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March 28, 2024 8:07 am
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EDITORIAL: Legislators Should Remain At The Helm In CCSD Breakup?

The Clark County School District (CCSD) is much too big to solve its own problems. Its sheer size and dizzying heterogeneity has required it to focus tremendous energy on being all things to all people.

Frankly, that is simply not possible, especially in the realm of education. A one-size-fits-all approach; handed down from a distant bureaucracy; will always turn out to fit no one at all. This has resulted in long-standing frustration from parents, taxpayers and lawmakers. Though the circumstances at their individual schools and communities are unique, these folks all voice a similar complaint. The CCSD bureaucracy is drifting further and further out of touch with its students, parents and communities.

To address those frustrations, Assembly Bill 394 was passed into law in the last legislature. The bill sought to deconsolidate CCSD power, dividing the district up into smaller, autonomous precincts. The clear intent was to bring the decision-making closer to the classroom and to the community. In the words of the bill, it was to “offer an educational system that is responsive to the needs and concerns of the residents of that school district.”

The bill mandated the formation of an advisory committee to do the work of reorganizing the vast CCSD. This committee was to be wholly comprised of state legislators. Not a single CCSD administrator was invited to sit on the committee. After all, if you are looking to cut red tape and deconsolidate bureaucratic power, you don’t want the bureaucrats to steer the ship.

Still it is the first purpose of every bureaucracy to maintain, propogate and preserve the bureaucracy. So it was no surprise when, before the Advisory Committee had even met, CCSD central administration had already devised with a “better plan.” At the first committee meeting, earlier this month, CCSD Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky presented this plan. While this proposal tried to put on the full outer costume of AB 394; underneath, it did little to satisfy the core purpose of the legislation: that being instilling responsiveness to local needs!

Yes, the CCSD plan proposed to reorganize the district into seven administrative precincts. But there was no consideration for the unique circumstances in each of these randomly drawn territories. Rather the proposal simply slapped down the current politically-drawn trustee boundaries. These divisions had absolutely nothing to do with education, schools or classrooms. They were just a quick, easy fix. In any case, each precinct still would contain nearly 50,000 students – arguably still much too big, and too diverse in needs, to allow true and meaningful “responsiveness” from CCSD.

But “responsiveness” wasn’t even on the horizon with the Skorkowsky plan. Under this proposal, CCSD central would give up very little control of anything to the seven local precincts.

Rather than an elected board that speaks for the people, the representation would be diluted down into a whole network of advisory boards in each precinct – none of them with any real decision-making authority. All of these boards would be required to ultimately fall in line with CCSD policy and procedure. That doesn’t sound much like CCSD becoming more “responsive” to local needs and concerns.

The sub-superintendent in charge of each precinct would not be chosen by the local boards. Rather he would be appointed, retained and/or replaced at the will of the CCSD superintendent alone. That means that, first and foremost, he/she would work for CCSD central, not the local precinct. If there ever was a question between following the will of the community and falling in line with the CCSD bosses; it’s not hard to predict which way things would go. That doesn’t sound like CCSD is becoming more “responsive” in this case either.

Finally, under the Skorkowsky plan, the CCSD Board of Trustees would retain control over pretty much everything else. Whether it is human resources, food services, transportation, school security, technology and information, legal services, maintenance, or most of the curriculum design and instructional support decisions; it all would stay firmly in the grasp of CCSD central administration.

Yes, there is scant mention made in the plan about a few crumbs of autonomous decision-making being left over for the precincts. But the cold fact is, power in the local precinct advisory boards would be so neutralized that, when the rubber hit the road, these boards would have no choice at all but to remain entirely subservient to the mandates of CCSD central.

In other words, the complete opposite of AB 394 would occur. The local precincts would have to remain “responsive,” in every way, to the wishes of the CCSD bureaucracy. The Trustees and central administrators might listen thoughtfully for a while to what the local leaders wanted. But when push came to shove, they would simply go on with what ever they were going to do anyway.

How do we know this is what would happen? Because it is pretty much the same thing as we have right now! That’s right. All of the fanfare, hoopla, time and expense of the district rolling out its own pre-emptive plan here, has just taken us all on the same old joy ride around the harbor. We have paddled in a complete circle and have come right back to where we started.

None of the district’s plan even tries to address what is at the heart of AB 394. It is not really trying to make the district more “responsive” to local needs. Instead it’s primary purposes is to protect and maintain the status quo of the ever-expanding bureaucracy at all costs.

The intent of AB 394 was to bring real change and improvement to CCSD by shedding some of that swollen bureaucracy. That is never going to happen as long as the bureaucracy is allowed at the helm to steer us around in circles.

That is why the legislative advisory committee was established in the first place. The committee must not allow its mandate to be obscured or lost in the fog that is coming from CCSD central with this proposal. The committee should hold fast to the helm in this process and steer us true, toward the core intent of AB394.

The legislators must not forget that their job is to wrest power away from the CCSD behemoth and bring it closer to the classroom and to the community where it belongs. It is not to protect the status quo. It is high time that CCSD be forced to become more “responsive” to the public it is supposed to serve. Because it has been the other way around for far too long.

–The views expressed above are those of the Moapa Valley Progress. All other opinions on the Opinion page are those of the individual author indicated.

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1 thought on “EDITORIAL: Legislators Should Remain At The Helm In CCSD Breakup?”

  1. From my standpoint, it does’ look like old Ed. district #1 was not such a bad idea after all. I suggest that this redistricting policy that is being bantered around and not really getting things accomplished that they take a look at the formation of Educational Districts as we had before CCSD was ever formed.

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