Substitute teacher Joshuah Laird chooses a fourth-grade volunteer to spell an abbreviation Wednesday during a spelling test review at Robert Taylor Elementary School in Henderson. Photo by Sara Tramiel/Review-Journal

With more than half of the academic year over, the Clark County School District's teacher shortage has continued to increase to its largest shortfall in recent memory.

According to the latest figures provided by the district's Human Resources Department, the shortage is 477, or 3 percent of the 18,000 full-time teachers in the district.

The district began the year on Aug. 30 with 344 vacancies. That was the highest beginning-of-the-year shortfall in the past five years. In comparison, the district began the 2002-03 year short 140 teachers.

Most of the vacancies are in the areas of math, science and special education at the middle schools and high schools. The district has been filling the openings with substitutes.

Superintendent Walt Rulffes said the problem of low starting pay coupled with the high cost of housing probably will cause the teacher shortage to be a continuing burden on the district for years.

Lina Gutierrez, the district's executive director of licensed personnel, said the shortage grew after the district finalized its enrollment figures in late September when some schools came in over their projected enrollments and requested more teachers.

She said the district has had a shortage of at least 400 teachers for most of the school year. She said 313 teachers have resigned since the beginning of the year, which only slightly exceeds last year's resignations during the same time of year.

The district has countered the resignations by continuing to hire teachers for the school year, but that will stop by March 1, when it will begin hiring teachers for next school year.

Gutierrez said the district is doing all it can to hire qualified teachers including recruiting in 47 states, the U.S. territories of Guam and Puerto Rico. It's also considering tapping Mexico for bilingual teachers.

"We're working extremely hard not to have that high of a number," Gutierrez said. "It's extremely challenging, but I don't see the problem getting better."

Rulffes said the shortfall will be a burden unless starting teacher salaries are increased to $40,000 a year.

The school system offers starting salaries of $33,000.

Rulffes looks to Carson City, where the Legislature is debating how much of a raise teachers should receive.

The state's 17 superintendents ask for 5 percent raises for each year of the biennium. Gov. Jim Gibbons is proposing 2 percent and 4 percent raises. Democrats want to give teachers an extra $2,000 on top of Gibbons' proposed raises.

State Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, said recruiting and retaining teachers goes beyond salaries.

"It's more than just a money issue," Cegavske said. "Teachers don't feel they're supported by their administration and their schools. That's something the school district needs to correct."

Cegavske said she arrived at that conclusion by analyzing exit reviews teachers give to the district once they resign and by some of the district's own testimony during the past several legislative sessions. She said problems retaining teachers is nationwide, not exclusive to Clark County. Cegavske said a fair pay raise for teachers should be somewhere between the 2 percent and 4 percent that Gibbons wants for the next two years, and the superintendents' proposal for 5 percent each year.

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said the teacher shortage in the county is at crisis level. In addition to the pay raise, she said, the governor plans to tackle the issue with $15 million in merit pay as part of a larger $60 million empowerment program.

"Those teachers who are committed to the success of their students should be rewarded," Subbotin said, noting that the merit pay for the program will at least in part be determined by student performance.

Merit pay is part of Gibbons' empowerment proposal, in which about 100 schools statewide would get more leeway in controlling their budget.

Subbotin said Gibbons also supports a proposal offering teachers low-cost housing. But details of the proposal are not available yet, she said.

Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, vice president of Nevadans for Quality Education, said the teacher shortage is the number one issue for her nonprofit advocacy group.

Parise-Malloy said the teacher pay issue has a direct effect with how students are taught in the classroom. She said substitutes probably aren't qualified to fill teacher openings because they only need 62 college credits to step into vacant classrooms.

She added that every teacher vacancy negatively affects thousands of Clark County students on a daily basis.

"One teacher can sometimes teach up to 200 students," Parise-Malloy said. "So if you multiply the number of teachers we are short by the number of students they affect, we're into the thousands."