OPEN FORUM: Strengthening public education

Nevada never intended Clark County School District (CCSD) to grow to its monstrous 300K student size. This happened because Nevada chose county lines as school district boundaries back in 1956. In 2023, just CCSD’s student enrollment was 5 times larger than the entire Clark County population in 1956.

Two reasons account for this: firstly, convenient “county line” district definitions, and secondly, an unanticipated Clark County population explosion.

Ask yourself this question: If you were to design the most optimal education experience for your children in the Moapa (MV) and Virgin Valley (VV) communities, would you propose we join a super-sized district located in Las Vegas?

The CCSD mega-district comes with high membership costs for MV and VV:

1. We are isolated by 50-90 miles from most CCSD services, making our rural needs secondary to 98% of CCSD’s urban enrollment;

2. CCSD is not eligible for rural grants because it is an urban district;

3. We have limited to no access for behavioral specialists and special needs programs;

4. We have no effective access to magnet schools, technical schools, or other CCSD wrap-around programs;

5. We have delayed or limited maintenance support for AC, plumbing, electrical, and other services.

The VV and MV communities have made numerous efforts for over 20 years in the form of letters, attended school board meetings, and even meetings with the superintendent to plead and brainstorm for solutions. CCSD has no current solutions in sight for our remote areas. Instead, they force schedule changes based on erroneous information and cut teachers and programs based on their urban model.

Where are the huge benefits that justify these high CCSD membership costs? CCSD parrots a common theme, “our size allows economies of scale.” This business term refers to how larger size reduces costs by increasing efficiency. While this is true, proponents ignore the hidden ugly twin, “dis-economies of scale.” They do this by not separating types of expenses. When a school district grows, some costs initially drop. These are usually non-educational expenses like food service, buses, specialty services, equipment purchases, etc. The dis-economies of scale occur with educational performance (i.e., test scores; skills competency; student, teacher, and parent satisfaction with administration).

In the past we have overcome CCSD’s dis-economies of scale through sacrifice and community dedication from teachers, administrators, businesses, and parents. This has allowed our children to shine in the face of such adversity.

However, we’ve reached a point where the price isn’t worth the sacrifice. Lest we forget when I-15 washed out and kids from Moapa couldn’t get home because CCSD was paralyzed; or the COVID policy fiasco that, among many things, starved our kids on extracurricular bus trips. We need to look forward to a future where our district creates solutions rather than obstacles that come from indifference and bureaucracy.

Because CCSD has resisted any meaningful internal reform, even from the State, the time is right to create a new regional Northeast Clark County School District to empower local teachers, parents, and administrators to create solutions.

If you’d like to learn more about the efforts behind creating a new regional Northeast Clark County School District (NECCSD) and/or make suggestions or contributions, visit the Friends of Regional School District (FRSD) website at https://www.frsdinfo.org/

Josh Witter grew up attending CCSD schools and is an MVHS graduate. He recently moved back to Logandale with his wife Cydney and their three kids (soon to be four). He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in Economics from BYU. He works on education, job training, and employee safety research for Amazon in Las Vegas. He recently joined the FRSD committee to assist in designing education policies that make sense for students in northeast Clark County.