Next: Who doles out schools money

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

As if there isn't enough debate about how much money to give Nevada's schools, legislators are now unsure who should be in charge of distributing grants for school improvements.

Then-Gov. Kenny Guinn in 2005 established the Commission on Educational Excellence to do just that, and it distributed $78 million.

But that was then, and this is now. Lawmakers have to decide whether to keep the commission, how much money it should hand out and who should get priority.

Two Senate bills address the issue in opposing ways.

Senate Bill 540 would make the commission an advisory council and remove its authority to distribute the grants.

Senate Bill 305 would keep the existing commission to oversee the grants program, creating separate pots of education dollars - amounts to be determined - for improvement grants, teacher incentives and full-day kindergarten programs in at-risk schools.

On Tuesday the commission learned school districts will be returning $17 million in unspent grant money.

Of that, $15 million is coming from Clark County, where Superintendent Walt Rulffes chose not to pull out classroom teachers to oversee grant programs because the district was short more than 400 teachers. That meant some campuses could not spend the money.

Schools that could not spend their allocations will be allowed to apply for another grant next year - if the Legislature renews the program. But "they could write the same application that won the funds last time and not be funded this time," warned Diane Efthimou, director of grant development and administration for the Clark County School District.

Also, there is no guarantee that schools will receive money to keep the special programs going into the next biennium.

There should be some way the district could keep the $15 million and put it toward other educational programs, School Board member Sheila Moulton said.

Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of public instruction and the Education Department's liaison to the commission, said schools that could not spend their grant money won't be penalized in the next round of funding.

Senate Bill 238, a compromise on school empowerment between Gov. Jim Gibbons and Democrats, could also affect how the grant funds are handed out.

The bill would require Nevada's two most populated counties, Clark and Washoe, to convert 5 percent of schools to the empowerment model by 2011. Under empowerment, principals and the school community have more control over staffing, budget matters and instruction. Charter schools and rural districts would also be allowed to apply for empowerment status.

As part of the compromise, Gibbons removed a request for $60 million to fund the program for as many as 100 schools.

School empowerment is possible without extra money, said Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, who was the chief sponsor of SB238. Under the bill, principals would have control over 90 percent of their school budgets.

But some School District educators disagree with Horsford. They say it's the extra $600 per student that the four Clark County empowerment schools received - and not the greater autonomy - that is primarily responsible for early improvements in student achievement.

The Commission on Educational Excellence said Tuesday that empowerment schools should be eligible for grant money. But whether those schools would rate higher on the priority list than other campuses has not been decided by lawmakers.

The commission agreed to several changes in the application process, including giving preference to schools facing the most significant challenges. In the past, campuses that failed to meet state and federal standards for yearly progress were treated similarly. On future applications, schools that miss the benchmarks by a slim margin will have lower priority than campuses with poorer overall performance. Schools also will be required to demonstrate that prior grant awards yielded gains.

"There needs to be evidence that what you were funded for in the last go-round was a success or made a difference," Rheault said.

Simplifying the application process is another of the commission's priorities. An online program will be tested to allow schools to skip much of the paperwork, Rheault said.

That would be good news to Barbara Floto, a principal responsible for three schools in Nye County. She and her staff work late into the evening on grant applications, with teachers volunteering time.

"I understand why the process is set up the way it is, but there should be a way for us to be held accountable and also to simplify things," Floto said.