Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Parents, teachers and staff forming school committees under district reorganization

Bonanza High School Organization Team

Mikayla Whitmore

Principal Joe Petrie speaks with a small group at Bonanza High School, Nov. 17, 2016. Bonanza is in the process of conducting an election for its School Organization Team, a parent-teacher council that will have a major say in the day-to-day running of the school.

Schools are kicking into overdrive preparing for the rollout of the much-discussed reorganization of the Clark County School District.

Though the reorganization won’t be official until the start of next school year, elections for the school-level committees that are set to have a much larger role in driving decision-making are just getting underway.

“It’s no small task, but it will benefit our community and our kids in the long run,” said CCSD Deputy Superintendent Kim Wooden.

The committees, termed “school organizational teams” (SOTs) by the district, are a key reform to come out of the reorganization process. Under the new model, parents, support staff and teachers on the organizational team for each school will help the principal make decisions regarding instruction, staffing and how the annual budget is spent.

At Bonanza High School, home to 2,000 kids and 85 teachers, around 10 parents had filed to participate in the elections as of last week. The school’s application period closes today.

Click to enlarge photo

Parent Lisa Mayo-Deriso speaks with a small group at Bonanza High School in Las Vegas, Nev. on Nov. 17, 2016. Bonanza is in the process of conducting an election for its School Organization Team, a parent/teacher council that will have a major say in the day-to-day running of school.

The reorganization’s final approval in September has put school staff on a tight schedule to get things organized. November has been devoted to forming the school councils and getting parents and staff up to speed with the way principals balance budgets and handle legal issues.

“I think they were surprised at how quickly you can spend $7 million,” Bonanza principal Joe Petrie said.

Teachers on school committees already have been elected through an online process organized by the Clark County Education Association, while support staff elections are set to wrap up this week. Under the SOT model, the committees will have the power to make decisions, but each principal will have ultimate veto power.

“It’s my job to get this team to see the school in the big picture,” Petrie said. “In a way, it’s going to be harder because I can’t go in and just say, ‘Here’s the plan.’”

The legislators charged with overseeing the reorganization claim the new approach will boost achievement at schools by returning power back to communities. But it comes with a big dose of skepticism centering around a familiar problem in Las Vegas: Parental involvement.

It’s a notoriously persistent issue in Las Vegas, where people are used to working jobs with unorthodox hours. As a result, many working parents simply don’t have the time during the day to be active at their children’s schools. It’s often not as much of a problem in the city’s wealthier areas, like Summerlin and Henderson, where parent groups tend to be robust and active. Not by accident, those schools tend to post the best test scores and are thought of as the highest-performing.

“We have nowhere near the amount of parent involvement that I’d like,” said Petrie.

Which is why the push to put more power into the hands of parents has worried some. Bonanza parent and prominent reorganization proponent Lisa Mayo-DeRiso is running for a position on the school committee, and even she acknowledges the uphill battle many schools face.

“That’s always been a challenge for this community,” she said, agreeing with Petrie and emphasizing a need to get parents from the “curb into the classroom.”

“It’s certainly not where I think it should be,” she added.

Bonanza’s election is slated for Nov. 30. Parents will file into the school library and listen to short speeches from the candidates, and then cast their ballots. District officials expect the process of forming the school councils will be finished by the start of winter break on Dec. 16.

The district is in the process of gathering input on its yearly parental survey, which it decided to make public earlier than usual in order to give the results to school councils.

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