MINUTES OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND EDUCATION

Seventy-fifth Session

February 9, 2009 The Senate Committee on Health and Education was called to order by Chair Valerie Wiener at 3:19 p.m. on Monday, February 9, 2009, in Room 2149 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Attendance Roster. All exhibits are available and on file in the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau. COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Senator Valerie Wiener, Chair Senator Joyce Woodhouse, Vice Chair Senator Steven A. Horsford Senator Shirley A. Breeden Senator Maurice E. Washington Senator Barbara K. Cegavske Senator Dennis Nolan GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT: Senator William J. Raggio, Washoe County Senatorial District No. 3 STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT: Marsheilah D. Lyons, Committee Policy Analyst Mindy Martini, Committee Policy Analyst Sara Partida, Committee Counsel Shauna Kirk, Committee Secretary OTHERS PRESENT: Daniel J. Klaich, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer, System

Administration Office, Nevada System of Higher Education Crystal Abba, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs,

Director of Public Policy, Nevada System of Higher Education Keith W. Rheault, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Instruction, Department of

Education

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 2 Caroline McIntosh, Chair, Commission on Educational Excellence,

Superintendent of Schools, Lyon County School District Anne Loring, Washoe County School District Joyce Haldeman, Executive Director, Community and Government Relations,

Clark County School District Francisco Aguilar, Chief Policy Officer, Andre Agassi Foundation Ben Sayeski, Chief Education Officer, Andre Agassi Foundation Bart Mangino, Principal, Bonanza High School, Clark County School District CHAIR WIENER: Dan Klaich is here to present the status of the Nevada System of Higher Education. DANIEL J. KLAICH (Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer, System

Administration Office, Nevada System of Higher Education): I have a PowerPoint presentation, and each of you has been given a copy (Exhibit C, original is on file in the Research Library). SENATOR NOLAN: I participate in a Clark County program, as well as Senator Wiener, called Payback. We go into schools and talk to middle school and early high school students about staying in school. Are we seeing a reduction in the dropout rate since there is not the same availability of good paying jobs? MR. KLAICH: I cannot tell you, specifically, the impact of that down the pipeline, which is your specific question. CRYSTAL ABBA (Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs,

Director of Public Policy, Nevada System of Higher Education): Our official enrollment numbers are on our website. In general, we see an increase in our enrollment. Students are very good at doing a cost-benefit analysis. They know if they cannot find a job right now, they are going to be better off enrolling in one of our institutions. SENATOR NOLAN: We might not be far enough into this recession or this new dynamic on the economy to really know if the dropout rates have leveled off or subsided.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 3 MR. KLAICH: This question is pertinent in the context of the presentation we have been asked to give here today. There are a lot of people here in Nevada who want these skills, who want this opportunity and who want this education. We will be talking to you throughout this session about ways in which we can ensure they have that opportunity. CHAIR WIENER: When looking at the graphics, only one in ten of the ninth graders in Nevada will achieve a college education. Is that in Nevada institutions? How do you track those who leave Nevada? MS. ABBA: The source for this information is at <www.highered.org>. Most of the information comes from the federal government through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). These are students who go on to higher education anywhere. CHAIR WIENER: Do you have a percentage for those who go through our institutions? MS. ABBA: I will let Dan get back to you on that. We do have a slide on the capture rate which represents the number of students who have graduated recently from a Nevada high school and enrolled in one of our institutions. For the fall of 2007, it was about 44.8 percent. CHAIR WIENER: We will have a small break for Senator Raggio. We will open the hearing on Senate Bill (S.B.) 12. SENATE BILL 12: Revises provisions governing the Commission on Educational

Excellence. (BDR 34-299) SENATOR WILLIAM J. RAGGIO (Washoe Senatorial District No. 3): I am here at the specific request of Assemblywoman Bonnie Parnell who was Chair of the interim Legislative Committee on Education.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 4 The Commission on Educational Excellence was created by the 2005 Legislature to award grants of money from the Account for Programs for Innovation and the Prevention of Remediation. The concept was to invite new ideas, new concepts and innovations. There are a number of schools that were making considerable achievement in overcoming low performance. Governor Guinn and I wanted to dedicate a substantial amount of funding to encourage innovative programs to help in that regard. During the interim, the Legislative Committee on Education reviewed the evaluation and the effectiveness of the programs funded by this Commission over this last biennium. We received considerable testimony concerning the distribution of these funds. The Committee became aware of the potential for applicants to request funding from multiple sources for the same or similar projects. In many instances, the Commission had no knowledge that, for example, another group may receive and be funded by similar request. We were concerned that whatever funding was going to be available from other sources would not be used for the same kind of purposes or funding that we were receiving applications for. SENATOR RAGGIO: An important part of what we had structured was a list of approved programs which our staff had evaluated and reviewed. Some were outstanding, some were determined not too effective and some did not have any historical success. The Committee learned the Commission funded remedial programs not recommended by the Legislative Committee for inclusion on the list of effective remedial programs. Although the Legislative Auditor is required, by law, to conduct a biennial audit of programs that are funded by the Commission, we learned that no specific guidelines were set forth for such an audit. This bill proposes a requirement of applicants to include a statement with the application indicating whether the request for funds is to support, for example, a new program or continue an existing program and to identify all other sources of money requested or received. This bill would prohibit the Commission from awarding money for a program of remedial study available commercially if such a program has not been recommended by the Committee and adopted by the Department of Education.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 5 This provision applies only to commercially available, off-the-shelf programs, which have already had this kind of review. There are waivers available. We would not want them to use commercially available programs not on that list. Finally, this measure requires the Legislative Auditor in the biennial audit to review the length of time it takes an applicant to receive approved funding from the Commission. It requires the auditor to make a determination of whether the applicant utilized the approved funding for purposes approved by the Commission. It requires the auditor to make recommendations of the most efficient and economical use of the grant money to the schools. CHAIR WIENER: We will close the hearing on S.B. 12 and open it again later in the meeting. We will open the hearing on S.B. 19. SENATE BILL 19: Revises provisions governing the award of grants of money by

