Nevada Lt. Gov. Lisa Cano Burkhead works as a substitute teacher during a Spanish class at Chaparral High School Thursday, April 6, 2022.
Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022 | 8 a.m.
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Lt. Gov. Lisa Cano Burkhead will seek a bill during the next session of the Nevada Legislature to make every school board in the state a hybrid of elected and politically appointed members.
For the Clark County School District, that would mean 11 members: seven elected and four appointed.
The bill would “modernize and professionalize Nevada’s school boards,” according to Cano Burkhead’s announcement.
Under the proposal, each incorporated city with a population of at least 75,000 would appoint a representative, and the county commission would appoint the school board president.
In Clark County, one member each would come from Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson, along with the county-selected president. These four members would join the seven elected members, who represent geographic areas that aren’t drawn along city boundaries.
Washoe County would get three appointees, with city representatives from Reno and Sparks. The state’s other 15 school boards — which are in rural areas where no cities meet the 75,000-resident threshold — would each get one appointee, the county-appointed president.
All of Nevada’s school district’s are county-wide districts, with elected boards of five or seven each.
“When I accepted my appointment, I told Nevada families that it is my mission to be a voice at the table for students, parents and educators,” said Cano Burkhead, who was a longtime CCSD educator before being appointed lieutenant governor last December, in a statement.
“Today, I’m putting those words into action and submitting a path to professionalize and modernize our school boards so that we have more education experts to act in the best interests of our students.”
She continued, “We have high expectations for our kids, and our teachers work hard day-in and day-out with our kids to meet those expectations. It’s time we have those same expectations of our school boards, because leadership matters."
State legislative staff take bill draft requests from all corners of the state in the run-up to the biennial Legislative sessions, crafting language that members of the Nevada Assembly or Senate can introduce once the Legislature reconvenes in February.
The Senate, Assembly and governor would all need to approve the proposal before it becomes law.
State lawmakers have considered hybrid and appointed school boards before, most recently in 2021, but never successfully.
Still, at least some appetite remains, as seen in an August meeting of the Legislative Joint Interim Standing Committee on Education dedicated to the topic of hybrid and appointed boards.
Reformers cited open fighting on CCSD’s Board and suggested expanding diversity of thought. Opponents – who far outnumbered proponents, and included several members of the public, three current members of CCSD’s Board, and the Nevada State Education Association teachers’ union – said the move would stifle democracy and accountability and not address student achievement. The local insiders among them said it’s a battle in a war between CCSD’s two teachers’ unions.
The lawmakers generally kept their views lowkey, and took no action at the lengthy meeting.
