By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
The students of several classes in local elementary schools had to relive the first-day-of-school jitters all over again this week. The kids were required to switch over to entirely new teachers on Monday four weeks after classes started.
The reason for this was that actual student counts, taken at the schools right after school started, had varied from what was originally projected last spring. Grant Bowler Elementary in Logandale was hit the hardest in the quandary, losing three of its full time teaching positions. Ute Perkins Elementary in Moapa had a dilemma all its own having gained enough enrolled students to add another teacher to its staff.
“The funny thing is that we had the most peaceful wonderful opening to the school year I’ve ever had,” said Bowler Principal Shawna Jessen. “It was incredible. We had just the right teachers in just the right places. And then, we got our count.”
Jessen explained that the district projects staffing for the schools based on a count done at the end of the previous school year in the spring. For Bowler, that was estimated at around 600 students, Jessen said.
But also at that time, the district had been locked up in a long arbitration battle with the teachers union over annual teacher raises. District officials had said that if teachers didn’t give up their annual raise the district would have to lay off teachers and increase class sizes. In the end, the arbitration came down on the side of the teachers union.
“As a result of that, the district was telling us that, instead of staffing us at the 100% that we would normally get, they would give us 93% instead,” Jessen said. “That decision was made hurriedly in the spring.”
Jessen said that with her original spring projection of students it would have funded the teachers that were in place when school started. But shortly after the beginning of school, the final count was done and the school came in at 554, nearly 50 students short of the springtime projection.
This meant that the school would be funded significantly less than expected, Jessen said. In fact the school was in a position where it had to shed two teachers, a special education teacher and a part time aide.
Interestingly, the choice of specifically which teachers would go and which would stay is not entirely left up to the principal of the school. Rather it is fully delineated by the terms of the district’s complex labor agreement with the teachers union. The agreement dictates that, when teachers have to be laid off from a school, the least senior people must be the first to go. This process is known in the district as ‘surplusing’ teachers.
In the case of Bowler, the surplused teachers ended up being third grade teacher Julie Totten, who had just been hired at the school, and kindergarten teacher Brooke Williams who had only recently returned to the school after being surplused before. The school also lost Summer Whitney who was a long term substitute teaching special education.
Losing these teachers was bad enough on its own, Jessen explained. But what made matters worse was that it set off a chain reaction of changes at the school. Jessen said she needed another kindergarten teacher to replace Williams. That caused the need to go to former kindergarten teacher Carla Cameron to take the class. But Cameron was now just settling in to teach a class of first graders. So that first grade class had to be dissolved and spread out among the other existing first grade classes at the school. This increased class sizes in first grade to around 23 students each, Jessen said.
In addition, Totten’s third grade class also had to be dissolved and spread into the remaining classes. This increased third grade class sizes to just under 30 kids, Jessen said.
“The class size issue is a pretty big deal, especially with third grade,” Jessen said. “But I guess it is not the 35-37 that has been at other schools in the district. So while this is not great and my heart is breaking because our Bowler family has been interrupted, it is still pretty typical of what is happening to the district right now with the financial situation.”
Of course, the ones that have felt these changes most acutely are the children. Overton resident Dawn Waite, who is mother to one of the kindergarten kids affected, said that it was all very sad.
“My son was nervous already, like they all are at that age, to take the big step into school,” Waite said in an interview. “And then, now that he finally gets comfortable with the environment, it is all thrown up in the air again.”
Waite said that she knows Cameron very well and an knows her to be an excellent teacher. She said she is confident that the final result will be good for her son. But she said the whole thing was quite frustrating and disruptive.
Overton resident Nicole Frei, mom of one of the third graders losing a teacher, said that the past week has felt like the kids and parents have been on a roller coaster.
“We actually fought to be in that class and we were so happy to be there,” Frei said. “So we are disappointed. But it is especially hard for the kids. That teacher is like their second mom for part of the year and its hard to suddenly make that change.”
Frei said that the district should have projected and controlled things better.
“In a situation like this, they should do the count based on last year’s number and stick with it,” she said. “Education should be driven for the kids. Not by some labor struggle with the teachers.”
Local school administrators are still working through the reasons why the shift in student population at the schools. Jessen said that the loss of nearly 50 students at Bowler has probably come for a variety of reasons. These could include families being forced to leave the community because of the ongoing recession. She said it could also include people looking for other educational options like home schooling and online education programs.
But one significant and measurable factor was a seeming trend of lower valley parents pulling students out of Bowler and enrolling them instead at Perkins. Perkins principal Ken Paul reported that nearly two dozen students who are zoned to go to Bowler have moved to Perkins.
Normally that higher enrollment might be viewed as a positive for the school. It means more funding. But it also can bring some problems. Having the equivalent of a whole class suddenly added to the rolls of a small school like Perkins can be too much of a good thing, Paul said. In essence, it meant that Paul had to somehow assimilate another teacher into the schedule, and to do it four weeks after the classes had started.
