AN OPEN LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE CLARK COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT
My voice may be small but nonetheless very important. I am a support staff Library Aide employee at Grant Bowler Elementary School in Logandale.
I am writing to you to share my extreme frustration and disappointment regarding CCSD giving a select group of employees stipends/bonuses with the blatant exclusions of other groups. I am in total shock and disbelief that all administrators received $8,500, nurses received $10,000, FASA’s received $3,000, back up FASA’s received $400, (and I’m not even 100% sure what the SpEd teachers received but I know it was something around $2,500).
Then, I just read the minutes for the last board meeting and there’s going to be ANOTHER round of bonuses to FASA’s and back up FASA’s. This is maddening and ridiculous!
WE ARE ALL WORKING HARD AND ARE AT RISK. How many more bonuses were given that we don’t even know about? Who is making the decisions of who should receive them and do they know how bad it is for morale for the groups not being recognized or rewarded for their hard work? Why are these select groups being rewarded?
I think I deserve an answer after 8 years of faithful service to the district. I have contacted ESEA and Teamsters, however both “pass the buck” on to CCSD and don’t have any explanations or reasoning behind this. They told me to call CCSD. No one can give me answers why my position as library aide, the aide who is at extreme high risk and comes into contact with EVERY student in the entire school within 1 week, isn’t worth it or special enough to be rewarded.
You must be aware that we all at Bowler ES have been working face to face this whole COVID year and were ALL placed at high risk, with no recognition being given, let alone a stipend. We were the elementary school who pioneered the hybrid model and did so willingly and successfully. It just adds insult to injury that the vast majority of these individuals in those select groups that did receive this stipend weren’t even face to face working with students!
EVERY employee in the district deserved a “bonus”. However, we, out here in Moapa Valley, deserved more than that in my opinion. We “took one for the team” and knowingly put our health at risk to show you that the hybrid model could work.
THEN, to add insult to injury, you tell us that we are going to receive a pay cut because of a deficiency in PERS contributions? The least CCSD could do is help us cover this deficiency with the over 1.2 BILLION dollars that was just flooded into our district from Federal and State money. Don’t you think that’s the least you could do?
Guys, listen and understand- morale is low. Very low. I am currently on the path to becoming a highly qualified substitute teacher, and was seriously considering continuing my education to become a teacher for CCSD, however, I am seriously rethinking it.
The favoritism for certain positions and blatant exclusion of other positions for these “bonuses” is appalling and hurtful. Why would I want to go into debt for student loans only to be treated unfairly and discriminated against by a district who is so out of touch of what their actions are doing to the “little people working on the ground level”.
You wonder why you can’t keep employees.
Cairee D. Johnson,
Library Aide
Grant M. Bowler Elementary
