Superintendent search extended
Board to look at internal candidates; residents back Barton
The Clark County School Board on Wednesday night agreed to extend the superintendent search process because none of the four finalists put forward by a search firm have ties to the district.
Trustees said they were surprised and upset that Ray and Associates, the search firm they hired to help replace retiring Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky, didn’t include internal candidates on a list made public Friday.
“Most of us would have expected either one or two current or former CCSD people to rise to the top,” board President Deanna Wright said. “That was why I didn’t feel it necessary to stipulate we have one internal or former person.”
The board voted 7-0 to cancel interviews and community meetings scheduled this week. On April 19, the board plans to consider internal and former district candidates to add to the list.
Interviews of all candidates would take place April 27, with a community meeting April 28. The board would vote on the candidate May 2.
The finalists are John Deasy, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District; Donald T. Haddad, superintendent of St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colorado; Shonda Huery Hardman, former chief school support officer for the Houston Independent School District; and Jesus Jara, deputy superintendent of Orange County Public Schools in Florida.
Community support
While board members didn’t mention names while they spoke about adding an internal candidate, that CCSD
sister died a few years ago.
Lesser, born in October 1928 in Krakow, Poland, and his family went to a ghetto in Bochnia, where children were dragged into dump trucks and hauled away. Nazi soldiers shot parents and loved ones as they chased after the trucks and their loved ones.
With the help of deception by Lesser’s sister, they escaped the ghetto, but his parents didn’t survive the escape efforts to Hungary.
Of the 3,000 people taken by train between the concentration camps Buchenwald and Dachau, Lesser was the only survivor, he said.
Nearly 70 years after liberation, Lesser, who runs the website I-shout-out.org, wants people to be able to share messages of love and support with future generations. The website, hosted by the Zachor Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, has set a goal for 6 million people to take a stand against hatred that will last forever.
Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.