Hyde Park Middle School teachers attend a staff meeting in the school's library on Tuesday in preparation for the first day of class today. Photos by Craig L. Moran. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson. Hyde Park Middle School teacher Cindy Berg speaks with other teachers Tuesday during preparation for the first day of class at the school today.

The Clark County School District will begin its academic year today with 344 teaching vacancies, the school system's largest shortfall in recent years.

As of Tuesday, the district needed 180 special education teachers, 80 elementary teachers and 84 teachers for middle and high school. District officials said the vacancies will be filled by long-term substitutes.

George Ann Rice, the district's associate superintendent of human resources, said she's troubled to be starting the school year with so many teaching vacancies.

At the same time, she said, she's relieved the shortfall isn't any larger. Just a few months ago, the district braced to start the academic year short nearly 1,000 teachers.

News accounts indicate the 344-teacher shortfall is the largest the district has faced on the first day of school over the past five years, a period during which the district has had an increasingly difficult time hiring educators.

Rice said her staff will continue to fill vacancies. The district usually continues until March hiring new teachers for the current school year.

"We're still interviewing. We're still looking. We're still working," Rice said. "We will continue ... until we can fill all of our classrooms."

Math and science openings top the district's needs in middle and high schools.

The district is the fifth-largest and one of the fastest growing in the nation. It is expected to gain about 12,000 students this fall compared with last school year.

Rice said the main obstacles to hiring teachers has been a low starting salary coupled with the high cost of housing in Southern Nevada.

The district has increased starting pay for new hires to $33,073. The district's maximum base pay is $63,044.

According to an American Federation of Teachers union survey last year, Nevada pay for new teachers ranked 36th in the nation for the 2003-04 school year, with an average starting salary of $27,942.

According to the latest figures from Home Builders Research, a local research firm, the median price for an existing home in the Las Vegas Valley is about $290,000. That organization also placed the median price tag for an existing condominium in the valley at about $210,000.

Superintendent Walt Rulffes said unless starting pay is increased, the district won't be able to compete for new teachers with other states that have higher starting salaries.

"The shortage has gotten progressively worse each year," Rulffes said. "Unless there is some intervention to fix that, we won't see any improvement on the horizon."

The school system is recruiting in 49 states and has traveled to Spain, Puerto Rico and Guam to fill vacancies for the fall.

Rulffes said parents should not worry about the quality of education their children receive because the long-term substitutes that will fill vacancies are competent.

Substitutes must have a minimum of 62 college credits, six of which are in education courses.

Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, vice president of the nonprofit Nevadans for Quality Education, said she is skeptical that the district will be able to fill all the vacancies with long-term substitutes because that has not been the case during past years.

"We've had shortages in the past filled by day-to-day subs," Parise-Malloy said. "My own children have been grossly affected by that."

Parise-Malloy said having so many substitutes leading classes will decrease the quality of education. Teaching openings in high schools can have a dramatic effect because an instructor might teach up to 300 students a day, she said.

At least one applicant who believes he is qualified to teach in the district called the district's teacher shortage a sham.

Barry Jones, 47, has been trying to get a job with the school system teaching social studies since January 2005. After retiring from the Navy, he recently graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a bachelor's degree in education.

Jones has been substitute teaching in the district and said he's been given the run-around by human resource officials who have told him that it's up to principals to hire him.

Rice said there could be several reasons an applicant is not hired by the district, including there being no openings for the position an applicant is seeking. The district has four vacancies for social studies teachers.

An applicant might also have poor references from a prior district, or performed inadequately in their student-teaching, she said.

Jones said UNLV graduates should be first in line to get a job with the district. He is irritated that he keeps hearing about the district traveling all over the country and world to hire teachers.

"I thought that by turning in an application to Clark County they would find me a job," Jones said. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a waste of paperwork. The school district has done absolutely nothing for me."