School Board Trustee Speaks To MRW

By BOBBIE GREEN

The Progress

Clark County School District Trustee Katie Williams spoke at a meeting of the Mesquite Republican Women organization on Wednesday evening, May 12, at the Mesquite Veterans Center.

Williams was elected last November and took office in January. She was of particular interest to MRW because she is the only openly conservative members on the CCSD board.

In her brief remarks to MRW, Williams said she has learned a lot since her election. She found there is a big difference between the way our system should work and the way it actually does work.

Williams made it clear that she is against the “anti-discrimination” policy which the board is considering, stating her belief that it only serves to make things worse.

“I was elected to serve their educational needs, not to raise them,” Williams said. “These kinds of values should be taught at home. We already have many NRS statutes on the books dealing with anti-this and anti-that issues.”

Williams believes that what students do off campus is not the school district’s responsibility.

Within the Clark County School District area there are 400,000 students. Williams said that she would like to see the rural schools separated from the urban school district in some way. She feels their needs are different enough that this would be advantageous to all concerned. But she admits to only having one vote. And that issue is a tall order in a political sense.

But to solve issues on a local level, Williams informed the audience that each school in the district has School Organizational Team (SOT) in place which, along with the school principal, has governance of the local school. Thus if parents run into a concern, question or problem regarding their child’s education, they can go to the SOT meeting to seek solutions, Williams said.

For example, if learning materials are assigned that a parent or guardian feels is inappropriate for their child, these concerns could be brought to the attention of the SOT which has some say on if that material stays or goes, Williams said.

The SOTs are made up of local volunteers from the school community, including teachers, support staff, administrators, parents and community members. Williams encouraged parents to apply to serve on a SOT team as well as being involved in their local Community Education Advisory Board (CEAB), so that they can have a say in what the children are taught.

“I don’t believe in making feel-good policies that do nothing for the children,” Williams said. “Often, tthey make these policies just to quiet parents.”

Williams went on to say many of the rules for the schools are made by the State legislature. That is where parents need to pay attention and let their thoughts be known to their elected representative, before they vote on it, she said.

“I won district B with 61 percent of the vote,” Williams said. “That tells me that there are more conservatives in this district than I thought there were. Everyone else on this board, and most of our state legislature, are not conservative-thinking. They need to hear your input.”

One of the many questions asked by members of the audience was whether the school board was going to require COVID vaccination for kids in order to attend school. Williams answer to that was ‘no.’ “The vaccines are approved for emergency use and can not be mandated,” Williams said.

Open meeting laws were also discussed. Williams pointed out that the school board members fall under the open meeting laws, meaning that everything she does as a Trustee is open to the public. That includes all her email, phone call, meetings. She is limited to talking with no more than two other board members at one time. Four members gathered at one time make a quorum for voting, so it must be a public meeting.

But Williams pointed out that the state legislators do not fall under the same open meeting laws. Their emails and gatherings can remain private, she said.

“I wonder why we hold our school board members to higher standards than we hold our law makers,” Williams said.

The information Williams delivered was well received by the audience, they were fully engaged with questions.