the Commission on Educational Excellence. (BDR 34-302) SENATOR RAGGIO: The 2007 Legislature, through the passage of S.B. No. 184 of the 74th Session, amended the statutes to require school districts to adopt a policy to allow a student who has not completed the credits required for promotion to high school, middle school or the like, to be placed on academic probation and enroll in high school. While in high school, the student would be required to complete appropriate remediation in the subject areas the student failed to pass. We were concerned about what was appearing in the press about the failure of students who were not prepared to enter high school in the ninth grade. This became a serious part of the discussions for the Committee. During this last interim, a poll of school districts indicated students faced difficulty completing the eighth grade course work in which they were deficient and keeping up with ninth grade work. To ask them to do their ninth grade work on probation and complete course work in a course they are deficient in takes a lot of extra effort. This measure would require the Commission to give priority to applications for summer school for eighth grade students being promoted to ninth grade on academic probation when awarding grants for programs. Transportation associated with attending a summer school program would also be authorized.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 6 The summer school programs would be the most available, the most desirable and have the most success for students who are having deficiency problems. I know there will be questions about some of this, and I know some of the school districts have problems and concerns about summer school. SENATOR NOLAN: High schools will have to create positions or classes of remediation for those students who are coming in from the various middle schools to help them remediate. What type of burden are we going to see on the high schools when dealing with those issues? What types of testimony may have been brought up regarding that? MINDY MARTINI (Committee Policy Analyst): In some cases, they set it up before and after school; they try to accommodate the student and give the student a chance, knowing the student is better off staying with his or her peer group. That is what kept coming out of the poll. Summer school was positive, and many of the school districts felt that would be the best option for students. However, the funding of transportation was the main block to providing summer school. That is why this bill specifically notes that the cost of transportation would be authorized by the Commission on Educational Excellence. That was the primary issue that came out of the poll. SENATOR NOLAN: Last session, I worked on a bill for a school in the Clark County School District which is having a big problem providing enough licensed people to set up detention rooms for students. It is a huge problem in the school district with morale, and it actually contributes to teachers leaving the school district. How do we get more licensed teachers for these students in high school? Hopefully, they take care of their issues in summer school. It sounds like if they do not, they will still proceed to high school and have somebody there to continue their remediation. I am assuming that is the direction this is going. MS. MARTINI: Those questions were not picked up specifically through the quick poll. The school districts may be better able to respond to those specific questions, but that is a very good point.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 7 SENATOR RAGGIO: I believe there is still a provision that if a student in the eighth grade does not achieve, they can be held back. That requires parental approval, as I remember. That is still in the law. This is a situation where the student would be advanced and on academic probation. CHAIR WIENER: We will close the hearing on S.B. 19 and open a hearing on S.B. 20. SENATE BILL 20: Revises provisions governing education. (BDR 34-300) SENATOR RAGGIO: Senate Bill 20 relates to teacher licensure, teacher training and school counselors. During the interim, the Legislative Committee on Education received reports concerning the need to examine current licensing requirements for teachers who have recently graduated from out-of-state institutions. It was noted specifically that recent teacher graduates from other states could not receive initial licensure to teach in the State of Nevada because of a requirement that applicants have previous teaching experience in another state. Recent teacher graduates from Nevada institutions do not have this same requirement. The Committee heard testimony that the Department received 500 to 700 complaints per year concerning this issue. The Committee also received information concerning substitute teachers in Nevada. Members of the Committee, particularly Senator Cegavske, have been concerned with the efficiency and value of long-term substitute teachers. For the 2007-2008 school years, the State of Nevada had over 2,000 long-term substitute teachers and nearly 150,000 short-term substitute teachers in the classroom. That is in one school year. The definition for long-term substitute teachers is teachers in the classroom for 20 or more consecutive days. Due to the need to have high quality, effective teachers in the classroom, the extent to which substitute teachers receive training is of considerable interest to the Committee. Through a poll of school districts, the Committee learned that 10 of our 17 school districts provide some form of training for substitute teachers. In addition, two of the four Regional Professional Development Programs (RPDP) reported they provided training for substitute teachers upon

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 8 request. However, there is no real consistency in this training. The content of the training received was not consistent across the State and was not available to all substitute teachers. Through the interim, the Committee also continued its interest in the role of school counselors and heard recommendations concerning nationally recommended counselor-to-student ratios. We have known for a long time that we have not been able to fund adequate counselor-to-student ratios. The Committee came to the conclusion that information had not been consistently collected in Nevada concerning these counselor-to-student ratios. Finally, the Committee also discussed honor courses, which we call dual-credit courses, in the context of providing equal opportunity to students taking advanced-placement courses, and earning college credits while they are in high school. The Committee was interested in the need for teachers in Nevada to receive training to teach advanced-placement courses, and to what extent this need had been met either in-State through our RPDP or out of state. SENATOR RAGGIO: Senate Bill 20 proposes to remove the requirement that an applicant for initial licensure from out of state must have previous experience. It also authorizes the Commission on Professional Standards in Education to exempt the examination for initial licensure for out-of-state teachers if it is found by the Commission that the examinations are substantially equivalent to those utilized in Nevada. The bill would also require the Commission to establish a training program for substitute teachers in the State academic standards, curriculum and classroom management. Those standards are important, and a substitute teacher should have an understanding of the standards and how to manage a class. Training would be provided by the RPDP unless the school district wanted to provide the training through district resources. It would require completion of the training by the substitute teachers by July 1, 2011. An exemption would apply for substitute teachers who are currently licensed or previously held a license to teach in Nevada or a reciprocal state which we can assume has similar basic training. There are reporting measures included in the bill. The first is the requirement of the accountability reports from schools and school districts to include the ratio of pupils to school counselor, and the number of substitute teachers who have completed the new training program. There is also a provision for the RPDP to

