School district to reorganize

Feel like you’re getting the run-around in the Clark County School District? Help might be on the way.

“Right now, I can’t even tell you how many calls we get” from the public, said Deputy Superintendent Pedro Martinez during a news conference Friday. “We don’t even track” the types of complaints the district is getting.

By early August, the district plans to have three ombudsmen offices where real people will answer the phones and there “won’t be any voice mail,” the deputy superintendent said .

Martinez wants the ombudsmen to create case files so the district can identify trends. The ombudsmen will be former principals who know their way around the system and already have a rapport with the public.

The ombudsmen are part of a district reorganization plan that officials say will improve problem-solving. At the core of the reorganization is a “performance zone” model that according to Martinez has proven successful in Chicago and Washoe County, school districts where he has worked. In Washoe, all high schools improved their graduation rates and 80 percent of the elementary and middle schools improved their reading and math scores by an average of 7 percentage points, Martinez said.

The deputy superintendent wants to improve academic achievement here by “becoming smarter in using what we have.”

Rather than divide the Clark County School District into four or five separate geographic regions, the district will take advantage of its large size to create economies of scale. Schools will be organized into 13 performance zones based on location and need. A performance zone might have fewer schools if they need more attention and resources from the district. High performing schools would be grouped into larger zones since they would not need as much oversight. If they are very successful, they would be given more latitude and be considered “autonomous.”

The supervision of the performance zones would be divided between three associate superintendents who will be tasked with taking care of the operational and business issues. The model is intended to take pressure off teachers and district academic managers so they can focus on their attention on academics.

Rebecca Kaatz, who will be an academic manager for a performance zone in east Las Vegas, said she looks forward to not worrying “about a building when the air conditioning goes down. I don’t have to worry about getting the slide replaced on the playground.”

The unintended consequence of the old system of dividing the district into four or five geographic regions was that it created redundancies and inconsistencies, officials said.

While the district will still operate with about the same number of administrators, Martinez said the new model will be cheaper because it won’t be paying as many higher salaries. Instead of five associate superintendents, there will be three associate superintendents, but the district will also be adding two academic managers for a total of 15.

By eliminating five chief of staff positions at the former regional offices, the district can reallocate funds to hire the three ombudsmen, Martinez said.

Martinez declined to estimate the savings, explaining the district plans to give a full report later this summer. He promised that “parents will see more consistency. Our initiatives will be executed better. Children will be served better. You’re going to see performance increase in all of our schools.”

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.