Clark County makes way for fewer rookie teachers
Jennifer Hill wasn’t like the 266 other teachers who gathered for induction into the Clark County School District this week.
The special education teacher had been there before, six years ago, sitting among ten times as many teachers new to the district.
In the past, the district hired 2,000 to 3,000 new teachers each summer to keep up with student growth, adding more throughout the first half of the academic year. It was a scramble for teachers then, and the district often fell short. During the era of the district’s rapid expansion, the first day of school began with as many vacant positions as are being added in total this year.
In 2006, about 340 classrooms were still without teachers by the end of summer vacation, forcing the district to rely on substitutes. The district had to compete with other growing districts for hires then, and the high cost of living here made the hunt harder.
"Those days are long gone," said Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, which represents district teachers.
The paycheck Hill will be earning is less than what she made in San Jose, Calif., in 2010-11, but she returned to Clark County for job security.
"Teachers there were hired as temporary employees, getting a pink slip at the end of every year," she said of her California job during a break in the orientation at the Southwest Technical and Career Academy.
Hill gets to keep her five years of district seniority because she returned before it expired. She hopes that counts for something, but it’s not enough to give her peace of mind as Aug. 29 approaches, the first day of school for Clark County students.
The Clark County district isn’t exactly a safe harbor for teachers either.
A possible layoff of 800 teachers looms. That’s three times the number of new teachers at the orientation, which was Wednesday and Thursday.
The district, hit hard by declining local revenues such as property taxes, maintains that it needs $56 million in concessions from employee groups to balance its current budget. The teachers’ union opposes the cuts.
If teachers don’t accept the district’s terms, forgoing pay raises this year and paying half of the increase to retirement contributions, the district has warned that 500 teachers might be laid off in September. After that, 32 additional teachers would be laid off each month to offset salary increases, Associate Superintendent Edward Goldman said.
Because contract negotiations have reached an impasse, the two sides have moved to arbitration.
Despite the bleak outlook, district recruiters didn’t have to work as hard to identify teacher candidates this year as they had in past years, said Meg Nigro, the district’s director of teacher induction. New hires sought the district out. Brian Zawid, 36, of Atlantic City moved here for a district position.
"I was happy to get a job," he said, adding that he was fully aware of the district’s precarious position.
The social worker, who is covered by the same contract as teachers and will be assigned to 18 schools, had always worked in New Jersey but was laid off twice there, seeing his salary drop with every pink slip. His salary in Clark County will be noticeably less than his last job, but this was his only response from 20 employment applications.
"It’s a full-time job with benefits. Just have to avoid the slots more," he said. "I’m grateful, excited, nervous."
He’s come to grips with the fact that teaching jobs are shaky almost everywhere.
"I got rid of the fantasy of working for a school for 20 years straight," he said. "It’s just a year at a time now, a year at a time."
A year at a time is truly the case because of a new state law extending new teachers’ probationary periods from one to three years. That means they can be laid off "at will" within those three years, Murillo said.
"I don’t know how many know that," he said.
Eddie Ortega, a special education teacher from San Diego who’ll be working at Mendoza Elementary School, isn’t worried. His position is in high demand, as are math and science teachers every year. These are the positions the district’s still looking for as a backup, Nigro said.
However, the district won’t know exactly how many more teachers will be needed until "count day" on Sept. 23, when enrollment is finalized. For that reason, the district has been conservative, not wanting to hire too many teachers should there be fewer students than forecast, Nigro said.
Hiring in Clark County — the fifth-largest district in the nation — was curbed because the student influx has dropped off dramatically. Not one new school is opening this year. Enrollment has flat-lined at 309,500 students and might actually decrease by a few hundred students, a rarity in what used to be one of the country’s fastest- growing districts.
That’s why Zawid isn’t making many plans.
"Like I said, year by year," he said.
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@review journal.com or 702-383-0279.
