Reorganizing CCSD: Why Moapa Valley’s proposal would be bombshell

By Ian Whitaker

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Reorganizing the Clark County School District has already proved a messy affair, but calls for independence by some of the county’s rural residents could make it even messier.

On Tuesday, community leaders from Moapa Valley, 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, presented a plan before a state committee advocating that CCSD be reorganized to allow the county’s townships and cities to take charge of schools in their communities.

The plan came in the form of an 11-page document written by Larry Moses, a retired CCSD teacher and administrator, who also sits on a state committee designed to look into the issue. During the 2015 legislative session, lawmakers mandated that CCSD examine reorganization.

Moses’ plan is a bold rewrite of the way CCSD currently does things. There’s no guarantee it will be implemented, but here’s what it could mean for Clark County:

It would put decision-making power in the hands of communities

Go to any rural town in Clark County, and chances are that you’ll find a lot of people unhappy with CCSD. That’s because CCSD, the fifth-largest school district in the country, is mostly preoccupied with pressing issues in urban schools, like overcrowding. On average, rural schools in Clark County perform remarkably well. As a result, rural schools feel they are left in the lurch when it comes to everyday things like school maintenance. This fact is a major reason why Moapa Valley residents came forward. Their plan would form a locally elected school board that would represent their specific community. That school board would elect a superintendent who would oversee the area’s four schools. That’s a big departure from how CCSD operates now, which is to provide high-level decision-making from its central office.

It would fundamentally change the role of the superintendent and school board

Right now school principals report to Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky and his team of administrators hired to oversee school performance zones. If Moapa Valley and other rural communities had their way, the superintendent would serve mostly as an adviser to the precinct superintendents elected by the voters of each town. What’s more, the superintendent wouldn’t have the power to override the decisions of precinct school boards or to fire precinct superintendents. It’s a similar story when it comes to the school board, currently made up of seven trustees elected to represent the entire county. Each precinct would appoint a member to serve on the existing CCSD school board, which would retain only a few of the powers it has now, like issuing bonds and presiding over the county’s specialty schools.

It would keep funding basically the same

Moapa Valley is home to around 7,000 people, 1,700 of which are students. That puts the community at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to raising money. Currently, money raised through taxes is dispersed to schools throughout the county, which means rural schools benefit from the large tax base in Las Vegas. For example, it’s doubtful that the community of Sandy Valley, population 2,000, would have been able to afford its new gymnasium, estimated at $6 million, while also paying to operate its school every year. Instead, CCSD stepped in to pay for it, as it has also done recently for Mesquite and Boulder City. The plan put forth by Moses keeps the status quo mostly intact, especially when it comes to CCSD’s ability to raise bonds. Early fears about a possible breakup of CCSD centered around whether the school district’s bond rating would suffer as a result.

It’s a model not just for rural towns, but the whole county

While Moapa Valley residents came forward with the plan, Moses thinks any community could take advantage of it. That’s because it would allow the voters of each of the county’s townships and cities to decide whether they wanted to form their own school precinct. If they choose to do so, individual cities would elect their own school boards which would appoint a local superintendent. Theoretically, every incorporated and unincorporated town in the county could have their own school board and superintendent, which would make decisions for schools within their boundaries. Henderson could have its own school board, Las Vegas could have its own school board and the same could happen for Boulder City, Laughlin, Mesquite, North Las Vegas, and whatever rural communities wanted to do the same.