Public asked to rank school needs

A seven-question survey on the $92.7 million budget cuts Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked Nevada public schools to make for 2008 and 2009 was posted Monday on the district’s Web site, www.ccsd.net. It will remain up until Feb. 22.

Data gathered will be considered by School Board members, who are charged with deciding what to cut, said Joyce Haldeman, associate superintendent of government relations. Once the survey results are compiled, they’ll also be shared with Gibbons and state lawmakers.

The district, which serves about 71 percent of Nevada’s students, is responsible for about $66 million of the total K-12 reductions. The cuts are being made in anticipation of projected shortfalls in state revenues.

The survey isn’t scientific, Haldeman said. It’s simply a tool to gauge the public mood.

The first question is aimed at Gibbons. It asks whether survey participants agree with his decision to reduce the public education budget. Other questions are attempts to determine what district patrons want to protect, such as transportation for high school students, athletic programs and dropout prevention.

The survey also asks participants to indicate support or opposition to ideas such as making students pay for sports, shortening the school year and increasing class sizes.

Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, a district parent and founding member of the not-for-profit advocacy group Nevadans for Quality Education, is angry that the situation has come to this. Schools shouldn’t be asked to cut anything, not when they’re already underfunded, Parise-Malloy said.

Some education reductions are already in motion.

In January, the state Department of Education informed districts that $22.4 million of the 2008 cuts will be met by deferring one-shot funding approved by legislators for full-day kindergarten expansion, empowerment schools and other special programs.

Clark County already has decided to delay full implementation of its Enterprise Resource Planning system, which is new technology intended to unify computer functions for district administration.

Contact reporter Lisa Kim Bach at lbach@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0287.