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    The West Wendover City council met with local and Elko County School District administrators Tuesday to explore ways the community could take an more active role in education.
    With school support virtually the only item on the agenda the council spent almost the entire 90 minutes of the meeting in what most resembled a barnstorming session on what the city could do to improve the quality of education at both the West Wendover elementary and High School.
    The schools  are the most distant from district head quarters and have had perennial problems of low test scores and poorer than average teacher retention.
    Two weeks ago the school district was lambasted for not adequately staffing the West Wendover High School’s math department this school year.
    The criticism initiated by Councilwoman Jaymie Christie took the Elko District to task for failing to hire enough math teachers of the 2007-2008 school year.
    They couldn’t get enough math teachers,” Christie said. “So they have one teacher for one class for half the year and another class gets her for the second half. When they don’t have the teacher they are taught on an on-line course supervised by a long term substitute who has no training in math.”
    According to Christie as well as some students at the school while that arrangement looked good on paper it was an abject failure in practice.
    The online course said one student stresses’ learning by rote and teaches to the tests and very little emphasis on long term retention.
    “It gives you the answers but not the understanding of the mechanics,” the student said.
    That method, Christie argued does not prepare the students either for life or for the more pressing concern of passing the state mandated proficiency tests. Without passing students will not graduate regardless of their grades.
    The Elko County School Board responded to a torrent of often angry criticism over the shortage of math teachers at the local high school by agreeing that there was a problem and that it should be fixed by the start of the school year.
    “Obviously the band aid solution did not work,” said Elko Superintendent Antoinette Cavanaugh during the meeting. “When the school year started we had not filled a position for a math teacher. We tried to make do with an on line course.”
According to WWHS principal Keith Walz he and the district have already begun recruiting applicants for the math position and already have candidates.
    “Hopefully not only will we be able to fill the position,” Walz said during the meeting. “But we will fill it with the best among several candidates.”
    The meeting is now being webcast on www.coyote-tv.com.
    Nationwide there is a shortage of math and science teachers said administrators at the Elko District offices Wednesday.
    News reports from California to New York to Maine to Arizona all reflect the problem is both nationwide and not easy to to solve. According to the National Science Teacher Association the problem is specific to math and science teachers.
    One of the leading causes of the shortage is that math and science teachers routinely leave their positions at a much greater rate than other teachers.
    “It economics really,” Walz explained. “There is a demand for people with math and science degrees on the college level and in the private sector. A high school math teacher can find double his or her salary by taking a few more courses.”
    The problem has grown particularly acute with the tech driven boom in the economy over the last five years.
    If there is a bright spot in the new economic downturn, Cavanaugh agreed is that many professionals who were downsized out of a job could be returning to the classrooms from the boardrooms.
    But while an economic down turn could bring back teachers to the classroom it also could impact the schools budget.
    Facing a $900 million budget shortfall the state of Nevada noticed school districts that they could be facing at least six percent budget cuts across the board and perhaps more next year.