The Nevada State Legislature building in Carson City, NV Friday, April 2, 2021.
Saturday, July 13, 2024 | 2 a.m.
The Clark County School District plans to back bills in the upcoming legislative session to broaden access to mental health resources and support bullying victims, the school board decided Thursday.
These priorities come from the district’s broader legislative platform for the upcoming session of the Nevada Legislature, which starts in February. Teacher recruitment and retention are also on the platform, and were a close third-highest priority among board members for a bill draft request. However, the board chose to go with other, more specific proposals assuming that legislators would float solutions to persistent statewide staffing issues in their own bills.
“Teacher recruitment and retention, while very important, I think (are) going to be encompassed in a lot of other things that are already being done,” board member Lisa Satory said.
Each legislative session, each of Nevada’s 17 school districts may submit one bill draft request except for CCSD, which gets two because of its size.
Education is a perennial high-profile topic at the Statehouse. As of this week, some seven months from the start of the session, legislators had already proposed at least 11 bill draft requests that appear related to education, mostly for K-12.
Although only general titles are posted to the online list of bill draft requests, or BDRs, lawmakers are so far interested in addressing school board governance, curriculum, special education services and the Nevada Educational Choice Scholarship Program, which allows donors to help lower-income students offset private school tuition in exchange for a tax credit. Other legislator-led BDR titles simply say “revises provisions relating to” or governing education.
CCSD’s bill priorities aim to provide broader access to mental health resources for students and educators, and to support updates to state bullying statutes. These updates would allow the district to transfer students with substantiated discrimination and bullying incidents to different schools, rather than move the victims, who had already endured the pain of being targeted by peers.
“The statute does not give us the flexibility to make changes to ask the individual who is bullying to be transferred to a different school,” said board president Evelyn Garcia Morales. “This comes up a lot during the … expulsion review board meetings, and those are some hard conversations that take place.”
The board did not craft specific bill language Thursday. State legislative staff does this. Members of the Nevada Assembly or Senate can then introduce the bills once the Legislature reconvenes.
District staff has until Sept. 1 to submit the bill draft requests to the state.
SNHD offers back-to-school shots
The Southern Nevada Health District has clinics around the county for kids in need of mandatory vaccinations to enroll in school.
CCSD requires the following vaccinations for enrollment: chickenpox (varicella), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis (DTaP and Tdap), quadrivalent meningitis, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), and meningococcal vaccines (MenACWY). Requirements vary by grade.
SNHD clinics are at the East Las Vegas Public Health Center, Fremont Public Health Center, Henderson Public Health Center, Mesquite Public Health Center, main SNHD public health center in Las Vegas, and inside the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas. Get addresses, dates, times, costs and appointment sign-ups at 702-759-0850 or snhd.info/bts.
Parents vaccinating a child at an SNHD clinic should bring immunization records.
Mandated back-to-school vaccinations will also be available at no cost, no appointment necessary, from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3:30 p.m. July 17, 24 and 31 at the CCSD Family Support Center, 1720 S. Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas.
For more information on required vaccinations for CCSD, visit ccsd.net/parents/enrollment.php.
CCSD’s first day of school is Aug. 12.
Help foster kids get ready for school
Clark County Family Services is scheduling a back-to-school supply drive for children in foster care.
Donations of new backpacks, school supplies, socks and underwear, and money are being accepted through Clark County’s donation center, Peggy’s Attic, through July 29.
For more information on how to arrange your donation, contact Peggy’s Attic at 702-455-5424.
[email protected] / 702-990-8949 / @HillaryLVSun
