Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Protesters urge budget's OK

Parent prints postcards at own expense that warn lawmakers to act quickly

Lamping Elementary School students ringed the stage of the school's multipurpose room at a Monday rally to lobby for quick passage of a state education budget. Photo by Craig L. Moran. Lamping Elementary School Principal Michael O'Dowd speaks to a crowd of about 200 parents, teachers and students who rallied Monday to protest inaction on the state budget. Photo by Craig L. Moran.

Outside Lamping Elementary School's multipurpose room, April Mastroluca passed out dozens of yellow postcards headed to lawmakers in Carson City.

She handed them out singly and in stacks to Southeast Region parents and teachers who rallied Monday for the quick passage of the state's overdue education budget. The message printed on the card wasted no words:

"The cost to my legislator who can't make a decision: MY VOTE!"

Mastroluca, a mother of two children who attend Kesterson Elementary School, paid $130 to have the cards printed. Voice messages can be lost and e-mails deleted, she said, and the postcards might have more of an effect on the lawmakers.

They meet in a second special session Wednesday to try to reach agreement on a tax increase package that would fund public schools.

"As a parent, I just felt helpless," Mastroluca said about why she invested her own money in the card campaign. "The people I elected to conduct the business of the state aren't doing their job."

The rally at the Henderson school drew about 200 people and was the second such event held in less than a week. A third rally is planned for tonight, the eve of the special session, at the Clark County middle school named for Gov. Kenny Guinn. Protesters plan to meet at 7 p.m. at Guinn Middle School, 4150 S. Torrey Pines Drive, at Flamingo Road.

"We're all here to show one message," Lamping Principal Michael O'Dowd told the crowd at the event, sponsored by the Lamping Parent Teacher Association. "Our children deserve better."

The rallies were sparked by the district's response to the prospect of no new state funding come July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Because Clark County schools have put hiring on hold until the state can guarantee funding for salaries, the district reassigned 411 specialists in gifted education, literacy and technology to fill part of the current teacher vacancies.

That action came after lawmakers on June 12 left Carson City without resolving the tax issue, which is tied to the schools budget in the Assembly. The district has about 745 teacher openings, with an additional 200 vacancies expected to open before the school year starts.

"If there is a message I'd be shouting out if I were you, it would be: 'Pass the school funding budget,' " said Assemblyman David Brown, R-Henderson, one of the GOP holdouts on passage of the largest tax increase in state history. "That will create an interesting situation."

Brown, one of nine Assembly Republicans targeted in a media campaign started Friday by the Nevada State Education Association, said the holdouts are not anti-education. Passing the education budget apart from the tax increase proposal would give lawmakers a chance to debate the real issue, increased spending in other areas of state government, he said.

"There is no dispute over funding education," said Brown, who has a child that attends Lamping. "Let's pass the budget and lock the door. Then we'll have to get it done."

Most of those who attended the rally were parents of children in the district's Gifted and Talented Education program. Lamping has a majority of students scoring in the top quarter of basic skills tests.

That is a reflection that parents care, O'Dowd said. Lamping stands to lose three teachers, including a literacy specialist who is a part of the school's expanded science program.

"If we lose our literacy specialist, we lose our science program," O'Dowd said. "Well, we're not going to let that happen, so we'll use an existing teacher position to cover it. But that means that our class sizes will get bigger, and that's not fair to anyone."