More schools to get empowerment status

Principals and teachers of at least four more Clark County School District campuses will get to make more of the decisions regarding their schools in the fall, Superintendent Walt Rulffes said Thursday.

Rulffes is to meet today with regional superintendents and other district administrators to formulate a plan for choosing the school system's next empowerment schools.

Rulffes said that although there hasn't been any scientific evidence of school improvement, anecdotal evidence is strong that the schools will produce higher student achievement.

"We want to continue to expand empowerment schools," Rulffes said. "The early signs are very favorable and we want to at least double the schools."

The district's current empowerment schools are Culley, Warren, Antonello and Adams elementary schools. They are located throughout the valley and were chosen because they represent a range of demographics and school-based performances on standardized tests.

Rulffes said the next crop of empowerment campuses could include middle and high schools. He added that the School Board has expressed an interest in having district principals go through some type of application process for empowerment school status. The principals of the four elementary schools in the pilot program were not directly involved in the selection process.

Principals and teachers at empowerment schools have more authority to determine campus programs and staffing levels. Each of their school days is 29 minutes longer than at other Clark County School District campuses, and the school years at empowerment schools are five days longer.

The annual cost to operate empowerment schools is $600 more per student than at traditional elementary schools, mainly due to additional pay teachers get for the extra time they spend at the schools, school district officials said.

Linda Reese, the principal at Antonello, said her school's empowerment status has allowed her to create before- and-after school tutoring sessions in reading and math. The 30-minute tutorials occur four times a week. Reese said that 400 students, or about half of the North Las Vegas school's students, participate in the program.

"We've made an impact already," Reese said.

She added that the additional funding at her school has also allowed her school to have more professional training sessions for teachers.

"Teachers have the best possible training. They have time to collaborate. It's huge," she said.

Rulffes said he's hopeful the district will receive additional funding for the new empowerment schools from the Legislature. Rulffes said he'll wait to see how much funding the Legislature allocates to empowerment schools before making a final decision about exactly how many more of the specialized schools to add for the 2008-09 school year.

Gov. Jim Gibbons has proposed a $60 million empowerment school plan for 100 schools statewide. Gibbons' plan allocates $550 more per student for empowerment funding.

But Democrats have said they can't support an empowerment program with a $60 million price tag.

Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said he supports a proposal that would not increase funding for schools with empowerment status, but would instead increase the percentage of the budget that schools directly control.

"Empowerment can be implemented as a policy, with the money that is currently available," Horsford said.

He also supports another bill that would allow schools to apply for $200 million in funding for innovative school programs.

Both bills are in the Senate Finance Committee.

Karlene Lee, associate superintendent of the Superintendent Schools, the district administrative division that manages the empowerment schools, called empowerment schools a "return for an investment."

Lee said she agrees with Rulffes' decision to slowly expand the empowerment model.

"A slow but sure approach is the best approach," Lee said. "It gives us time to do it the right way. It gives us an opportunity to make sure we have the best people in place."