Pay, treat teachers better to attract them

Virgil A. Sestini, Las Vegas

Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

The Clark County School District will soon face a critical shortage of teachers, even greater than in the past, for several reasons. Harassment of teachers in schools continues at an unabated rate; mindless paperwork demands from administrators continue to filter down and burden teachers; discipline problems are on the rise with little support from building administrators; and the district continues to lull itself into believing that it does not have to increase teacher salaries to attract needed licensed teachers. Finally, teachers retiring after September 2008 will receive no state health insurance.

The latter reason will be the most serious when it comes to attracting qualified licensed teachers to this district. (I’m a retired Clark County School District teacher.) The district continues to cry poor-mouth, claiming it cannot raise the salaries of teachers, but at the same time is not hesitant about creating new upper-echelon administrative positions with hefty salaries and administrative benefits and perks. Something is amiss with the thinking of the Board of Trustees and Superintendent Walt Rulffes.

The district is asking taxpayers to foot a $9.5 billion school bond when it does not offer competitive professional salaries sufficient to attract fully qualified, licensed teachers to the district. The district needs to demonstrate to the public that it is dramatically cutting administrative costs. A cut of 30 percent to 40 percent in administrative staffing at all levels would be an honest beginning.

To ask taxpayers to support this bond issue in the climate of a questionable economy and a declining tax base places all homeowners in jeopardy of property tax increases and potential loss of their homes.