Outlining Path Forward For AB 420

By CHERYL JENSEN & VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A bill before the Nevada State Legislature that would have formed a new regional school district for the eight public schools in Virgin Valley and Moapa Valley, has died in the Nevada Assembly Education Committee. Assembly Bill 420 (AB420) missed an important deadline on April 14 and was dropped from consideration in the legislature.

But members of a local ad-hoc committee that helped draft the bill say that their vision for an independent Northeast Clark County Regional School District is far from dead. In fact, it is possible that the measure could be brought forward again in this year’s legislative session.

“Technically the bill died,” admitted committee member Lindsey Dalley during a community meeting held to discuss the issue on Tuesday, April 18 at the Old Logandale School. “But that doesn’t mean that it is all over. We have had conversations with legislators who say that we have got to still move forward. There are other options on the table.”

Dalley said that the April 14 deadline had been unexpected. “The bill went into the education committee; and this is where the politics came in,” he said. “This should not be a partisan bill, it is about our kids. But the powers who control the education committee wouldn’t give it a hearing. They flatly refused, though our representative, Assemblyman Toby Yurek, tried.”

After the Mesquite City Council gave a unanimous vote to support AB420 in an earlier meeting on April 10, they also authorized the City’s lobbyist Warren Hardy to advocate for AB 420, Dalley said. Dalley noted that it had been a major victory to have the City Council’s blessing and their willingness to set Hardy to work on the bill.

Hardy had immediately inquired to learn the status of the bill, Dalley said. He was told at that point that the bill had been given an exception to the April 14 deadline because it needed more fiscal study.
“When Warren found out about the exception, he said, ‘Oh good, we have some time’,” Dalley said. “But it turns out that somehow the exception didn’t stick and we are not sure how that happened.”

Moving forward all the same
Committee member Larry Moses, also in attendance at the Tuesday’s meeting, said that he had spoken to legislators who had encouraged the group to move forward, despite this hiccup.

“It is still a possibility,” Moses said. “We could partner it up on an emergency bill being worked on by the Community School Initiative folks. Or the Governor could put it in as one of his options. It also could come out of the Senate Finance Committee.Those are still options we have open to us.”

All the committee members in attendance at the meeting admitted that each of these options would be longshots for the current legislative session. But they still insisted that the issue had just begun for them.

“If none of this happens this year, I’m spending the next two years in a study to take more information to the legislature next time,” Moses said. “We are not giving up here. Fortunately, I’m old and don’t have anything better to do. I can work on this so we can be positioned better next time. I think that our whole committee feels the same way.”

Community support
The Logandale meeting was one of a pair of community meetings held to discuss AB420 with local residents and answer questions. The other meeting was held on Wednesday, April 19 at the Mesquite Fine Arts Center.

In that meeting, Virgin Valley Community Education Advisory Board (VVCEAB) chairwoman Jodi Thornley, who also served on the ad hoc committee, said that the bill had received a broad base of support in the two communities. She said that a booth set up by the committee at Clark County Fair had yielded more than 1,200 signatures in favor of AB 420.

“We will also have a booth at Mesquite Days on May 5-7 for those who want to sign the petition and haven’t yet got a chance,” Thornley said.

Some a with the substance but not the method
A few in attendance at the Wednesday night meeting expressed some opposition, not to the concept of separating from the Clark County School District, but in the way that the AB 420 effort had taken place. Several in attendance said they thought more should have been done to inform citizens and parents about the effort.

Local resident Derek Hafen felt that opportunities had been lost by the committee not being more open and transparent about its intentions and its process.
“We missed the boat on this,” Hafen said. “People should have been involved earlier – and talking to mayor was not enough. Are we doing thus under a rock? The city would have given you more resources if you had started this earlier.”

Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) chairwoman Wendy Mulcock, who was in attendance, expressed regret for the committee not being able to involve everyone earlier.
“Please forgive us getting started late on informing you,” Mulcock said addressing Hafen in the meeting. “We have spent a lot of hours on getting the bill written. It has taken 4-5 months to get it written.”

Thornley added that the committee had contacted city elected officials early on about its work and had received general approval. But committee members were told that they needed to have wording for the bill before formal approval could be sought.

“It was a big hurdle to put together what we wanted in that bill and then to get it put in the right wording for legislative action,” Thornley said.

Thornley acknowledged that just doing that much was a significant accomplishment in the effort. But now that there is an actual draft of a bill, more public input and involvement is welcome in honing the language to a final product that will work for the community, she said.

“At this point, we need more people involved who support this effort,” Thornley said. “Because it has been so quick, we don’t have all the support we needed. But it isn’t over. In 2 years it will be even stronger!”

Local parent Kurt Cox agreed that the bill language gave something for the community to now get behind. “Now that we know it is written, we can make it happen and follow the example of this committee,” Cox said.

Kai Davis invited parents to help by plying their expertise in different areas and move the process forward.
“The question is what are we going to do now that we know about it?” Davis said. “Who can help us? If we have the backing of the city, they can help us at the legislative level.”

Moses, who also attended the Wednesday night meeting, invited all in attendance to become partners in the effort.
“You know the kids and the local area and you can do this better,” Moses said. “CCSD is a sinking ship when 90 out of 100 students in Clark County are not proficient. Clark County is ranked 49 out of 50 metropolitan areas in the nation in quality of education. It is like being on the Titanic and this bill is a life boat for us!”