Of course, this was, by necessity an unavoidable disruption, Paul said. And the tough decision that the principal had to make was where to cause that disruption.
“Typically you want to keep the first and second grades smaller in class size, so we are going to have an additional first grade class,” Paul said. “But I had to do a little bit of changing around to get there.”
He chose to move kindergarten teacher Lillian Parashonts up to teach 2nd grade. That would replace 2nd grade teacher Susie Pulsipher who would move down to teach the new first grade class.
Pulsipher and existing 1st grade teacher Susie Jones will be working together in teaching the two classes of first graders, Paul said. Pulsipher will teach math, science and social studies. Jones will be teaching them language arts.
Of course, that still left kindergarten open. Paul decided to move special education kindergarten teacher Cheryl Sobrio into the general education kindergarten spot. This left the vacancy in the special education kindergarten class. Paul was then able to hire Bowler kindergarten teacher Brooke Williams to fill that vacancy.
Paul admitted that the parents whose kids were affected were quite unhappy about the changes. He held a meeting with these parents last week to announce the changes to them.
“There were about 25 adults in there and it was not fun!” Paul said of the meeting. “They wanted to know the reasoning behind the decisions. But a lot of that was just professional discretion and judgments that had to be made. I wasn’t willing to discuss all of the details with how I came to that decision. So I’m afraid they didn’t like that answer very much.”
The big question being asked by parents from both schools is: Why is there this sudden trend of lower valley students wanting to enroll at Perkins? The two principals agreed that it was a variety of reasons. Paul said that in some cases the students have parents who already work at Perkins which makes it more convenient for them to attend school there.
Many of the other cases comes from a perception that one school is somehow better than the other, the principals said.
Paul said that the fact that Perkins is a smaller school might have a bearing on the decisions. Of course, the migration of students to Bowler have changed that reality to some extent, he said.
“Most of the classes now, except for first grade, are at about thirty kids,” Paul said. “That kind of takes away from the whole small school concept.”
Another reason may be school performance. Perkins was rated as a three star school last year in the CCSD’s new growth model. The highest ranking is five stars. Bowler received only a two star ranking. In addition Bowler hasn’t made its Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) designation for the past four years. AYP is a school performance measurement imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind legislation.
But Paul says that much of these designations are fueled merely by perception as well. He points out that there are statistical problems in the rating systems that has worked against Bowler. In the AYP criterion, test scores have to show improvement not only as an overall school, but also in a number of smaller subcategories in the school including different races, ethnic groups and special education subgroups.
“We are not held accountable for our subgroups because we are too small,” Paul explained. “The subgroup has to have 25 kids in it to count. So it is not even a fair judgment there. Sometimes it has happened where a school was just under. A school has to be under in only one subcategory and they suddenly don’t make AYP.”
On another subject, Paul said that the variety of extracurricular music and dance programs offered at Perkins might be an additional draw for the school. The school has a ballroom dance group, a hip-hop dance group and a flag drill team. In addition, the school puts on a very involved holiday program each year that appeals to many parents, Paul said.
“I think all of that has helped to change the perception of Moapa,” Paul said. “I remember a time where it was almost like Moapa was seen as, you know, they are the rough kids. But over time, it seems like things are looking up that way now.”
Jessen said that she was uncertain whether these extracurricular activities were the decision makers for lower valley parents to go to Perkins. But she did admit that Bowler had to do more to increase the perception of a focus on quality at the school.
“I tell my staff that we have to look at ourselves and make sure that we have a school that parents want to bring their children to,” Jessen said. “We have to offer choices or have the policies; or whatever it is that makes us appealing.”
“On the other hand when it is published that a school is a two star school it does plant some doubts in people,” Jessen added. “But we have seen some preliminary reports on that rating for this year and we have made some improvements over the past year.”
In any case, both principals admitted that the free movement of kids from the lower valley to attend Perkins had become a problem that has to be addressed. School principals are given discretion in allowing these types of transfers which are called zone variances in the district. Both principals said that they had been entirely too loose on the criteria for the variances.
“I think that we’ve both learned from this and we will work to have some criteria in place for zone variances so that we stay within the means,” Jessen said. “It used to be that I would say yes to all of them and he (Paul) would say no only when he filled up. But after this we are going to be less accomodating and we are going to take it on a case by case basis.”
“Until this year, even a few weeks ago, if somebody wanted to go to the other school we would sign the papers and agree to it and it was a done deal,” Paul said. “But now I think we both will have to be a little more careful about it.”
In the meantime, though, the principals admit being stuck with this strange situation that they are in for this school year.
“It is so ironic,” Jessen said. “They (Perkins parents) are unhappy that they are gaining a teacher and we are unhappy that we are losing teachers. It seems like there should be somebody in the middle that can just say ‘Everybody just stay where you are and we will be good for this year and we’ll sort it all out in the spring’. But maybe that would just be too simple.”
