By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Principals of the four local schools hosted a town hall meeting on Thursday, March 10, to discuss budget cuts that may be looming for the Clark County School District (CCSD) and how those cuts might affect local students. The meeting, held in the Moapa Valley High School (MVHS) library, was part of a series of town hall style meetings being held at schools throughout the CCSD to gather feedback from parents on where school budgets may best be applied. Turnout at the local meeting was sparse with about two dozen parents in attendance.

The meeting began with a video presentation which introduced the scope of the budget problem. CCSD Chief Financial Officer Jeff Weiler stated that the district expects $250-275 million in cuts for the upcoming fiscal year. He pointed out that these would come on top of deep CCSD cuts that have already taken place since 2007.

After the video, MVHS principal Grant Hanevold opened the meeting for parents in attendance to make comments and suggestions about possible cuts.

He also informed attendees of a survey available online at www.ccsd.net where parents can record preferences of where they feel budget cuts should be applied.

Some parents in attendance had already taken the survey and were unhappy with its format. The main complaint was that the survey included only a narrow range of CCSD expenditures as options for parents to cut. In addition, all of these options were directly related to students in the classroom and none of them dealt with cuts to CCSD administration, parents said.

“This survey is ridiculous and it manipulates us into cutting just from a limited menu of what the district wants us to cut,” said Logandale resident Sean McMurray. “As far as I’m concerned, before you start looking at cuts to any in-class funding you have to justify everything that you are spending outside of the classroom.”

A common theme among parents was the desire to bring decision-making about budget cuts and spending closer to the local level.

Logandale resident Denise Robertson brought up the problems of having adequate rural representation in an urban district. She asked why rural areas like Moapa Valley could not form their own separate districts so that budgetary decisions would be more focused on meeting unique local needs.

Local parent, Cindy McMurray suggested that each school should be given the ability to decide where its own cuts should be applied. “I agree that the bulk of the cuts should still be made away from the classroom first,” she said. “But then whatever remaining cuts are necessary, allow the local administrators the ability to decide what should be cut that is best for that particular school.”

Overton resident Carrie Beckstrand, who serves as Chairwoman of Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board pointed to the CCSD transportation system as an area where budget cuts could be made. She suggested that district students who ride the bus, especially to Magnet Schools in Las Vegas, be required to pay a portion of their transportation costs.

Beckstrand also suggested that, if local school administrators were allowed to control the transportation budget for Moapa Valley students, that significant funds could be saved.

Another parent suggestion was to reduce the school week to four days instead of five.

Mack Lyon Middle School principal recognized the cuts that had been brought up by parents and then suggested that the group broaden its focus further out to the State level.

“Where are we going as a State?” Adams asked. “Are we going to stick with the tourism-based economy that has gotten us to where we are? Or are we going to try something else? The district has made deep cuts already that haven’t affected kids too much. But we are running out of things to cut. I think that we need to look closely now at the state budget and where that funding is going. Its time that education become a priority and we should take a look at state spending and justify all of that spending against education.”

Adams suggested that parents contact their state legislators to set high expectations for funding education.

“We need grass roots participation in this process,” agreed Eric Ogren, Education Computer Specialist at Bowler Elementary, who was in attendance at the meeting. “These kinds of cuts will affect our community in a big way. We need to go out and put our two cents worth into the survey to affect the CCSD front; and then we also need to send emails to legislators as well to work on the State level.”

Ogren said that he would include a link at the local schools’ websites that would include email addresses of all state legislators so that parents could send emails to advocate for education funding. Those links may be found at www.moapavalleyschools.org.

Contact Info for State Legislators & CCSD Trustee

Senator Joe Hardy jhardy@sen.state.nv.us

Assemblyman Cresent Hardy chardy@asm.state.nv.us

CCSD Trustee Chris Garvey go to http://ccsd.net/trustees/trusteeList.php.