State mandates go against idea of local control for Nevada schools

(Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Severiano Galvan (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

If lawmakers had their way, every Nevada school would teach financial literacy, diversity studies and the benefits of organ donations. High school would start at 9:30 a.m., and every student would have free access to dual credit courses.

Elementary schools would have daily recess. Staff would be trained on gender expression, and cameras would be placed in special education classrooms.

If only it were that easy.

About two dozen bills introduced this legislative session mandate certain programs that schools may have to adopt and implement. The proposals come from both parties and both houses. Generally, the bills have earned widespread support — few people argue against schools giving kids recess or having a library.

“If we all agree that a school should have it, we still don’t need to mandate it,” said Marguerita Roza, who studies such mandate issues and is director of an “edunomics lab” at Georgetown University.

Money constraints are always a concern, but the issue boils down to whether lawmakers or school boards should mandate school policies. Districts want to maintain local control, but lawmakers want to be responsive to their constituents.

“I really don’t see people trying to do things to be attacking the schools,” said Assembly Chief Deputy Majority Whip Tyrone Thompson, D-North Las Vegas, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. “It’s just different perspectives, and sometimes they collide. That’s the beauty of having the hearings.”

It’s a fragile line to walk.

“I think it comes from a good place. People want to do what they think is best, but obviously it’s a frustration when we’re asked to do more with less regularly,” said Lindsay Anderson, the government affairs director for the Washoe County School District.

Local vs. state control

In Nevada, which values policy at the local level, the requirements can seem counterintuitive.

“Every time you get a mandate, of course, it does scratch away at that local control. Some districts, they hold on tight to that local control,” said Mary Pierczynski, who represents the Nevada Association of School Superintendents and the Nevada Association of School Administrators. “It’s hard to know where to draw the line between state and local. It depends on the issue.”

Schools or districts may still be teaching cursive, or offering daily recess, simply because it’s important to that community, Pierczynski said.

When state legislatures are too strict with how dollars can be spent in schools, student achievement can suffer while districts try to make sure they comply with federal and state laws, Roza said.

“There is an important role for legislatures to play, and that is to decide what outcomes they want to see with the money they put in, not what the delivery system looks like,” she said.

Responsive lawmakers

Senate President Pro Tempore Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he’s hesitant to require schools to do more.

“We still need them to teach the main stuff. Adding more things for them to do, I know, is an issue. We try to be as careful as we can be,” he said.

Lawmakers say their ideas come from constituents. That’s the case with Assemblyman Chris Edwards’ recess bill, which would flip the start times for schools, allowing high school students to start later.

“I’m going to try for the people, get them what they know their kids need,” said Edwards, R-Las Vegas. “I don’t know why the school boards haven’t made sure this is done. This should fall into their purview.”

State Sen. Becky Harris’ bill about cameras in special education classrooms also came from a parent in her Senate district.

Harris, R-Las Vegas, said the measure would protect both nonverbal students, who cannot necessarily go home and tell their parents what happened, and teachers, who would have video evidence to show they acted professionally.

Two other bills sponsored by Harris would create “individualized graduation plans” for students who are not on track to graduate and would require libraries and librarians in each school.

Clark County opposed the library bill, saying school organization teams set up through the state-mandated reorganization should allow that decision to be made at the district level.

“I think the lawmakers just have to be reminded that they’re not all living with the reorganization every day, like we do,” said Nicole Rourke, the Clark County School District government affairs director. “It’s incumbent upon us to remind them.”

The reorganization

Mandates from the Legislature could have a sharp effect in Clark County, where the district is being broken into smaller entities and individual schools are working to craft their own budgets.

“The whole purpose of the reorganization is to provide more flexibility at the school level, and when we get further direction from our Legislature, we have to figure out how that goes with the flexibility,” Rourke said.

Roza said districts and schools tend to take three to five years to understand how to craft their own budgets and fund specific programs.

“I have more confidence in principals than people do when they first imagine this,” Roza said. “We do see that, over time, once schools start seeing the money as theirs, they do make spending decisions that are of greater value to them.”

But that requires a certain level of flexibility from state legislators, Roza said.

“There’s all sorts of legacy state laws, like class sizes,” she said. “Most states operate in the realm of the gray area in between.”

Contact Meghin Delaney at mdelaney@reviewjournal.com or 701-383-0281. Follow @MeghinDelaney on Twitter.