By LINDSEY DALLEY & TERRY HOLZER
Change becomes necessary when good people with good intentions cannot change their own organization under a mountain of bureaucracy. Make no mistake – good people working hard to improve student outcomes fill the Clark County School District (CCSD). The problem lies less with the school board or the Superintendent, but more with the sheer size of the nation’s 5th largest school district. It is too big to manage effectively and make changes necessary to succeed by responding to a community’s unique needs, especially the rural ones.
The following two examples, from many, showcase how an oversized CCSD bureaucracy damages a community and its children from the loss of local input and control.
The Flag from Hell – The Moapa Valley Booster Club bought a flag for their school’s
gym and persuaded a local electrical contractor to donate the installation labor and materials. When CCSD’s central office became aware of this, they prevented it from moving forward because “it had NOT gone through the proper channels.”
Six months later after the proper CCSD protocols were followed, the same contractor installed the same flag, the same way but the booster club now had to pay a $4,500 installation bill. That’s a lot of money and a lot of fundraising efforts for a booster club or PTA.
The Hunger Games – Students riding the school bus from the remote Moapa and
Virgin Valleys are not currently allowed to stop in Las Vegas for food while going to and from athletic events. This started because of a CCSD Covid-19 policy. When a school is 60 to 90 miles away from Las Vegas, that means buses leave around noon and arrive back about 9 p.m. This is a long time between meals. Growing athletes work up a serious hunger after their games, and PB&Js just don’t cut it. Students inside the Las Vegas Valley can arrive just before the game and be home 15 to 30 minutes after it ends.
The one size fits all approach doesn’t work when you consider the above examples. We can’t ignore any longer what this does to our children, our schools, and community. The State Law (NRS) that requires only “one school district per county” is outdated and is not serving Clark County’s children well because it has created a CCSD now too large to function. We urge the legislature to change the law so individual municipalities or communities within Clark County could voluntarily create their own school districts.
There is a ballot initiative currently in the signature gathering phase called the “Community School Initiative” that does exactly that. It enables municipalities to “opt-out” and reduce the CCSD bureaucracy, if they so choose. The time for this initiative has come and it would benefit all our children.
Terry Holzer is currently Vice Chair of the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB), former chair of two School Organizational Teams (SOTs) and an attorney.
Lindsey Dalley is a long-time member of the MVCEAB and a members of two local SOTs.