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 9 report information as to the extent in which the training is provided for the teachers who teach advanced-placement courses. There is a clean-up provision in the bill to clarify that the RPDP provide training to charter schools located in the region. The proposed Executive Budget is doing away with the RPDP. I hope that does not happen. This measure would ease the transition of teachers who have recently graduated in other states and the State of Nevada, provide training programs for substitute teachers, monitor student-counselor ratios and monitor teacher participation in advanced-placement training programs. CHAIR WIENER: Senator Raggio mentioned some inconsistencies in the programs. Was there consideration that they still provide a substantial service for the development? How do we define inconsistencies? MS. MARTINI: Some of them were orientations; here is our school district, here are the forms to complete, here is your classroom. It was more of a paperwork and general orientation. Clark County School District (CCSD) has an in-depth training program. They have a standard orientation; here is your classroom management and curriculum. That was the primary difference between the two. SENATOR HORSFORD: I would like to bring up the sections dealing with schools not being able to hire a substitute teacher. In what subjects would that prohibition apply? MS. MARTINI: That would apply to all substitute teachers as of July 1, 2011. SENATOR HORSFORD: Would that include substitute teachers of non-core and elective classes? MS. MARTINI: Yes. It would include all substitute teachers. CHAIR WIENER: We will close the hearing on S.B. 20 and return to Mr. Klaich’s presentation.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 10 SENATOR WASHINGTON: Can you explain to us the formula the university uses to calculate its request to the Legislature as to whether it is capital improvements or programs to be funded or teachers that need to be hired? I would like to get an idea as to whether we are dealing with growth or if we are dealing with a real number that is reducing your expenditures or needs. MR. KLAICH: There are about 16 different drivers in our formula that fund everything from maintenance of buildings to counselors and teachers. The number of full-time equivalent students we are serving in our State college, our community colleges and the University is what makes the difference in our formula. Those students drive the amount of money that is appropriated to the system for our instructional budget and for support budgets. For operation and maintenance, it is driven by square footage and the age of the buildings. The big part of the picture is the enrollment. SENATOR WASHINGTON: To what budget, the 2005-2006 or 2007-2008, is that number reflected if we are dealing with a possible reduction in student enrollment? MR. KLAICH: Are you asking if these recommendations go through, where will we be in reference to prior funding years? SENATOR WASHINGTON: That is part of it. You have indicated there may be a student population reduction or enrollment in the University system. If that is less than you predicted, where does that take you in relationship to previous budgets? MR. KLAICH: If the Executive Budget recommendation, if implemented, takes funding of the University system back to about 2002 or maybe 2003 levels, it is a rollback of seven years or so. The critical point that you are raising is that it pushes us off a cliff. If our budget is driven by enrollment, and reduction does not allow us to serve the students who want to come to the system, then enrollment is going to decrease, and budget is going to go down because the enrollment has decreased. We would then slip into a death spiral. We end up not serving

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 11 students, not getting students, not getting money, and it is a difficult cycle to break. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Is the 35.9 percent a reduction in growth, or is it actually a reduction in your operating budget? MR. KLAICH: It is a reduction in the operating dollars. It is broken down in these materials. It is broken down by each appropriation area of the system. Slides 20 and 21 show exactly where the reductions come from and the appropriation levels and to what point. Is it a cut in the operating budget or a rollback in growth? The answer is yes; it is both. SENATOR WASHINGTON: It is a reduction in the operating budget and in growth as well. MR. KLAICH: Sure. You have assisted us over the many years in building the system. It is going to roll back a lot of your efforts. We have tried to get to full funding, but we know that is expensive. The last time the Executive Budget recommended funding at 85.5 percent of the formula. This current recommendation rolls it back over 30 percent. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Ms. Abba, can you explain what the 85.5 percent represents? MS. ABBA: The 85.5 percent is coming out of the prior biennium. If you look at the instructional budget alone, it was based on a three-year weighted average of enrollment. We took the prior 3 years and weighted them 50 percent, 30 percent and 20 percent. There were a number of other factors that went into that calculation including operating and maintenance for buildings. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Does it include salaries?

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 12 MS. ABBA: Yes. It does. When you take the Governor’s recommendation and go back into the formula to look at how it impacts institutions individually using the formula, you can see that, for example, the University of Nevada Reno’s (UNR) effective percent for the first year of the biennium is 53.7 percent. It is a significant reduction in operating dollars to work from. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Let us say that it is for a biennium of 2009-2010 at 54 percent. Is that 54 percent of operating plus growth based on what Mr. Klaich has said? MS. ABBA: Yes. The formula does account for enrollment growth. In a normal year, we take that enrollment growth, and we work it from the front end. Now we are working from the back end. SENATOR WASHINGTON: What is the number for just operating? MS. ABBA: I do not know. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Will you get that for us? MS. ABBA: When you take a reduction from 85.5 percent and look at making big decisions, you cannot go from 85.5 percent down to 50 percent for some institutions and keep those institutions open. We will have to close doors. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Let us do another scenario. You are relying on general funds from the State for your operating budget. There are certain other revenue strings the University system has. How much of those revenues generated, outside of the State, make up your budget?

