Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara speaks during the 2023 State of the Schools address at Resorts World Las Vegas, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023.
Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Clark County School Superintendent Jesus Jara emphasized the need for more state funding for Nevada’s public schools — especially in his 300,000-student district — during his State of the Schools address Friday.
After Gov. Joe Lombardo warmed up the crowd and joined the audience at Resorts World Las Vegas, Jara thanked the new Republican governor for the pledge he made in his State of the State speech this week to raise per-pupil funding in Nevada public schools by more than $2,000 per child.
Jara said the Clark County School District would work with state leaders to realize Lombardo’s proposal to get more money to schools and improve district employee pay.
Although CCSD’s students aren’t back to their pre-pandemic test scores, younger students did reclaim some lost ground last year, and to keep improving, the state must literally invest, Jara said.
“Should the choice be made not to fund education optimally, we must ask ourselves, what outcomes are we prepared to accept?” he said.
Students succeed when teachers succeed, and teachers succeed when their working conditions facilitate that, Jara said. But work conditions and employee morale aren’t great, he acknowledged, saying that school funding in Nevada is “abysmal.”
“With the help of the state and in my position as governor, I think we’re going to make some significant changes in the education space, in particular to the Clark County School District,” Lombardo said. “Jesus’ eyes are open, and he realizes what needs to be done. The important piece is you have a huge, a huge partner from the state level and the governor’s office.”
The Education Law Center ranks Nevada’s per-pupil funding 47th in the nation. The state’s own Commission on School Funding says Nevada needs to devote an additional $2.6 billion over the next 10 years just to get Nevada to average spending.
“Teachers have said to us they are fearful, overwhelmed, disrespected, overworked and underpaid. Yet they continue to show up to work every single day because they believe in the power of education” Jara said. “If we are going to improve academic outcomes for more of our children, we must pay teachers their worth, value their skills, give them more time, hold each other accountable for the success for our students, restore respect in the profession, and optimally fund public education as a great equalizer that it’s meant to be.”
Jara said he planned to begin roundtable discussions next month to learn what educators on the ground feel and need, and how the district can better support them.
“I was a teacher — at a different time, in a different place, with different obstacles,” he said, speaking directly to CCSD’s thousands of teachers. “The struggles you face are real, and we hear you, and we want to work together to understand what we need to do better.”
Breakup ripples
Jara also thanked those who did not support the most recent attempt to potentially break apart the CCSD into city districts.
A campaign to put a city-based deconsolidation measure before state lawmakers or possibly voters failed last month after organizers did not collect enough valid petition signatures. Had the petition drive been successful, legislators would have considered a law in the session that begins Feb. 6 to allow local governments to opt out of their county-level school districts statewide.
If lawmakers didn’t pass the measure, it would have gone to the statewide ballot in 2024.
The petition’s failure means that the measure won’t automatically go before legislators, though that doesn’t mean a lawmaker can’t introduce a similar bill the way they would any other legislation — and breakup backers indicated in the wake of the petition’s stumble that they would keep spreading their message during the 2023 session.
Jara said children were smarter than adults gave them credit for, and, like him, young people saw the breakup measure as divisive.
“Pitting urban children against suburban children is not the recipe for success,” he said to applause. “Our children understand and see through it.”
Jara called on cities to help CCSD address children’s needs. That said, “the Clark County School District will meet them where they are, because we are CCSD.”
He recalled a superintendent he had when he was a principal in Massachusetts, who he said told him, “‘Jesus, the parents are sending you the best they have. I assure you, they’re not keeping the good ones at home.’”
“Despite the distractions in this community,” Jara added, “we invite every single child as they are to come into our schools.”
