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August 16, 2010 – Carson City, NV – Governor Jim Gibbons has officially submitted application documents for Nevada to receive $83 million to hire teachers for the 2010-2011 school year. The funding is part of the “Edujobs” bill passed by Congress and signed into law last week. Application documents were received by the governor’s office last Friday. Executive staff worked through the weekend to gather the necessary information for the application.
“I am doing everything I can to get this money as quickly as possible to help Nevada children, we need to move fast so we can get these new teachers into the schools ASAP,” Governor Gibbons said, “Nevada’s young people are the intellectual infrastructure of our future and this one-time federal funding can help us do all we can to improve student performance and create jobs.”
The special federal funding is expected to create 1,400 teaching jobs statewide. Governor Gibbons has received assurances from the superintendents of both Clark County and Washoe County School Districts that the new federal funds will be used to create new teaching jobs and not fund raisers for existing teacher positions. Superintendent Walt Rulffes of Clark County and Superintendent Heath Morrison of Washoe County both indicated their preference is to fund additional teaching positions to reduce class sizes, in not only primary grades but also in upper elementary grades, and even in important areas such as high school mathematics.
Governor Gibbons had proposed eliminating class size reductions laws for primary grades because the mandated class sizes have never been funded by the Nevada Legislature or the funding that was legislatively approved was diverted by school districts to other uses. By accepting the one-time federal funds, Governor Gibbons believes the state will create jobs and see if full funding of class size reduction truly impacts student achievement and performance.
Nevada Education Job Application (pdf)
