No One Asked Me But… (November 29, 2023)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… Last week the Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara made a pledge to cooperate with the the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) and the Virgin Valley Community Education Advisory Board (VVCEAB).

His suggestion was to form an action group to study the possibility of establishing a means by which our communities could have more autonomy in regulating our schools. This committee is to be made up of CCSD central office personal and representatives of the two CEABs.

Jara is very much aware of the attempt to break-up CCSD. He is also aware that there is a combined group in our valleys leading the charge for an independent regional school district in northeastern Clark County.

While the group failed in the last legislature, they are still working hard for an independent district in the 2025 legislature. However, at best that is four years down the road.

The group recommended by Dr. Jara would establish a fairly independent organization of our two valleys’ schools. It would be a great interim solution and could help show where the strengths and weakness of independence can be found.

No one asked me but… Our valleys’ schools are an outstanding example of what public school education should be.
What is the difference in our valley schools and the inner-city schools in Clark County?
Is it the curriculum? No! The curriculum is standard throughout the district.
Is it the education of our teachers? No! Our faculties have the same education as those in the inner-city schools.

Is it the school facilities themselves? No! Many of the inner-city schools are newer and more modern than the facilities in our valleys. Mack Lyon Middle School is one of the oldest facilities in the district, but it is still rated exemplary.

Maybe it’s our local administrators? While I respect the local administrators, I know there also are good administrators in the inner-city schools.

I believe community involvement in the schools is a major part of the answer. There is a feeling in our valleys that these are our schools and they are here for us and our children.

There is a strong core of local adult residents who are also a product of these schools. Many of our teachers are alumni of the local schools. There are a large number of former-teachers and administrators who have remained in the valleys upon retirement and are still committed to the schools. The business sector in our valleys is committed to the success of our schools. If you look at the most successful schools in Las Vegas, you will find this same sense of community.

I further believe that teacher commitment to students beyond the requirements of the classroom is also imperative. A central office administrator, reacting to the internet misconduct of a teacher in Las Vegas, stated: “No teacher has any business having contact with any student outside the classroom.” This is the educational equivalent of the brick walls that isolate neighbors in Las Vegas.

I would contend that contact outside the classroom is what makes classroom success happen. Teachers who work with students in extracurricular settings have better relationships with students in the classroom. Teachers who know their students and their parents outside the school setting are more than mere teachers, they are mentors. Teachers and administrators who see students and parents in a community setting deal with students in a much different manner than the teacher and administrator who arrives in the community at 7:00 a.m. and goes home to a different community at 2:30 p.m.

Real educators understand that student commitment to education is imperative and this commitment comes when students interact with teachers who love the subject matter; but even more importantly, love the students to whom they present the material.

There is the old saying: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
What is amazing is that CCSD central continues to work hard at making our valley schools more like the inner-city schools rather than making the inner-city schools more like our valley schools. Where inner-city schools have been successful, they have done everything they could to create physical, social, and economic conditions similar to those our youngsters inherently have and take for granted.

Our students and parents identify with the school. It is something they value and to which they want to belong.

Our youngsters hope to grow up to be Pirates or Bulldogs, depending on which valley you are talking about.

In successful schools, the teachers, administrators and community members have developed a school atmosphere that tells the students they are valued as individuals and education is important.

Unfortunately the educational oases among the inner-city educational setting in CCSD, generally take place in charter schools, like Somerset Academy Losee.

Due to the liberal restorative discipline policies of CCSD, the student bodies of many inner-city schools include drug dealers, gang members, sex offenders, as well as other social misfits. It is amazing that any of the students succeed. Those who do graduate should get a Combat Infantry Badge to go with their diploma.

As educators stand around and chant “O, my, what can the matter be…” most of them know but don’t want to deal with it.

It is so much easier to give another test and then blame the students for not passing it. CCSD central office administrators are very good at pretending they don’t know what the problem is because they feel it is politically incorrect to talk of economic and social factors.

What is really interesting is those very people who insist the program is broken challenge any attempt to fix it. Rather than center on the areas of inadequacies, those who attack education paint the whole system with the same brush. Instead of surgically removing the dead tissue, they use a radiation treatment that attacks the good with the bad.

Why not leave those schools that are successful alone and work on programs for the failing schools in the district?
Why not attack those areas with radical reforms?

Oh, and by the way, our education system is failing these students as it is but let’s not change it for them. Let us spend time, effort and money placing a greater burden on successful schools, to a point of where they will become less adequate. Tell me the logic of that argument!

Thought of the Week… Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
– John Kennedy