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 13 MR. KLAICH: Those are non-general funds. The big categories that we receive are General Fund appropriations, tuition and fees, grants, contracts and gifts. Those are significant revenue funds in addition. MS. ABBA: On slide 33, you can see the General Fund portion was 77.26 percent only for the prior biennium. In other words, General Fund appropriations supported that piece of our operating budget. The student portion was almost 21 percent. If we had to look for funding sources outside of General Fund revenues to fill this gap that is resulting from the Governor’s recommendation, we would have to increase students’ fees about two or three times. Next fall, students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and UNR undergraduate students are going to pay $136 per credit. We did this analysis for each institution, and that is why it varies. In this case, for example, UNLV would have to increase their per-student credit fee from $136 to $315. For a three-credit course, a student would pay over $900. When you go back to the other chart, it shows we do not have a State-supported operating budget anymore. We have a student-supported operating budget. That is a significant change. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Based on what I know, Nevada has probably the lowest State tuition. It has been said that if we double our tuition, we would still rank twenty-second throughout the nation. MS. ABBA: I have another table I will send to your staff. The board policy says that we set our tuition and fees by basing it on the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) region of state averages. We look at the average tuition paid by institution type in the western region and take the median. The Committee makes a recommendation to the Board of Regents for setting those fees. There is language within that Board policy that allows us to go a little beyond the median, which is where we are. That gap is growing. It has allowed us to stay one of the lowest tuitions in the West. MR. KLAICH: Slide 29 will show you our current fees, as approved, and it will show WICHE median fees. You can see the difference. We have plugged into the middle chart

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 14 what the fees would be if all of the fees were filling the budget-cut holes. Your point is well taken. SENATOR WASHINGTON: I want it to be clear. MR. KLAICH: I would be happy to come back. I do not want to leave the Committee with the impression that we are cutting out of growth; we are cutting into operating dollars. With cuts of this magnitude, we would be looking at layoffs in the thousands. SENATOR WASHINGTON: We are dealing more with the budget issues as opposed to policy; money drives policy. MS. ABBA: What resonates with me is the fact that our students are not going to graduate on time. They are not going to be able to get the classes that they want. Our Accountability Report (Exhibit D) shows the difference in our graduation rate and the national graduation rate. We could do better. There is no way we will be able to when we are facing these types of cuts. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Can we get a total number from all the revenue streams that come into the University system, including athletics, tuition, grants or the Desert Research Institute so we can compare the numbers? SENATOR HORSFORD: It is important that we go over the implication of the Governor’s recommendation and the proposed cuts from a standpoint of where this would place the State of Nevada in relation to other states. There needs to be a plan going forward for how higher education is funded, what the State obligation is and what role students should play in it. It needs to be a plan implemented over time with thought and methodology that will work without dismantling the whole thing overnight. Can you highlight for us what the ranking of Nevada would be under the proposed cuts, how that compares to per student expenditures and the shift of costs of the system to students from 20 percent in the last biennium to more than 52 percent paying the costs of the system

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 15 under the Governor’s proposal. Again, this is overnight without any plan for implementation over time? If we had to follow the Governor’s recommendation, how could this even be done practically? MR. KLAICH: You have to change in minor degrees over time. There was an implication when this budget was presented that Nevada was doing a better job than the nation in funding higher education. I reject that statement. The correct analysis of those percentages is set forth in slides 17, 18 and 19. We have a small budget in Nevada. When you start with a small General-Fund budget, which is indicated on slide 18, you are going to have a big percentage. The percentages that were taken on slide 17 were taken out of the State of the State in the Governor’s budget. They are correct percentages, but they do not tell the whole story. When you look at State and local funding that is provided, or not provided, in Nevada, we slip lower into the higher 30s. The mathematics does not tell the story. If you did this, students would go elsewhere which is shown by the relative costs of education in other places. The percentages do not take into account any aid. We would be creating a “permanent lower educated class,” largely and disproportionately a population of color and Hispanic. We would be robbing them of their educational opportunities because they cannot meet these kinds of fees. If we close down institutions, the results would be catastrophic. SENATOR HORSFORD: Is the per capita total based on the 2007 legislatively-approved budget, and is that where we ranked? MR. KLAICH: This rank is according to the National Association of State Budget Officers which was the same source of percentages referred to on slide 17, which the Governor referred to in his State of the State address. We wanted to go to the same source material so that we would be presenting you with apples and apples. SENATOR HORSFORD: In the budget the Legislature approved last biennium, is Nevada ranked 48th? MR. KLAICH: The 48th ranking is the size of our State budget. We are saying that overall, for all of your appropriations, we have a very small budget. On slide 19, you will

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 16 see our per capita expenditures for higher education in 2007 was in the bottom third. With these recommendations, we can only assume they would go down significantly. SENATOR HORSFORD: The chancellor has released a number of cost-saving measures in a report that is going to come to the Legislature. Can you highlight any of those now? MR. KLAICH: We are planning to present those to you in response to the questions raised in the pre-session budget hearing on January 27, 2009. I will provide them to you and your staff. SENATOR HORSFORD: I would like to disclose for the record that my wife is employed by the University system. She is an assistant professor. I do not believe that this discussion affects her any more or less than anyone else. I was an advocate for higher education before she became a professor. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Is it possible to be a part of the Chancellor’s presentation or have a joint committee hearing, or are we precluded from that? CHAIR WIENER: Is that presentation scheduled in the Senate Committee on Finance? MR. KLAICH: We are providing material to Finance. We are here at the will of the Committee and will come back anytime you invite us. SENATOR WASHINGTON: The Governor requested a 13- or 14-percent reduction. Once that request went out, the University system, through the Chancellor, came back with a 9-percent increase. MR. KLAICH: It is reasonable to put those numbers in perspective for you and bring those numbers back to the Committee.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 17 CHAIR WIENER: To summarize, the reason we have asked for this presentation of the full spectrum of education is because of the policy consideration. They are intertwined. We might think that the budget drives the policy. We would like the opportunity to marry the opportunities for that dialogue. To say that one is separate from the other is a difficult place to go. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Are these numbers reflecting what you will have to do to keep current spending levels with no spending reductions? I have been sent the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s (NPRI) statements about higher education and what they have done with the numbers. There are some merits to some of the comments they have made. I would like to know what the real numbers are, so we can get on the same page. MR. KLAICH: I have a copy of the statement that you are referring to, and I have been asked by members of the Board to respond to that very question. We will prepare that analysis and bring it back to the Committee through staff. SENATOR NOLAN: I want to disclose that I have taught on a part-time and full-time basis for the College of Southern Nevada in Pharmacology and other emergency medical technician classes. I occasionally teach on a paid and unpaid basis. CHAIR WIENER: Some of these proposed cuts could result in losing it all. Is that sweeping too broadly because of the accreditation concern? MR. KLAICH: No, it is not. We will respond without being alarmists. CHAIR WIENER: We would also like to know the impact to the students, the University and the State by not being accredited.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 18 KEITH W. RHEAULT (Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Instruction, Department of

