School’s cuts may never heal

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | 2 a.m.

As Clark County schools brace for still more budget cuts, history shows they will be anything but temporary. Over the past quarter-century, the School District has found that big cuts during economic bad times are unlikely to be reversed in the good times.

In 1983, for example, the cash-strapped Clark County School District eliminated athletics at the middle schools to save about $200,000 annually. And for the 2001-02 academic year, the district sharply increased class sizes in nearly all grades to offset a $93 million budget shortfall.

It wasn’t until 1994, 11 years after the sports programs were eliminated, that the district’s middle schools again had basketball teams. And today, 25 years after the cutback, the other sports — including tennis, soccer, baseball, swimming and track — remain absent.

At the same time, school staffing levels continue to be based on the larger class-size formula put in place seven years ago. The district has yet to find the means to reduce class sizes by even one student per grade.

Many who know the history of the School District have learned the painful lesson that, no matter what is said at the time of a cut, once significant slashing occurs, it can be nearly impossible to restore the affected program to its original strength.

Ray Mathis, now the district’s athletics director, was a high school coach in ’83 and vividly remembers the sports program cancellation.

“Everybody thought it would be temporary,” he said. “We figured that within a year or so we would get those sports back.”

“If you tell somebody, ‘This is what we have to do for right now, it’s not permanent,’ they take it a lot easier than if you say, ‘This is gone for good,’ ” Mathis said. “I don’t think anyone thought back then it would be this long.”

Mathis said he would be the first to emphasize that the district’s middle school sports program — which includes cheerleading and dance teams, as well as boys’ and girls’ basketball — is insufficient. Middle school sports are “a real key to keeping kids involved, off the streets and out of trouble,” Mathis said.

Everyone from law enforcement officials to national advocacy groups such as the Afterschool Alliance agrees. Typically, the most dangerous times for school-age children are the unsupervised hours after the dismissal bell rings. Without local organizations such as the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Clubs helping to fill in the gaps, “we would be in a lot of trouble,” Mathis said.

Long term takes back seat

Although there’s little doubt that adding more middle school sports and reducing class sizes would yield long-term benefits for Clark County, they continue to be pushed to the back burner. Never mind addition — the district is too busy dealing with more subtraction.

The district had been told to expect a 4.5 percent cut to its state funding over the biennium, amounting to about $63 million. On Monday, state officials announced the estimated budget shortfall was nearly $900 million, up from $565 million in January. So far, the district has lost $43 million that would have funded new and expanded programs, including more full-day kindergarten classes and improvement grants for individual schools. The district has also put off implementation of a new software program to save $4 million, delayed replacing older school buses for $9 million in savings, and frozen central office administrative hiring, which prevents a $1.6 million expenditure.

It remains uncertain when or whether any of the planned expenditures will be given green lights. In the past, parents and cities helped allay budget cuts, but that’s unlikely to happen this time, in light of the fact that households and municipalities alike are being hit by the economic slowdown.

Former helpers tapped out

In 2002 the School Board said it would end middle school basketball to help cover a small slice of a $12.6 million budget shortfall. Parents rallied, raising $70,000. The Las Vegas City Council pledged $150,000, and another $50,000 came from the city of Henderson, ultimately saving the program.

This time around, Las Vegas is busy cutting hours at its own recreation centers.

“Everybody needs to be prepared to do their part,” Mathis said. “There are going to be cuts. These are tough times.”

School officials are worried that classes may grow even more. When times are tough, increasing class sizes can be a fast fiscal fix. Adding just one student to a grade level’s average count would save the district about $12 million.

To address the 2001 budget shortfall, the district revised its school staffing formula, increasing the number of students expected to be assigned to each teacher. Kindergarten classes grew to 54 students (divided between two half-day sessions), up from about 43 in the prior academic year. And for grades 4-12, class sizes jumped to 30 to 32 students, up from 25 just a year earlier.

Although kindergarten has since been reduced slightly to 52 students per teacher, the larger class sizes remain in the higher grades. It’s not unusual to find 30, 35, even 40 Clark County students per teacher in core subjects such as English, math and science.

To Clark County Commissioner Susan Brager, the district’s class size statistics are a sad legacy from her three terms as a School Board member.

Each time the district was forced to increase class sizes, “we had no other choice,” said Brager, who left the School Board for the County Commission in 2006. “But we also knew we would probably never get back those lower class-size numbers.”

Not enough seats in class

Studies on class sizes are mixed, with the quality of instruction and curriculum often considered as important as the number of students assigned to each teacher. However, educators generally agree that when classes have more than 24 students, learning becomes difficult.

When Brager heard last week that the district’s high school students had performed dismally on a new test to measure their mastery of the semester’s math curriculum, she said she immediately thought about her most recent campus visit, when she saw classrooms so crowded that some students were forced to sit on the floor.

“We would see success in students if teachers had the opportunity to identify with each child and know what their strengths and weaknesses are,” Brager said. “You can’t do it in a math class where there aren’t enough seats.”

With more budget cuts looming, those classrooms aren’t likely to become less crowded anytime soon.