Takahashi

A reading tutor works with English-language learner students as Clark County Schools Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky looks on at a Zoom Reading Center on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, at Lunt Elementary School.

Feb. 2 marks the start of the new legislative session in Carson City, and the opportunity for lobbyists and politicians to finally see their ideas become law — or go down in flames.

Clark County School District officials have their own lengthy wish list, which was approved Wednesday by the School Board.

We talked to Associate Superintendent Joyce Haldeman, who serves as CCSD's chief lobbyist, to pick out the district’s most critical legislative priorities:

A revision of the funding formula

Virtually untouched since its creation in 1967, the formula that determines how much state money each school district receives could take up most of the spotlight at the Capitol when it comes to education. The current formula, which was written when Nevada was essentially still a rural state, is widely disliked in many Nevada school districts.

Nobody knows this better than CCSD, which has had to scrape together the resources to educate a growing population of low-income and other struggling students.

In the 2013 legislative session, pressure from school districts to update the formula led to the creation of a task force to suggest reforms. The biggest change is a proposal to better fund districts with high numbers of poor, special education and English language learner students.

The current expectation is that any reforms be phased in gradually over 10 years to give districts time to adjust to the changes.

“Now that we are starting to see that there is [economic] recovering going on, we’re anxious to see that revenues are going to where they’re needed most,” Haldeman said.

More support for school renovation and construction

It’s no secret that many schools in Clark County are falling apart. Though schools built recently in the newer parts of Las Vegas are state-of-the-art, schools in the urban core are often decades old and suffer outdated equipment like worn air conditioning and heating systems. Added to this are slashed maintenance budgets following the recession and an inability of districts to raise money to invest in their facilities.

CCSD has been forced to go to voters to approve ballot questions and bond measures to fund capital improvements, but a bond measure in 2012 was overwhelmingly defeated by voters. Without these funds, districts must stretch already thin budgets to cover renovations.

Haldeman said legislators are aware of this, and will be looking into the issue in the upcoming session.

“The notion that we need to do something about school construction will definitely be discussed in Carson City,” she said.

Expanding zoom schools

In 2013, the Legislature provided $50 million to Zoom schools around the state.

Zoom schools are geared for students struggling to learn English and are designed to increase literacy in school-age children up to second grade. They do this by providing services some schools don’t, like full-day kindergarten, small class sizes, and dedicated reading centers.

Clark County currently has 16 Zoom schools, the most in the state.

Districts are asking legislators to expand them to all one- and two-star schools that have large populations of English language learners. This would create 32 new Zoom schools, including 19 more in Clark County.

Establish full-day kindergarten

Previous legislative sessions have provided some funding for full-day kindergarten, but not all schools offer it. Full-day kindergarten is seen as essential in developing reading and math skills in kids early on.

According to the Nevada Association of School Superintendents — comprising superintendents of Nevada's 17 school districts — only 50 percent of students in Nevada are enrolled in full-day programs. They estimate 10 percent of those are in tuition-based programs.

In Clark County, 79 percent of schools have full-day kindergarten, according to Haldeman. Thirty-eight schools are tuition based, while 19 schools only have half-day programs. “We’re really suggesting that this is the session where we bite the bullet and finish it off,” Haldeman said.

Establish a rainy day fund

State funding for education is a fickle beast. Current law is such that education money is first funneled through the state before it is distributed to each district. But the law also requires that surplus money in a district be poured back into the general fund and used to fund shortfalls elsewhere in the state.

Because all the funds are jumbled together, it is impossible to tell whether money specifically earmarked for education is being used for other purposes.

According to the NASS, around $765 million in taxpayer funding for education has been put back into the general fund and away from schools since 1979.

Haldeman said that if that money had simply been put into an emergency fund, school districts around the state would have been able to avoid the budget cuts in the wake of the recession. Once in the emergency fund, the money would be held until needed.

If the rainy day fund were to grow larger than 10 percent of the yearly cost to run the schools, the overflow would just be given back to districts.

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