EDITORIAL: How to attract teachers to struggling schools

Kindergarten instructor Jennifer Saucedo sets up her class at Ronnow Elementary School in Las Vegas Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @KMCannonPhoto
It's always worth looking at why it's not being executed when there's an apparent service to a public policy issue.

The Clark County School District Board of Trustees recently authorized $7,500 rewards for some assistance personnel employees. The cash will be paid next school year to employees who operate at Transformation Network schools. That's the rosy euphemism the district is now utilizing to describe a group of 23 elementary schools that are struggling academically.

The district is trying to provide extra assistance for those trainees. That begins with having fully staffed schools. This bonus money will incentivize assistance staff employees to work at those schools.

For a district that has long had a hard time to fill all open positions, it's a reasonable relocation. If the pay is the same, most employees will flock to better-performing schools. The work is normally simpler. Those schools are also likely closer to where they live.

That puts having a hard time campuses into a spiral of doom. Personnel doesn't want to work there because student performance is low. It's a tougher task with a longer commute. There's likely more behavioral issues, too. An absence of competent staff decreases efficiency and increases violence making it harder to get people to work there. And so on.

As this school year started, the district had more than 1,450 instructor openings. Some having a hard time elementary schools had 10 or more jobs available. As of this writing, the district has more than 1,400 teacher openings for next school year.

Another was pushing schools not to punish mischief-makers. That contributed to an increase in school violence.

If the district does not alter something, it's most likely those very same schools will have lots of openings next year too.

Mr. Jara informed the Review-Journal that he wants to provide financial incentives for teachers going to operate at Transformation Network schools. The Clark County Education Association "declined to deal" on the concern, he said in a text message. Mr. Jara kept in mind CCEA's stance is "unlike the other bargaining systems."

CCEA didn't return a call looking for remark. John Vellardita, the group's executive director, stated in a February editorial board meeting that "differential pay" to fill positions at at-risk schools was "long past due." But the union would choose greater base pay instead of one-time benefits. This year, the union sent an email to members decrying potential bonuses as "egregious.".

That would certainly be a step forward if the union wants to collectively bargain over differential pay. One-size-fits-all pay scales suppress innovation and imagination, prevent high performers and make it more difficult to draw in teachers with know-how in certain topics.

Democrats in the Legislature have talked a lot about accountability in education this session. However to hold someone responsible, you have to provide the authority to make modifications. Sadly, Nevada's collective bargaining law provides unions a de facto veto over many reforms. Legal Democrats need to limit a union's ability to undermine school district decisions and then hold the district responsible for outcomes.

That's just a secondary point. Envision you go to a restaurant and a conflict breaks out in between the supervisors and the servers. You're unlikely to mediate the disagreement. Instead, you're most likely to leave the uncomfortable scene and go someplace. Numerous students trapped in schools with high job rates do not have that choice.

In the meantime, nevertheless, the district's plan to offer rewards to attract teachers to schools that are having a hard time is worth pursuing.