Education): The Committee has been given a copy of my Presentation Concerning the Status of K-12 Education in Nevada, Talking Points (Exhibit E). SENATOR HORSFORD: Do you have any analysis that shows a corresponding decrease in the number of long-term substitutes that are teaching in schools? DR. RHEAULT: I do not have the numbers for the long-term substitutes this year. They accumulate, and we collect them at the end of the year. SENATOR HORSFORD: Are there other performance measurements for our State we use to see whether or not schools and students are performing beyond what No Child Left Behind allows for? DR. RHEAULT: There are other indicators you can use. For example, the number of students that are taking advanced-placement courses is a good indicator. Nevada’s numbers and percents have grown every year for the last four or five years. I attribute that to getting federal grants for the last five years which has paid for the low-economic students and the cost of $80 to take the Advanced Placement Test. We have included a lot more minority students in those courses. You can look at the American College Testing (ACT) and SAT (formerly the Scholastic Aptitude Test) results. I do not think the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirement is the only measure for a good school. There is a bill that will look at a growth model which would have us calculate the individual student growth. That is a much better indicator than to see if 90 percent of the students meet a certain percent on a test. SENATOR HORSFORD: How are we tracking by student if the Longitudinal Data System is not in place? DR. RHEAULT: It is in place. We have unique identifiers. The base year was 2007, and 2008 was the second year. In 2010, we will be able to use that for the new National

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 19 Governor’s Association Graduation Rate Compact to track a student from the ninth grade to graduation. SENATOR HORSFORD: Is it the graduation cohort that is not being reported on? DR. RHEAULT: Correct. We needed to start four years before, and we had that available in 2007. The fourth year will be in 2010. I would like to go back to the presentation (Exhibit E). CHAIR WIENER: The last couple of years, Valley High School made exceptional progress in several areas, but a student of one of the subgroups left or something to that effect. What happened to that school because of that? DR. RHEAULT: They did not make AYP. CHAIR WIENER: How many categories did they satisfy or exceed? DR. RHEAULT: If you add up all the boxes between English Language Arts participation, English Language Arts status and the other indicators, there should be 36 boxes. CHAIR WIENER: So in 35 categories they excelled? DR. RHEAULT: That is correct. CHAIR WIENER: Did they not make their AYP because of one student in that sub-category? DR. RHEAULT: That seems to happen every year. I have had discussions with Arbor View High School. They got the student and brought him to the school, but he took off before he finished the test. They did not make it by one student. Douglas

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 20 County High School had that happen a few years ago with one special education student, and they did not make AYP. That is the problem with the calculation they require you to do from the No Child Left Behind Act. CHAIR WIENER: Are you making a concerted effort to address the measurement of a school’s progress, or its commitment to its students or to create more positive outcomes from year to year? Is there anything you are doing on your end to address this concern? DR. RHEAULT: On the national level, all of the State superintendents have put together a policy that we have sent to the U.S. Secretary of Education calling for some differentiation of determining AYP. When the Nevada Reform Act was passed in 1997, we had a requirement to designate schools in need of improvement before the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). We had it right in Nevada at the time. The 32 schools on that list needed help, extra attention and extra funding to address their problems. To say that we have 246 that are in that same boat, is not accurate. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Does the number in the full-day kindergarten column include the teacher’s salary, or does it include moving other students from the school to a portable that is purchased? DR. RHEAULT: The funding is a separate line item for full-day kindergarten. It only provides most of the salary for the teacher, and that is it. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Does it not include administration? DR. RHEAULT: It only reimburses the teacher’s salary and benefits. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Is the funding for full-day kindergarten for at-risk students?

