Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara talks with students at Central Tech Training Academy and Global Community High School on the first day of school.
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara is asking for a three-and-a-half year contract extension with a $75,000 raise after receiving a rating of “highly effective” by a majority of the School Board.
When the board gave him his routine evaluation publicly Thursday, four of seven board members gave Jara full credit for clearing the bars set for student achievement, student discipline and teacher recruitment.
The board only knocked off a fraction of a point for middle schoolers’ low showing on standardized math tests last year.
“I appreciate working with the board to identify relevant metrics on which to be evaluated appropriately and fairly,” Jara said in a statement. “As we work on recovering from the pandemic-related learning loss, improving our student results, and accelerating student academic achievement, I look forward to continuing to lead the district with the Board of Trustees and our 40,000 employees as we all focus our collective efforts on improving student outcomes and well-being.”
By Friday morning, a proposed contract amendment was posted to the district website showing an updated salary of $395,000, with an end date of June 30, 2026. The board will consider the extension on Wednesday, about three months before Jara’s current contract is set to expire.
Mixed results on goals
Jara’s goals included:
•Raise the proficiency of third-grade reading by 7 percentage points and middle school math by 5 percentage points in all racial groups, according to last year’s state exams.
•Reduce overrepresentation of Black students in suspensions and discretionary expulsions by 5 percentage points. “Overrepresentation” means the difference between the percent of suspensions and expulsions being Black students and the percentage of Black students among the student population.
•Hire 1,655 classroom teachers.
According to a three-and-a-half-page summary, Jara met his reading goals overall and in all groups except Asian and Black students, and did not meet it in any category for math. He achieved his goals in Black student discipline and teacher hiring.
Overall, 39.1% of third-graders were proficient readers and 21.8% of middle schoolers were at grade level in math. The goals were 38.7% and 25.5%, respectively.
For overrepresentation, that meant Black students being no more than 38% of suspensions and 52% of expulsions; Black children make up about 16% of enrollment. Discipline data in the summary showed that 38% of suspensions and 44% were among Black students.
For hiring, CCSD onboarded 1,715 teachers this calendar year.
Jara acknowledged that the math performance is “concerning for all of us.” He said teachers need time to prepare, but with staffing shortages often have to cover for each other instead.
“Our teachers need time, need time to plan, need time to work together,” he said.
Board Member Evelyn Garcia Morales was complimentary.
“There is a lot of challenges that the district has faced,” she said. “This is a beautiful example of what can be done if we stay focused and continue to monitor progress.”
Board Member Lisa Guzman was pragmatic. She said teacher retention and demands on educators’ time, taken together, are holding students back. Relieving those pressures should be a top priority, and she wants to help top administrators do that.
“All of these goals… had we had a licensed professional in front of our kids probably would have been even better, because we have great educators in this district,” she said.
Board Member Danielle Ford was not swayed. She said the discipline data did not show how many Black students continue to be referred for parent conferences, which can include short removals from school, and school-within-a-school discipline programs that pull students from their usual classes. She also noted that the evaluation does not include teacher retention, which she said has been impacted, in part, by recent policy shifts in grading and discipline. (Continual teacher separations last year — retirements and other resignations — added up to roughly 2,300, according to a Sun analysis of personnel reports.)
“None of these numbers reflect the intent of the goals that were presented to us on Feb. 2,” when Jara pitched his evaluation guidelines. “It has been made to look better than the actual results of the district have been.”
Former CCSD teacher Kamilah Bywaters, speaking from the audience, was, as she put it, “hot.”
“You can tell us anything, and we’re supposed to believe it? But what was the process to getting to these results? If we increase expulsions, what steps were taken to get there?” she asked. “Absolutely unacceptable that this district has got millions of dollars and we get three pages of how we have improved… if you think that is beautiful, let’s try again.”
$75k raise
A seven-page contract extension, posted Friday morning, suggests Jara’s salary be increased from $320,000 to $395,000 and that it be effective through June 2026. It is currently set to expire on Jan. 16.
It also includes new clauses for how Jara could resign or be fired. A split School Board fired him for convenience, or without a specific reason, last October, then reversed course less than a month later after Board President Irene Cepeda changed her vote. In between votes, Jara filed a claim against the Board, alleging retaliation and harassment and seeking $2 million in compensation. He settled for $95,000 in attorney’s fees in August.
Should Jara be fired for convenience, he would be entitled to a payout of salary and cash equivalent of benefits until his contract end date. If he is fired for cause or resigns voluntarily, he would not get a payout. And if he is fired for cause, he would be entitled to written charges and a hearing.
Jara came to CCSD from Florida in summer 2018.
