CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara listens to a person speak during a CCSD School Board of Trustees meeting at Clark County School District Education Center Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021.
Published Friday, Nov. 19, 2021 | 1:10 a.m.
Updated Friday, Nov. 19, 2021 | 6:48 a.m.
The Clark County School Board has rescinded Superintendent Jesus Jara’s firing.
As with an initial vote last month to terminate him, the board was split 4-3 early Friday in reversing its decision. It came down to only one trustee, Irene Cepeda, changing her mind. The vote came about 12:30 a.m.
“In a time of abundant uncertainty, our district needs stability,” said Trustee Evelyn Garcia Morales, who voted in favor of Jara. “Stability comes from consistency.”
The board listened to commenters for and against the superintendent, such as Roger West, a middle school principal, who said Jara has focused on core teaching and learning processes and hired good administrators.
“We’ll be lucky if we get him back,” said former Trustee Jose Solorio. “But you know what, he looks after the kids first, and I think he’s the kind of guy that will come back and will deliver.”
Others disagreed.
“Let me make this clear to all of you: Your constituents do not want Jesus Jara as their superintendent,” kindergarten teacher Nicole Hess said. “His termination was the literal only ray of sunshine in this dumpster fire of a school year for all of us as staff.”
Special education teacher Dolly Rowan said she feared the decision would be “part of the destruction of our district.”
“Bringing Jara back is not going to help build Clark County School District,” she said. “I personally would like to see him move on so that we can rebuild, so that you can start working together, because he’s just divided us.”
It was not clear what Jara’s next steps will be. He was not present at the meeting and did not have anyone there on his behalf. Board lawyer Mary-Anne Miller said there has been no indication whether Jara would want to stay in his job.
With the previously set Dec. 1 termination date erased, his contract expires in January 2023. However, Jara’s personal attorney sent the school board a demand letter earlier this month demanding $2 million in compensation over accusations that some trustees created a hostile work environment for the superintendent. The board also voted, by the same split, to spend up to $100,000 on an outside consultant to investigate the allegations.
Commenter John Johnson said that by undoing the termination vote without knowing if Jara even wanted to keep his job, “all you're doing is adding fuel to his lawsuit. If I was his attorney, I would use this as more evidence to show how you guys are trying to escape the blame… ‘They’re trying to give me my job back if I don't sue them.’”
Trustees Katie Williams, Lola Brooks and Garcia Morales, who had previously voted against firing Jara, joined with Cepeda to reverse the termination. Trustees Linda Cavazos, Danielle Ford and Lisa Guzman voted against the reversal, maintaining their pro-termination votes from October.
Cepeda said she knew “for a fact” that four trustees had made “multiple unethical communications” that broke open meetings law. She did not elaborate, even though Ford asked exactly what the violations were.
The board’s October vote to terminate was “for convenience,” meaning it did not have to give any particular reason.
Jara started at CCSD in June 2018. His base salary is $320,000 a year.
Tensions have flared off and on between Jara and the school board, which oversees him, and teachers, parents and others in the community throughout his tenure.
In 2019, Jara announced the district was eliminating deans in the middle and high schools as a cost-saving measure. Though principals cast a vote of no confidence in Jara and he said he would try to save the deans, who handle disciplinary issues, CCSD ultimately ended up phasing out the position.
In 2020, Ford filed a complaint with the Nevada Commission on Ethics accusing Jara of directing a district lobbyist to meet with a board candidate and of using his position to get his son a job with the lobbyist’s sheet metal union. The ethics commission rejected all the complaints.
The board broached firing Jara in July 2020, but never got to a vote after enough trustees called to adjourn the meeting. This May, a split board extended his contract into January 2023.
More recently, between the first firing vote and now, Jara faced backlash after announcing raises for his executive cabinet, although district policy and records show the superintendent is empowered to give his executives raises. The salary adjustments were designed to make the district competitive with other major school districts in the country, and Jara started to the process of analyzing the salaries months before being fired.
