Good schools are good for business

Economic, business and government officials have been on the fast track to re-invent northwestern Nevada from a second-class gaming town to a thriving community for industry and technology.

Now, those officials are helping deliver the message that education in the area also needs to be reinvented.

After years of maintenance neglect due to decades of inadequate funding, Washoe County schools are in disrepair and seriously overcrowded.

“We have overcrowding that is totally unacceptable,” Mike Kazmierski, president and CEO of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN), said in a phone interview.

When it comes to a business-friendly environment, northwestern Nevada has a lot to offer companies seeking to relocate or expand into the Reno metropolitan region.

In most quality of life categories, the region excels with an abundance of sun and outdoor activities, growing arts and culinary scenes, shopping, affordability, and scenic beauty crowned by easy access to Lake Tahoe.

Where the area lags behind, and officials are working hard to fix, is a public school system ready for Reno’s growth and new economy.

The population is expected to grow, conservatively, by about 1.7 percent per year as new companies move into the area bringing economic opportunities. Yet schools are already overcrowded and in disrepair.

“As businesses move in, they bring families and kids,” Washoe County School District Superintendent Traci Davis, said in a phone interview.

“How do we systematically build schools over time, not just a one-shot deal?” she said. “We have to create a system to not only build new schools but to maintain existing once.”

The issue is critical enough, that Kazmierski, is taking action as a member of the 15-member Public Schools Overcrowding and Repair Needs Committee. It was created by SB411 by the 2015 Legislature to find solutions and funding sources for the district.

“The committee is taking it very very seriously,” Kazmierski said. “The last thing that we want is for the school district to go to double sessions.”

Without new funding sources, double sessions are almost certain. That would mean morning students would start school at about 6 a.m., with afternoon students not finishing classes until about 6 p.m. Double session would be a hard sell as EDAWN and other organizations seek to attract new companies and new talent to the area.

To relieve current overcrowding, the district needs at least four new schools, according to statistics on the WCSD website. To accommodate projected future growth, 15 news schools will be needed in the next 10 years. The district needs approximately $50 million per year in additional funding — funds that don’t currently exist — to meet the need. Existing funding sources provide only for the most urgent of repairs.

Washoe County School District is the only school district in the state that has only two sources of funding for school construction and repairs: a portion of the Government Services Tax (GST) and a portion of the property taxes in the county. Other districts in the state have at least one additional source of revenue such as a portion of the county’s room tax, or a real property transfer tax.

The state of the community’s schools are important when attracting businesses, which want to get the majority of their workforce from the region. It becomes more important when courting new talent.

“Talent is about the individual, about their families, about schools.” Kazmierski said.

The Public Schools Overcrowding and Repair Needs Committee, which is completely independent from the school district, is working on solutions.

In a few weeks, the committee will release details of a ballot measure that will go before voters in November.

If it fails, the school district will be forced to go to double sessions.

If it fails, it will become harder to recruit companies and talent to the area.

It would send a message that the community has failed, Kazmierski said.

“It’s hard for a company to invest in a community that doesn’t invest in itself,” he said.

Without adequate facilities, the positive programs the school district has get lost in the message to prospective companies.

Despite overcrowding, students in the district outperform state and national averages for SAT and ACT scores, and Advanced Placement tests. Graduation rates are currently unacceptable, but every year they improve substantially.

At the 2016 WCSD State of Education Address on Feb. 1, Davis talked about the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program. National and state educators are coming to Washoe to be trained in the program, Davis said.

She also announced the creation of the Transforming Youth Recovery program with funding in the amount of $1 million per year for 13 years donated by the Stacie Mathewson Foundation.

But programs, even nationally recognized programs, can only take education so far without adequate facilities.

“There is no staying the same,” Davis told the audience filling the theater at Damonte Ranch High School.

“The overall message is pretty simple. It will get worse, or it will be better.”