U.S. Senate bill could put more teachers back in Nevada classrooms
The U.S. Senate on Friday passed a measure that could provide $10 billion to keep K-12 teachers and support staff employed, including $83 million for Nevada, the state's top education official said.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to return from its August recess in the coming week to pass the final version of the bill.
State Superintendent Keith Rheault said that money would pay for salaries, benefits and support services for K-12 school staff. He said the bill calls for the money to spent during the coming school year. If the U.S. House passes the final version of the bill next week then the money would likely come at the end of September, he said.
"That will cause a little bit of a problems because all of the schools will already be in session, and students already in place" Rheault said. "If they hire more teachers, then, they will have to start moving kids around."
The bill has provisions that prevent states from reducing their local budget obligations for education and replacing them with the federal funding.
"I think they're going to tie it to our 2009 expenditures on K-12 compared to expenditures this year," Rheault said.
He said an early version of the bill had two ways the money could be distributed. One way is to use the state's distributive student account formula, which Rheault said wouldn't work in Nevada because the state has 19 separate districts. The other option would be based on the federal Title I formula for distributing funding to disadvantaged students, which is what the state used to distribute the first round of stabilization money earlier this year.
Under that formula Clark and Washoe county school districts would get about 91 percent, or $74.7 million, of the $83 million. Washoe County would receive about 17 percent of the $74.7 million, or about $13.3 million.
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Washoe County school officials said they would be happy to receive the money, but it still is uncertain how the bill would allow the district to use it.
"What's going to have to happen first is we have to get some kind of clarification of what is going to come out of that legislation," said Kristen McNeill, director, state and federal programs/K-16 Initiatives. "Right now, there are no regulations behind them, so we have to find out exactly what we can and cannot spend those funds on."
Whether the district can only spend the money on classroom teachers or use it to hire teacher aides and assistants is one question, McNeill said.
Another issue, she said, is how long they will be able to use the funds: Will it be just through the 2010-11 traditional school year, or can it be used for summer programs?
"We are putting plans together so if the button is pushed, we would be ready to go," McNeill said.
In Washoe County, 218 teachers on one-year contracts were laid off after the 2009-10 school year, said Dawn Huckaby, the district's human resources coordinator. If the bill passes and new teachers are hired, those teachers would have the first crack at jobs, she said.