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 21 DR. RHEAULT: Yes. The full-day kindergarten program started in 2005. In the first phase, the Legislature provided funding for 114 schools which equated to 460 new kindergarten teachers. That is still in effect and was not cut. We still have the initial full-day kindergarten program this year, last year and the year before. It was based on the percent of students receiving free or reduced lunch. The first 114 schools needed to have 51 percent of the students in the school receiving free or reduced lunch to qualify for full-day kindergarten. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Does the full-day kindergarten include the parents who are paying for lunches? How do you separate or include that? DR. RHEAULT: The numbers I refer to here on the full-day kindergarten program were only the positions that would have been paid for by the State for the at-risk schools. I have not included any of the paid-for kindergarten programs that are in Clark County, and they may be in Washoe County. I believe those are the only two districts. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Why would you not include those in the report? DR. RHEAULT: This is a report dealing with the State-appropriated funding. The parents are only paying for a half-day program. It does not show up in the budgeting. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Whose budgeting does it show up in? DR. RHEAULT: It could be in the individual school district’s budget. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Do you not know how they account for it? Does the money go for the teachers? DR. RHEAULT: I believe that is how they calculate the cost. It is really to pay the cost of the teacher for the full day instead of half day.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 22 SENATOR CEGAVSKE: I think that is something that should be included in what we get when we are given the information. Those are important issues. SENATOR WASHINGTON: How should I read page 6? DR. RHEAULT: After the program column, the next column is cuts that were made in 2008; the next column is a calculation that shows a reduction in the per pupil cost, and it was $21 less per pupil statewide. Full-day kindergarten, for example, if you reduced the $13 million for that program, came to $32 per student to replace that in the State. This year we have 437,000 students. SENATOR WASHINGTON: Is that the overall student population, or is that based on the number it was allocated for? DR. RHEAULT: That is the overall student population. It is the numbers we use. The current number this year is 437,000, and it gives you a rough idea as to how much that equated to per student in Nevada. It really does not serve any other purpose. SENATOR HORSFORD: Can you identify the number of students and teachers that would be affected by the cuts? DR. RHEAULT: I tried doing that for the programs I could. On the bottom of page 10, the empowerment funding would have provided enough funding for 29 schools. It allowed me to reimburse the students at the schools at about $400 per student. If you divided that by funding, it would have provided support for 22,000 students at empowerment schools. For some of these, I cannot really get you a good definition of how many students were affected, like on page 11. We returned the $10 million in technology education funding. That is based on competitive grants to the school districts. It would have been used for technology, infrastructure, professional development and programs. The career technology was a little different. I did not have specific numbers. They had funding the first year. I went back to the number being served in Clark County

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 23 alone, and there were 50,000 students that participated or received some benefit from the first $4 million in 2008 that were taking one or more career technology classes. I tried to do that in this summary the best I could, and show how it affects students or the program itself. CHAIR WIENER: We will reopen the hearing on S.B. 12 which revises provisions governing the Commission on Educational Excellence. SENATE BILL 12: Revises provisions governing the Commission on Educational

Excellence. (BDR 34-299) CAROLINE MCINTOSH (Chair, Commission on Educational Excellence,

Superintendent of Schools, Lyon County School District): I would like to bring your attention to page 4 on S.B. 12. I agree as the Commission Chairman on the changes in this legislation. I have a question on page 5. I would also like to comment about the grant money from the remedial programs that have been adopted. I would like to get more clarity on that so that it is more of an ongoing process for vendors. Some of the vendors are new and do not know how to complete the application. We have a high turnover in vendors. We do not want to turn away someone who has a great product. I would like to have that on an ongoing basis regarding the acceptance of those programs. CHAIR WIENER: Is this language not satisfactory to allow that flexibility, or do we need clarifying language in the statute? SARA PARTIDA (Committee Counsel): The language on page 5 says the Commission shall not award a grant of money from the account for a program of remedial study that is available commercially unless the program has been adopted by the Department. That simply states the Commission cannot use the money for grants or programs called off-the-shelf programs. If it is one of those programs, you can just walk into a store to purchase the program commercially; it must be approved by the Department before you can award money. CHAIR WIENER: Does the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) reference take care of that?

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 24 MS. PARTIDA: Yes. That statute requires that the Department adopt that list annually. CHAIR WIENER: Does that answer your question? MS. MCINTOSH: No. Ms. Martini would be able to help me with it. MS. MARTINI: The list of effective remedial programs comes through the Fiscal Analysis Division, Legislative Bureau of Educational Accountability and Program Evaluation (LBEAPE). They accept information on programs for potentially putting them on the list. An option would be to let Fiscal Analysis know that some of the vendors may need additional help. CHAIR WIENER: Are you looking for coaching, counseling, manuals or Website access? MS. MCINTOSH: I would like to have the process more informative and open so the vendors have a better understanding for all of these off-the-shelf products. As a Commissioner, we work with vendors and hear their testimony. They seem to be unsure on the process. I am in support of this. I would just like to have the infrastructure be more seamless for our vendors. CHAIR WIENER: Does this require statutory involvement? SENATOR CEGAVSKE: When Educational Excellence first started, the issue we first heard was that money was not being spent well. We saw misuse of funds; we saw money going to various schools and vendors. We wanted programs that worked, and to use those in other schools. When we came back to the Legislature, we put some guidelines on it. We did not feel that was enough. During the interim, we studied it further. We are concerned about whether the money is being used wisely. I believe that the Governor has this as part of a budget reduction and is taking this money away. I am not opposed to doing that because the money can be used in other areas of best practices. This was written so that we do not

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 25 have these fly-by-nights. If they cannot read a contract and do not understand how to do a grant, I do not want them to be a part of a program they are trying to use for our students. We need to look at a program that works well and is beneficial to students. CHAIR WIENER: I can appreciate the frustration of those who have sat on this Committee and have watched the same issues come and go, but I do not want to freeze out exceptional new programs just because they have not been tested and used. I also want to be alert to efficient use of our money. Are you asking for ways to teach people how to go through the process? MS. MCINTOSH: That is correct. I am in support of the proposed legislation for the reasons that Senator Cegavske outlined. That is a great addition to it. However, I am asking for access. CHAIR WIENER: How do we help educate people on how they could participate without statute? MS. MARTINI: One option could be a letter to notify LPEAPE that there may be an issue and try to work with them. CHAIR WIENER: Dr. Rheault, is this something that might assist you in getting another good program developed that will help accelerate our student performance? DR. RHEAULT: Currently, our staff works with the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) staff to identify the programs that are on the remedial list. There are criteria that we follow for them to demonstrate through scientific-based research that this will improve student instruction. That is how they currently get on the list. Nevada Revised Statute 385.389 is referring to that piece of it. The statute requires the Commission issue the grants by August 15th which would not give any time for new programs this year.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 26 SENATOR HORSFORD: I would like to make a motion to Do Pass. Is it necessary to have referral to Finance because of the discussion on funding? CHAIR WIENER: I would consider it with a rerefer. SENATOR HORSFORD MOVED TO DO PASS AND REREFER S.B. 12. SENATOR WOODHOUSE SECONDED THE MOTION. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: I will vote to send it to Finance. I am not voting for this bill. I am voting to send it to Finance.

