Budget Crisis Means Many Local Principals Will Miss Conference

About 4,000 elementary and middle school principals are expected to gather in Anaheim this weekend for a professional conference, according to organizers, but the state budget crisis will make local educators harder to spot.

The Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Placentia-Yorba Linda unified school districts have no principals attending the National Assn. of Elementary School Principals’ 82nd annual convention which begins today at the Anaheim Convention Center.

“We are really watching our pennies,” said Barbara Barnard, associate superintendent of elementary education at Garden Grove Unified School District.

The conference, which goes on until Tuesday, will include workshops on testing and standards, student discipline and a presentation about “school safety, terrorism and snipers.”

The group also will unveil a guide for principals to help them understand and implement the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal education law passed in 2001 and the cornerstone of President George W. Bush’s education initiative.

During the convention, about 150 volunteer principals and psychologists will be manning a public hotline to answer questions about education and children. The hotline will begin operating at 1 p.m. Sunday and can be reached by telephone at (800) 944-1601 or by e-mail on the group’s Web site, www.naesp.org.

Barnard said her district, like many others, has had to curtail the number of professional conferences its employees attend in light of the state’s multibillion-dollar fiscal crisis.

“All education groups have felt a dip this year in [convention attendance] numbers” because of budget cuts, said association spokeswoman June Million. “And then, of course, there is the war.”

The belt tightening at schools around the country coupled with anxiety over the war and airline travel has meant about 1,000 less attendees compared to last year’s convention in San Antonio, Million said.