Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

letter to the editor:

School board needs businesspeople

A few years ago, someone came up with the brilliant idea that in order to run for Clark County judge, a person must be an attorney who has passed the bar in Nevada and at some point practiced law within the state. At the time I thought, “What a great idea,” but I also had to ask, “Why stop there?”

The question recently came up in a conversation regarding education in Clark County. The Clark County Board of School Trustees oversees the business of educating our children. I made it a point to look at the bios of each of our trustees.

I was astounded by what I found: We have a variety of education on the board. We have trustees who have bachelor’s of science in Spanish, speech, English, human biology, political science and communications. One has a master’s in zoology. We have a travel agent, real estate agent, chaplain, family therapist, school psychologist and dental hygienist. There are former presidents, active members and parent volunteers of the PTA.

The Clark County School District’s annual budget is over $3.3 billion. There are more than 315,000 students in K-12 classes and more than 35,000 school employees. I have to wonder: Where are the people with a master’s or bachelor’s in business? When you are talking about these kinds of numbers and knowing that schools are in the business of educating our children, shouldn’t we have some kind of minimum standard to be qualified as a trustee?

Not to be disrespectful, but over the years the board just hasn’t gotten the job done.

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