School officials say they're making better use of money, providing more service to needy kids

With a little bit of freedom from the 1999 Legislature, superintendents in two of Nevada's school districts say they have been able to make better use of state money and provide more service to children who need it.

They, along with officials in other school districts, are hoping the results will convince lawmakers in the 2001 Legislature to give them more flexibility.

The big experiment is being run by Marcia Bandera in Elko County. Lawmakers allowed her to spread the county's $3.2 million in class-size reduction money for grades first through third across the entire elementary system.

Class-size reduction has been in effect for a decade in Nevada mandating first and second grades to have no more than 15 students per teacher, third grade no more than 19 students per teacher. However, for most districts, it has meant 30 kids with two teachers working as a team in each classroom.

In addition to questions about whether team teaching works, that system has the added problem of dumping pupils into 30-student classrooms with just one teacher when they hit fourth grade.

With permission to experiment, Elko's elementary students are all in classes averaging 22 students from kindergarten through sixth grade.

And unlike almost every other school district in the state, those are individual classrooms, not rooms with double the number of students and two teachers working as a team. Bandera said the school district made that possible, by leasing or buying 19 two-classroom modular units to make sure no elementary teachers had to team up to handle 40 students in one room.

"I think the results are going to come out very positive," said Bandera.

She said the program began last year so there hasn't been enough time to produce "the black and white statistical data the Legislature wants."

"Even if the test scores go up, I would be hard pressed to claim it was because of class size after just one year," she said.

She predicts those scores will show improvement in the next few years.

Bandera said there were fewer discipline problems in the upper elementary grades where classes dropped in size and there's no increase in problems in the lower grades. While some teachers initially resisted the idea, she believes all 250 Elko elementary school teachers now support the program.

Douglas County has also been experimenting. Superintendent Pendery Clark said Douglas used remediation money to fund no-cost summer school, reading camps, before and after school tutoring and other programs.

"We're going to be able to present some really impressive data to show what we were able to do with that remediation money to help students who were not reading on grade level and at risk of not passing proficiency exams," she said.

Bandera said her hope is that the experiments will give lawmakers more confidence in the school districts and open the doors to more and different approaches.

"The thing is all the districts are different and one size doesn't fit all," she said. "What we say is set the goals and then give us the freedom to meet them. If we don't do it, then kick our butts but let us try different ideas."

Clark said that is exactly the goal for local districts.

"Say this is what we expect of you, expect you to accomplish," she said. "And then give us some flexibility in how we get there."

"If different districts try different things we could learn a lot statewide in terms of what works and doesn't work," she said.

Bandera said with another year or two, Elko's experiment should provide lawmakers and educators a lot of data on what works and doesn't in class size reduction. She said a thorough evaluation that includes everything from testing and statistical analysis to having the teachers keep journals of their thoughts, impressions and reactions each day is part of their program.

"We're getting some really insightful suggestions from those journals," she said.

She said the state can encourage more of that kind of creativity by giving districts the flexibility to try new ideas and not forcing everyone to do everything the same way.

Mary Pierczynski - who will take over as Carson School District's superintendent next July - is one of those watching the Elko and Douglas County experiments.

"We're all anxious to see a little more flexibility," she said. "Tell us what the goals are and then give us the flexibility to meet those goals."

She said she doubts Carson could afford the 44 additional classrooms it would take to reduce elementary classes to 22 students each, but that there are other ideas they would like to present to target pupils who need help in specific areas such as reading.

She said she too is waiting for the 2001 Legislature to see if local school officials can get more freedom from requirements mandating everyone do things the same way.