By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… Teachers, parents, and union representatives are marching on the legislature of the State of Neva-da demanding that it provide more money to the Clark County School District. If one looks at the most recent projected District budget for the 2020, school year the following is revealed. There will be 317,795.35 students in the Clark County School District. I am not sure what a .35 student looks like but that is what the budget says. This document indicates that the base support per pupil from the State coffers is $5,863. However, this is the amount before subtracting local tax support for the schools from the State’s financial responsibility. The local tax support for CCSD is $1,681,065,000. When the local tax support is subtracted from the State’s obligation of $2,001,783, the total State funding of CCSD schools is $717,112,000. The State per pupil fund-ing therefore is actually only $2,256.52. This is the Nevada Plan, devised in 1967, for supporting local school districts in the State.
When the Nevada Plan is applied to Washoe County School District, the second largest school district in the state (63,555.4 students), the State support per student is $2,261, just five dollars more per student than CCSD. However, if you look at the Nye County School District (5,226.47 students) you will find that the adjusted State per pupil funding is $5,283.75 per student. This is $3,027.75 more per student than CCSD.
This is about the best explanation that I can give you of the mystical formula for funding the schools of Nevada. If you understand the Nevada Plan, you rank along with the troll that lives under a bridge in Carson City who devised this plan.
When explaining the funding for schools in the State of Nevada, using the slang of the day, the best one can say is “It is what it is.” So, from that premise, let’s take a closer look at the funding for CCSD. The total General and Special Education budget for CCSD is $2,875,773,065. This is a total of $9,049.14 per pupil. However, this is only one half of the Clark County School District budget. This does not include the funding sources listed as Other Funds that total an additional $2,353,684,933. When this is added to the General and Special Education and the Debt Service the total funds available for the Clark County School District for 2020 is $5,398,650,762. This is a per pupil funding of $16,987.82. Less than $5,000 of that money actually reaches the local school budgets.
This does not mean that the other $12,000 is wasted, but one must wonder about 75% of a budget that is not directly connected to the producers of the product.
Now while I believe more money will do no harm, I truly believe the major problems of the Clark County School District will not be solve by more money. One of the major problems I see is that only about 40% of the CCSD employees are teachers in the classroom. I believe everyone will agree the purpose of the CCSD is to educate youngsters. While support staff are vital, one should remember that all non-teaching staff should have as their mission the support of the classroom teacher. That would include all office staff, custodial staff, bus drivers, and groundskeepers. I truly believe that the support staff at most schools understand this and work hard to support the efforts of the teachers.
I do, however, also believe that many building school administrators and nearly all Central Office personnel do not understand their role as service agents for the classroom teacher. The dean, vice-principal, principal, all area superintendents, as well as the superintendent need to understand their role as service agents for the classroom teacher. Most of these administrators seem to under-stand the command and control aspect of administration. However, they have for the most part forgotten the service end of the role.
Superintendent Jara, in his first year as the leader of the CCSD, has shown great promise in a number of moves he has already made toward creating a better working atmosphere in CCSD. I believe the changes in Central Office personnel have moved the District to a more school orien-tated service based Central Office. I also believe the fact that he has settled the contract issue with all of the administrators, teachers, and support staff for the first time in more than a decade has help with the working atmosphere of the District.
Under the direction of Dr. Jara, a local transportation supervisor, selected by the local Moapa Valley and Mesquite administrators, has been assigned to our schools. We should no longer have to adjust to bus schedules set by the Central Office transportation gurus who have no idea what the conditions and demands of the local community are.
We may even get to a point of where we don’t have to take a snow day when there is no snow in Moapa Valley or Mesquite. Maybe now if a bus breaks down on the way to Vegas, we won’t have to wait hours to get a second bus and to reload students because a supervisor from Las Vegas cannot be located authorizing the trans-action.
We can hope that in the future the local school administrator will be given some control over the use of utilities on campus. The local principal may in the future adjust parking lot lights to match up with the change in times rather than having a dark parking lot for weeks waiting for the GES (Great Electrician in the Sky) from the Central Office to adjust the timer on those lights. If the clocks need to be reset, maybe the local administration could do this without having to wait weeks for the GES to take care of the problem. The coach may have the ability to turn off the field lights when he is through with practice. In the case of a community disaster, there can be lights in the building without tracking down the GES, as the schools function as the community emergency center.
I believe Dr. Jara understands that principals are not asking for control over Central Office de-partments, they are merely asking that these Central Office departments begin to function as support agencies for the purpose of meeting the needs of teachers and students. With 75% of CCSD funds being expended outside the schools, one would assume the schools should have some say in how some of those funds are expended.
Thought of the week… Sometimes command means letting those under you do their jobs
― Kirsten Beyer
