New teachers caught in bind

Victoria Coon has finally come in from the cold.

She was tentatively hired by the Clark County School District in June; but because of a hiring freeze, Coon found out only this week that her job as a first-grade teacher was secure.

"It was a great feeling," Coon said. "I was so relieved."

She is one of the lucky ones. The Clark County School District is intentionally leaving teacher vacancies open by staffing at 98 percent of the projected need for 2008-09. The intent is to avoid layoffs if enrollment is down.

Martha Tittle, the district's chief human resources officer, estimated that on average, each school will begin the school year one teacher short. As of Tuesday, the district had 520 teaching positions to fill.

Hiring continues to be "very situational," because "we want to be very careful and conservative," Tittle said Tuesday.

Coon said she knows of teachers who are still waiting to find out if they have a job. Danny Kilgore, Coon's principal at Watson Elementary School, said he would like to fill some special education positions.

Tittle said the priority is to hire for high demand areas, such as special education, math and science.

The district is headed into the new school year with 61 teacher vacancies in math, 44 teacher vacancies in science and more than 200 teacher vacancies in special education.

The district's human resources department is assuming that enrollment will grow by a modest 1.5 percent, to approximately 314,000 students.

Officials won't know for certain until Sept. 19, the official enrollment count day in Nevada.

Once enrollment figures solidify, the district will then reassign teachers from overstaffed schools to schools with vacancies.

If layoffs are necessary, new teachers would be the most vulnerable because of lack of seniority.

The district wants to avoid layoffs, especially in cases of teachers who have moved across the country for employment.

If schools need more teachers, Tittle said she is not worried about filling positions because "we're building a pool of applicants."

Tittle said the school district probably won't need teachers in social studies or physical education, which are low demand areas.

Because of economic uncertainties, fewer teachers appear to be resigning or retiring this year, which also makes it difficult to anticipate the need, Tittle said.

In previous years, when enrollment typically grew by 4 percent to 5 percent a year, officials did not worry about overhiring and staffed at 99 percent to 100 percent of the anticipated need.

But population growth appears to have slowed with the economy.

In 2007-08, the district lost 4,000 students, its biggest one-year decline ever.

Hiring is down about a thousand teachers from this same time last year, Tittle said.

The district also has eliminated 140 positions for support personnel, such as bus drivers and secretaries.

The eliminations were driven by the state's reduction in planned school funding during a special session of the Legislature.

Officials expect financial conditions to worsen before improving. They expect a cut of $130 million a year in state funding starting in 2009-10.

Another sign of slowed growth came earlier this month, when officials postponed the pursuit of a $7 billion bond issue to help finance a 10-year school construction program.

School officials don't expect enrollment to pick up again until 2010.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4686.