By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
Education advocates in the communities of northeastern Clark County are pushing back against the Clark County School District (CCSD) over the interpretation of some fine print in the state law specifically governing the funding of rural schools lying in large districts.
In a meeting of the Mesquite City Council held Tuesday, Auguts 22, city leaders asked pointed questions about the expected loss of teaching positions at Virgin Valley Elementary School. In a separate meeting held the following morning in Overton, the Mack Lyon Middle School (MLMS) School Organizational Team met to discuss a similar problem at their school.
In the two meetings, both entities decided independently that they would be appealling these staff reductions to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Steve Canavero. The law gives Canavero authority to see that it is implemented correctly by the districts.
At issue for rural residents is a brief section of Assembly Bill 469, passed in the 2015 State Legislature to mandate a major reorganization of CCSD. Among other things. Among other things, the law mandated a major restructuring of school funding, changing to a per pupil calculation. This would enable more of the funding to be fairly distributed directly to the school level, there to be administered by local principals and their School Organizational Teams (SOT).
But in the process of drafting the law, legislators encountered a problem with rural schools. Because of their much smaller student populations, rural schools would end up severely underfunded if only a strict per pupil calculation was used.
Historically, CCSD had dealt with that problem by allocating additional teaching positions to rural schools. These additional positions allowed schools to offer a rounded education program.
This additional rural allotment was picked up by legislators as a way to keep the rural schools whole in the reorganization process. They wrote the law specifically stating that the new funding formulas could not negatively affect the proportion of funding that had historically been added to the outlying small schools as their rural allotment.
Despite this, advocates in Moapa and Virgin Valley say there have been deep cuts made to the rural allocation.
Mack Lyon, which has seen a modest increase in its student population, has actually seen a cut to its rural allotment. That allotment has gone from nine additional teaching positions it had previously to only six. This has caused a loss of the school’s popular Art program. In addition, important credit retrieval programs aimed at helping students who are struggling to advance grade levels have been cut or scrapped.
Virgin Valley Elementary has lost a Kindergarten teacher, thus pushing higher class sizes for Kindergarten. In addition, two other teaching positions have been lost which the Principal and SOT has had to buy back with the site-based strategic budget funds.
Local advocates say that these cuts are at odds with state law.
But there is some disagreement on this point within CCSD. In a public statement made on Aug. 7 to the Legislative Advisory Committee overseeing implementaton of AB469, CCSD Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky characterized these additional positions, not as a rural allotment, but as an “administrative gift.”
In their meeting last week, MLMS SOT members objected strongly to this characterization. “It was clear in his testimony that (Skorkowsky) was totally playing politics on this,” said Lindsey Dalley who serves as a community representative on the Lyon SOT. “Basically he told the legislators, ‘If I give those schools the money, I have to take it away from your schools.’ But that is smoke and mirrors. The fact of the matter is that the total amount of dollars in the rural allotment that we are asking to be restored is not even enough to be within the rounding area of the overall CCSD budget.”
“It doesn’t matter what he calls it, they have always been part of the rural allotment and, according to state law, you can’t cut it,” Dalley added.
In the Mesquite City Council meeting, councilman David Ballweg drilled down on the same subject. After a presentation made by CCSD Associate Superintendent Jeff Hybarger, Ballweg asked, “Is it true then, that no matter what the school population, the (rural allotment) funding is the same as last year?”
“With respect, I know that your city attorney holds that position,” Hybarger responded. “But we still have more to ascertain on that. We are still looking closely at the law to determine what it means.”
But Mesquite City Attorney Bob Sweetin insisted that there was no further interpretation needed.
“The law is beyond clear,” Sweetin said. “The district has said that it is open to interpretation, but they have not pointed to anything where it might be, or given any competing interpretation.”
Sweetin said that the city, along with local advocates, had been working on the problem for eight months now, communicating with CCSD staff, Superintendent Skorkowsky and state legislators to learn the intent of the law.
“We made sure that it (the law) was drafted in those words so that it would be applied,” Sweetin said. “But we have simply been ignored.”
Ballweg asked Sweetin where the city could go to address the apparent discrepancy between the law and the CCSD implementation. Sweetin explained that the State Superintendent of Instruction has authority to see that AB469 is implemented correctly.
“I have a meeting scheduled with the State Superintendent on this,” Sweetin said. “If he were to direct the CCSD Superintendent that you have to fund the rural schools pursuant to the very clear language in (the law), and the district were not to do it, at that point we would enter legal action along with the state.”
The Mack Lyon Middle School SOT independently came to the same conclusion in its meeting the following morning.
“I think it is entirely appropriate that the SOT pleads its case to the State Superintendent and lay our case out there,” Dalley said.
SOT members agreed that a delegation should be sent to do this. Dalley said that he would like to see MLMS principal Ken Paul be a members of that delegation. But he emphasized that the SOT should make a formal request to Hybarger, Paul’s supervisor, to allow the principal to be included.
“It is paramount that we preserve and protect the school Principal in his job,” Dalley said. “We don’t want to get him in trouble with his upline.”
In addition, the SOT members chose MLMS teacher Cindy Nelson, parents Aimee Houghtalen and Terry Holzer, and Dalley to serve on the delegation.
“We are hoping to get relief by going above Superintendent Skorkowsky to the State Superintendent,” said Holzer, who serves as chair of the SOT. “But ultimately, the court is there to interpret the law. And if we receive no relief, that may be where we have to go to get it.”
