For complicated jobs, take the extra time to do it right

Monday, Jan. 16, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Let’s say an electrician is renovating your home. New wiring, new outlets, new light fixtures, new landscape lighting, new security system, the whole bit.

Done right, it’s a big improvement. Done wrong, and here comes the fire department.

Would you be comfortable letting the electrician set an aggressive deadline and plow away at the work? Or would you want to proceed methodically and make sure any potential problems were being ironed out?

That’s something like the decision the Clark County School District board has faced in helping carry out a legislative mandate to reorganize. The process hasn’t gone smoothly — far from it — largely because the board has yanked the reins on several occasions by raising concerns over how it was going. Last month, saying its concerns hadn’t been addressed, the board filed suit against the State Board of Education and the Nevada Department of Education to halt the reorganization altogether.

Some of the board’s actions have been questionable, but it has raised a valid concern on one issue: the timeline for the reorganization, which originally was scheduled for the start of the 2018-19 school year but was moved up to August 2017 by an advisory committee given authority by the Legislature to oversee the process.

In breaking up the district, it’s foolish to prioritize speed over caution.

Reorganizing any district is a complicated process, but the size and complexity of CCSD adds several degrees of difficulty. CCSD is the fifth-largest school district in the U.S., with more than 350 schools and 350,000 students, including a large percentage of English-language learners.

Systems and procedures that have been in place for decades must be revised while not causing chaos in schools and letting student achievement slip even further. That’s not easy, especially when the reorganization is as extensive as this one. The mandate calls for the district to revamp the central administration and give more power to principals, who’ll work with advisory councils consisting of parents, teachers and staff members at each school.

Naturally, the plan has led to a dizzying number of questions and no small amount of uncertainty. Points of concern range from broad issues, like which district functions should continue to be conducted at the central administration level vs. the building level, to details such as whether a regulation requiring some of the advisory board members to belong to unions disenfranchises non-union staff.

It’s a lot to sort out, and if it takes until the 2018-19 school year to do it, so be it.

Let’s not forget that even if implementation goes smoothly, the plan on its own offers no guarantee that it will improve student achievement. Success in that respect involves a number of factors, including establishing a weighted funding formula that will give schools with high percentages of English-language learners and economically disadvantaged students a higher share of tax revenue than those in higher-income areas.

Another key factor that isn’t addressed under the law, but is crucial to student achievement, is boosting incentives that would allow high-poverty schools to recruit and retain teachers. As it stands today, those schools simply can’t compete with others in affluent areas for staff, because why would teachers want to work in difficult environments, most likely far from their homes, when they can get roughly the same compensation and benefits at a higher-achieving school?

Reorganization could be a step in the right direction if implemented properly, by providing principals with more control over recruiting and hiring, selection of educational materials and more.

But reorganization isn’t going to be a magic bullet. If it were, then maybe it would be more tempting to get it in place quickly. As is, waiting a year and proceeding methodically isn’t going to hurt.