THE MOTION CARRIED. (SENATOR NOLAN WAS ABSENT FOR THE VOTE.)

*****

CHAIR WIENER: We will reopen the hearing on S.B. 19. MS. MCINTOSH: I am in support of S.B. 19. I would like to comment on page 4 of the bill; I have a concern that we have to wait until they fail. Only a small portion has been given to Grades 7 through 12. Priority is to be given to summer-school pupils enrolled in Grade 8. There is a separation in the funding. The majority of the funding goes to K-6. I recommend the funding be a K-12 funding. If our focus is on secondary schools and our graduation rate, we need to have a level playing field for our elementary and secondary schools in applications. I am in support of summer school for middle school students. Promoting them with their peers is extremely important. However, that is limiting with 144 middle schools. If it is $50,000 a school, that is most of the money. Again, we have waited until they have failed to help them. In Grade 6 and 7, they need help before they get into that situation. I would rather have an intervention.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 27 SENATOR CEGAVSKE: The issue I have with it is the cost of the transportation. When you see a bus with one child going someplace, the efficiency is not there. We need to look at the cost of providing the transportation. Ms. Martini, did we have discussion in the interim regarding earlier intervention for these children? MS. MARTINI: On this particular bill, there is funding for K-12 under the Commission on Educational Excellence, and the second pot of money is for middle and high school Grades 7 through 12. There was some discussion during the Commission of the importance of summer school for all of the grades. At the time, middle school and high school were the focus of the particular presentation. The focus was on the eighth to ninth grade leap. That was the theme at that time. MS. MCINTOSH: I was at that hearing. Transition is the key element of transitioning those students and making sure they are with their age-appropriate peers. The way I read this, it looked like most of the funding for the middle schools would only be for summer school. It is one of my greatest hopes for Lyon County School District to enact summer school. This is a huge problem for our students that have to be left behind to make up those classes they have not passed. MS. MARTINI: I would like to clarify that one of the purposes of the Commission’s funding is to fund whatever is necessary to support your plan for improvement. This particular measure would allow us to ask for summer school funding for any of the other grades, but it would provide first priority to the eighth grade students going on to high school. However, school districts could still request funding if that was part of their plan for improvement for all of the grades. This prioritizes the eighth grade to receive it first. ANNE LORING (Washoe County School District): We agree with the Legislative Committee on Education on the need for a high priority for students moving from middle to high school. Washoe County School District (WCSD) has individual middle and high schools that have received grants from the Commission for after school tutoring, academic Saturday school and the Read 180 program that targets middle school students who are not up to grade level in reading. We have also received grants to try to address the issue of our struggling middle school students before they get to the point of

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 28 summer school. This bill would prioritize the money in the fund for innovation and remediation for secondary students, specifically at the summer school program. All of the other excellent programs that have been funded and try to attack this problem early would have a lower priority. We respectfully suggest that rather than singling out a single, effective program, namely summer school, you continue to give schools and consortia of schools the opportunity to apply for solutions that are unique to their school and meet their school improvement plan. If you intend to move this bill forward, you might want to consider a statement such as “the Commission gives consideration to programs that focus on the eighth to ninth grade transition” rather than specifying prioritization of one excellent program to the potential detriment of the others. It is very likely that summer school could eat up all of the potential money available to middle schools, and they would have no way to address the problem sooner in the seventh and eighth grade years. CHAIR WIENER: Would you be prepared to provide the Committee with mandatory language that addresses your concerns? MS. LORING: We would be glad to. CHAIR WIENER: Could both of you address the transportation portion of the bill? JOYCE HALDEMAN (Executive Director, Community and Government Relations,

Clark County School District): I concur with much of what Anne Loring has said. I want to point out one thing related to the Committee on Educational Excellence and the grants they have. You probably underestimate the absolutely overwhelming appreciation that educators across the State have for those grants. It gives educators the ability to use the money in the way their students need it the most. The flexibility to use grant money were it is needed most for specific populations has made you local heroes to educators. Although I agree the transition from middle to high school is one of the most important, I would encourage any school that felt they needed to pay for summer school for those students to apply for a grant. When you prioritize one program over another, it removes the flexibility that makes this program so wonderful. I would encourage you to leave it flexible. It empowers principals to make the decisions for their populations that need it the

