Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara is shown during a school board meeting at the CCSD Greer Education Center Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. The board voted, 4-3, to extend Jaras contract by 3.5 years with a $75,000 raise per year.
Published Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022 | 4:50 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022 | 5:37 p.m.
The organizers of the latest effort to break up the Clark County School District say they have submitted more than enough petition signatures to get the proposal in front of the Nevada Legislature next spring.
Officials from the Community Schools Initiative say they submitted more than 220,000 signatures today for verification by counties. They need at least 140,777 valid signatures divided equally amongst Nevada’s four congressional districts for state legislators to consider a law to allow local governments to opt out of their county-level school districts. The next legislative session begins in February.
“Our coalition brought forth the Community Schools Initiative to get decision making and funding closer to Nevada’s students,” Dan Stewart, Community Schools Initiative chairman and a Henderson City Councilman, said in a statement today. “We’ve been overwhelmed by the response to this effort from every corner of our state. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this process from volunteers, donors, signature gatherers, community leaders and more. We urge the Nevada Legislature to pass this initiative next session.”
Initiative leaders are based in the Las Vegas area, but a law change would apply to all 17 of Nevada’s public school districts, which follow county boundaries. The county system means CCSD has more than 300,000 students, which proponents for deconsolidation say is just too big for CCSD to be effective — an argument that has made breaking apart CCSD a frequent goal over the last 30 years.
In response to the signature submission, CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara released a statement blasting the breakup campaign as an “easy populist talking point” that points fingers at CCSD and doesn’t address the need for more funding to lift up students’ academic achievement.
“While we recognize the need for improved educational outcomes across Nevada, these adult-centered distractions continue to harm our children,” Jara said. “Should communities choose to secede from the Clark County School District, they will increase taxpayer costs by expanding government bureaucracies. Dismantling the economies of scale achieved by CCSD will raise the costs of educating all children and further exacerbate the inequities impacting our neediest children and violate their rights.”
The Clark County Education Association teachers union issued a similar statement.
“CCEA believes that breaking up the CCSD will not resolve the systemic problems which result from having the lowest funding levels in the nation, nor the high vacancy rate of educators that plagues our district and the country,” the union said. “Furthermore, CCEA believes that this effort will only exacerbate the gross inequity that exists between urban core schools and the predominantly white suburban ring of the school district.”
The current proposal allows local governments, like cities, to form school districts either by ordinance or direct citizen vote. If the signatures submitted today are deemed sufficient but the Legislature does not pass the law in 2023, the initiative will appear on the ballot for the 2024 general election.
