Push to add school board members still meets resistance
A proposal being considered at the Nevada Legislature to make the Clark County School District board a hybrid of elected and appointed members continues to meet resistance, even with an amendment to make appointees nonvoting members.
Assembly Bill 175, which would affect CCSD along with the Washoe County School District, has bipartisan sponsorship and support from CCSD’S largest teachers union — but not from the Clark and Washoe school boards, who maintain that it would infringe on the voters’ voice.
Assemblyman Toby Yurek, R-henderson, told the Assembly Education Committee last week that when he was the chair of trustees for a small private school, his school board would seek outside opinions when an issue came up where the board had no expertise. This law would have the same effect for Nevada’s large public districts.
“It’s our intention and hope that the addition of nonvoting members would enhance the depth and quality of discussion and discourse without comprising the voice of representative democracy,” said Yurek, who is sponsoring the bill with Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-axelrod, D-las Vegas.
As originally drafted, AB175 would have kept CCSD and Washoe’s boards at seven members each, but with four elected members and three appointees from the county and two largest city governments. All members would have voting power.
But a major amendment to the proposal would keep seven elected members and add four nonvoting appointees to the Clark County board and three to Washoe County.
In CCSD, the appointees would be chosen by the Clark County Commission and the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. In Washoe, they would be picked by the Washoe County Commission and cities of Reno and Sparks.
Yurek said the amendment resolves concerns of watering down democratic representation, but school board leaders did not agree.
Beth Smith, president of the Washoe County School Board, said in a letter to the committee that the current hybrid proposal still dilutes elected voices.
“Despite being nonvoting members, these members will still have the opportunity to ask questions and make statements, ultimately taking time away from those who were elected by their community,” she wrote.
Also, school boards are nonpartisan and appointments would be by partisan bodies, she said.
CCSD School Board President Evelyn Garcia Morales noted that the state Board of Education is a hybrid, but that board does not directly oversee schools, employee collective bargaining agreements or district budgets.
“For these reasons, we have to continue to trust our voters and the democratic process to elect their local representatives on school boards,” she told the committee.
John Vellardita, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, told the committee that municipal governments have a vested interest in local education systems.
“Clark County, the city of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson … are very much preoccupied (with) and proactive in trying to develop their economies,” he said in support of the proposal. “They all recognize the need to have a robust workforce so that they can attract new industries.”
The committee heard the bill without taking a vote.
Legislators also attempted to create hybrid school boards in 2019 and 2021. And last fall, retired CCSD educator and former Lt. Gov. Lisa Cano Burkhead teased what this session became Senate Bill 64, which would expand and hybridize boards in all 17 of Nevada’s school districts.
For CCSD, that would also mean 11 members, with the appointees from the county commission, Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. A hearing has not been scheduled for SB64.
Addressing safety
The brutal attack last year on an Eldorado High School teacher in her classroom was one of several recent assaults on school staff that inspired a proposal in the Nevada Assembly to create a state advisory committee on the safety and well-being of teachers.
“I’m hearing from my constituents that they’re scared,” Bilbray-axelrod told the Assembly Education Committee on Tuesday. “No one should have to go to work and not feel safe.”
Assembly Bill 72 would form a task force that would make recommendations on issues relating to teacher safety and well-being and consistent student discipline. The committee heard the bill without taking a vote.
Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch, who is a high school teacher, said educators are often asked to fill out surveys or join task forces about their job concerns.
“Educators get hopeful — someone is finally listening to me; someone is finally going to do something. And then it goes nowhere,” said La Rue Hatch, D-reno. “That, I think, crushes morale worse than not acknowledging it.”
Bilbray-axelrod said it’s hard to tell the next Legislature what to do, but it is her intent to introduce bills based on the task force’s recommendations.
A representative from Nevada State Education Association, along with Sparks Democrat and high school teacher Natha Anderson, said the task force should also include school support staffers.
Proposed investments
Here are a couple of bills introduced last week:
AB273: This would allocate $64.5 million to build a new school on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, in remote, far northern Elko County. Owyhee Combined School, run by the Elko County School District, serves preschool through high school in a building the bill calls “unsafe, structurally unsound, hazardous to public health and unsuitable for continued use.”
The bipartisan bill also allocates $1.2 million for drinking water, hand-washing stations, air conditioners and boilers for the existing school. It is the second bill this session to seek a large direct state allocation to replace dilapidated schools.
Another bill, in the state Senate, seeks $60 million to build a new preschool through-eighth grade campus in Ely to replace the town’s 110-year-old middle school and 114-year-old elementary school.
SB244: This bill allocates $3 million over the next two years for educational school gardens at elementary schools statewide. The bipartisan bill would have the Department of Education dole out money to nonprofit organizations that would partner with schools to create and maintain gardens, allow students to hold their own farmers markets and learn how their crops can be used to make a meal. At least 80% of the funds would go to low-income schools.