47 CCSD schools to lose Title I funding, supports for low-income students

Seventeen percent of the Clark County schools that currently qualify for federal funding designed to support low-income students will lose that funding next school year, after new changes announced by the district.

Title I is federal funding that is designed to support schools with high percentages of low-income students and goes toward supports such as additional staffing to keep class sizes smaller, more elective class options and services for homeless students.

The Clark County School District has in the past allocated Title I funds to schools where 40 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch. During the 2019-20 school year, the district changed that threshold to 60 percent.

Now, the district is adjusting that threshold again ahead of the upcoming school year for schools where 75 percent or more of students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.

The district said in a statement that the change would enable them to focus the funding on students with the highest needs.

During the current school year, approximately 76 percent of CCSD schools shared in Title I funding, according to the district.

Next school year, only 230 of the 277 schools that currently qualify for Title I funds will continue to qualify for funding.

One school that will lose its Title I designation is Cram Middle School in North Las Vegas.

Teacher Joe Lawson says the school’s improvement team was told that they would lose four of its teaching positions next year: two sixth-grade teaching positions because of lower projected sixth grade enrollment, one physical education position and a world language teaching position.

Those losses mean fewer offerings to keep students active and fewer opportunities to expose students to other cultures, Lawson said.

“Trying to catch these students up after the pandemic has been extremely difficult and now we are asked to do it with less staff,” Lawson told the Review-Journal. “We also say we are putting kids first, but this doesn’t sound like we are.”

Schools miss cutoff

The new 75 percent threshold for Title I funding is based on the district’s free and reduced-cost lunch recipient numbers as of December 2022, according to the district.

Lawson said the most frustrating part of the change is that Cram was just under the cutoff, at 74.9 percent, as of Dec. 1, but that its numbers moved back over the threshold the very next day.

Lawson said it didn’t make sense for a school’s funding for the following school year to have a cutoff date before the second semester even begins.

Another school losing its designation is McCaw Steam Academy in Henderson, which relies on the Title I designation to help fund support staff like physical education or early childhood aides, according to Principal Jennifer Furman-Born.

Some support staff get paid different amounts at Title I schools, and substitute teachers who work at those schools can also receive a higher daily rate of pay. If a school such as McCaw loses that funding, support staff may have to decide if they’re going to take a demotion in pay or leave a school to interview at a school that is Title I, Furman-Born said.

The principal initially expressed concerns about how the change and potential loss of resources could hurt district schools, particularly coming off a pandemic, but he said that McCaw will likely not experience staffing changes after restructuring its budget.

But Lawson, the Cram Middle School teacher, said the change would mean less stability for students and more maneuvering for school administrators and educators who have already been made to accommodate staffing shortages.

“As with all schools that this threshold affects, teachers will be asked to do more with less,” he said.

Contact Lorraine Longhi at 702-387-5298 or llonghi@reviewjournal.com. Follow her at @lolonghi on Twitter.