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 29 most. Paying for the transportation is always an important part if we are going to offer those kinds of programs. Often times, the students who need programs the most cannot get to them unless we pay for transportation. As Senator Cegavske mentioned, it is frustrating to send a bus to pick up one or two children spread out over the valley. If we say we want parents to provide the transportation, some of the students will not use it. For students who have paid for summer school, it gives them a second opportunity; for other students, they did not care the first time. Some programs in Clark County, Washoe County and probably other places in the State are very successful. They have taken eighth grade students and prepared them for the ninth grade. If a principal thinks that is what is going to work with his population, he should have flexibility. Please allow flexibility to use the money. I would also like to comment on Senator Nolan’s comments about the Payback program. Over half of this Committee has supported and contributed to that program. Senator Nolan has been a Payback speaker. Senator Wiener has been a Payback speaker; Senator Cegavske has been a speaker. If it were not for Senator Woodhouse, the program would not exist. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: In the summer school programs, do you have enough qualified teachers? How many times do they need substitutes, or do you use long-term substitutes? MS. HALDEMAN: I do not have the numbers for the other districts. I would have to find that out. I would not imagine that we would offer a summer school program taught by a substitute. Summer school is taught by teachers during the summer. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: Sometimes you would have to replace a summer school teacher. That is a big concern. I have heard from some substitutes that during the summer it is very hard to get a job because the full-time teachers are the ones already teaching. SENATOR HORSFORD: Did you express your opposition to these provisions during the interim? MS. HALDEMAN: I did have a discussion with Assemblywoman Parnell. I do not recall if we went to the table to put it on record.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 30 MS. LORING: My recollection is that there was discussion because individual districts were asked to give a presentation on successful programs with the innovation grant. That took place at one meeting which generated discussion of the positive impact of summer school programs. The question was raised how the Legislature might help with summer school program funding. It left the Committee that day with just that open discussion. When it appeared in a workshop session, it appeared in this format as a prioritization of the innovation funds. There was not time to give testimony specifically on that issue at that date. There have been discussions, not necessarily on the record, about that concern. SENATOR HORSFORD: It is important for people to express their concerns, which you have done today. I started in full support of the bill. You have raised valid points. We are going to need to see language quickly to process this bill. Because of the limited resources available, prioritization is going to be the word of the Session. That is what we have to do with the limited resources we have available. It may hamstring the Commission in some ways. The least we can do is make sure it is in place based on whatever the Commission felt was a high enough priority to have summer school funded. CHAIR WIENER: We will close the hearing on S.B. 19 and reopen the hearing on S.B. 20. SENATE BILL 20: Revises provisions governing education. (BDR 34-300) FRANCISCO AGUILAR (Chief Policy Officer, Andre Agassi Foundation): We are here today to talk about the section relating to substitute teachers and its impact on charter schools. BEN SAYESKI (Chief Education Officer, Andre Agassi Foundation): Charter schools operate as a small business without a large infrastructure. Under those parameters, we would like as much flexibility as possible when it comes to making administrative decisions for the school. Primarily, the idea behind charters and empowerment schools is a focus on outputs, not inputs. In some of our hard to staff areas like mathematics, science and sometimes English, we are forced to go to other nontraditional areas to find staffing. We have found college professors willing to teach our high school mathematics and

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 31 science classes. We would not want to create any additional barriers for those people to come in to teach at a school. MR. AGUILAR: It is important to note that should we hire a professor at a community college or the University system, they would not be a licensed teacher in the classroom, but would be knowledgeable in their subject area. If hired for a semester term, they would be there as a long-term substitute in a sense. We just want to make sure that we maintain the flexibility we have to serve our students, because we do not have a high population of students. SENATOR CEGAVSKE: I have some proposed amendments that might help with the discussion (Exhibit F). Southern Nevada Regional Development Program has submitted a proposed amendment. We looked at the amendment in section 8 which talks about the shortage of substitutes, and they want to amend that as well as section 17. What we were trying to do in section 5, with the charter language in it, is take that part out and eliminate that language. Then we would look at each county with a county plan that works for them. They would submit it to us so we can evaluate how their plans worked. We would include charter schools to help facilitate training substitutes instead of going to the professional standards. Each county would do their own. Those were two amendments that were proposed due to some of the issues presented not only for the small rural areas but the larger ones as well. The amendments give two years to come together with a plan. Some of them are already doing things. Let us see in the next session how well they are doing. Those are the two amendments. We did bring this to Assemblywoman Parnell, and I did not hear from her. I do not know if she agreed. It would be my recommendation that we accept it. CHAIR WIENER: It would be my intent to move this bill to a work session. DR. RHEAULT: I strongly support sections 9 and 10 dealing with eliminating the experience requirement for reciprocity on testing. This is one that will not cost anything, but it will save us thousands of dollars in the long run. Because the law states experience in teaching, I could only give reciprocity in basic skills, pedagogy or subject matter to a teacher coming from out of state if they had one or more years of teaching experience. We have reviewed every state as well as the

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 32 testing they do. We have that available right now. If a teacher has a license in Texas, takes the same basic skills testing we do such as pedagogy and subject matter and comes here with one year of experience, we can waive all the testing because the teacher has already taken it to get a Texas license. They must have a valid Texas license. If the teacher is a new graduate from Texas, has never taught and shows up with the same test and a valid license, we must require our entire test because of this experience requirement. There is a two-fold problem. One, because we have to put the test requirement on the license, the teaching license is provisional and according to the federal government, they are not considered a “highly qualified” teacher. This shows up in our report that we do not have “highly qualified” teachers because we must require a test over what the teacher has already taken in Texas. The second piece is that in a lot of cases you do not see the teachers when they find out we are requiring the test that they had just taken a year ago. It costs about $100 per test. They may go to another state that does give them full reciprocity. These are the two smallest sections of the bill, but I do not want to see them get lost. If nothing else, keep this section alive. It will save us and help in recruiting. They still have to come to us with a valid license from a state which shows they took that test already. The whole front section of the bill is where we have to include new accountability requirements to report the counselor ratios and keep track of the teachers that have completed the training. I have put in a fiscal note for these two pieces. We have run into problems in the past. The system that collects all of the information is very complicated. We get daily downloads with links from every school district and charter school. We have found that any additional collection category the Legislature adds costs about $25,000 by the time we get our State system reprogrammed. We then have to configure with every school district and the charter schools’ accountability system which costs even more to collect that information. BART MANGINO (Principal, Bonanza High School, Clark County School District): We do not like substitutes in classrooms replacing licensed teachers. We do understand the importance of the training that is involved to get qualified substitutes in our classroom.

Senate Committee on Health and Education February 9, 2009 Page 33 CHAIR WIENER: We will close the hearing on S.B. 20. This Senate Committee on Health and Education is now adjourned at 6:08 p.m.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Shauna Kirk, Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY: Senator Valerie Wiener, Chair DATE: