Running head: SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 1

Clark County School District Board Meeting

Arleesia Herrera

College of Southern Nevada

SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 2

Clark County School District Board Meeting

The Clark County School district meets several times a month. During these meetings

they discuss matters of public concern, budgets any legal concerns. Each meeting begins

similarly to how a school day begins with the Pledge of Allegiance. The school board president

then opens up each meeting with going over meeting etiquette. The meeting summarized below

is from the Regular School Board meeting held on October 18th, 2018 from opening to first

recess.

Public Comments

The meeting opened with a public forum for citizens or employees to voice their

concerns. Each was given two minutes to speak and told that the board could not take action on

these items, only listen. The first speaker was a CCSD employee who voiced her concerns on

staffing. She noted that the last time she checked the CCSD job website there about six hundred

and eight vacant positions for Teaching Aides (Clark County School District School Board

Meeting, 2018), mostly in special needs classrooms. Next, she addressed a position that was

eliminated in 2009 due to the recession, the permanent substitute teacher position (Clark County

School District School Board Meeting, 2018). She suggested that this position be brought back

because it was estimate that each school is short anywhere from two to eight substitute teachers a

day.

Next was a citizen who has a family member working in a high school and was concern

about some of the complaints she had regarding safety. He suggested that before entering school

students and teachers should be subject to search (Clark County School District School Board

Meeting, 2018). This would be done with a metal detector and bag search similar to what one

would go through before entering a stadium. He predicted this would only take about fifteen
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minutes. If this was a policy the Board were to adopt, they would need to look into search and

seizure laws to ensure they are performing searches lawfully. He went on to suggest that all cell

phones be banned from school premises (Clark County School District School Board Meeting,

2018). He argued that they create a hostile school environment and perpetuate violence. He also

stated cell phones violate privacy laws because students can record whatever they want

whenever they want on their cellphones.

Agenda Items

The next section of the meeting was to go over consent agenda items that could be voted

on. Two CCSD Employees spoke during this time. The first employee spoke about discipline

concern. She stated there is a growing disrespect for teacher and adults in the school environment

and at a younger and younger age. She suggested that more consequences be available to

teachers to use as punishment for behaviors. The second CCSD employee that spoke also had

concerns about discipline. He agreed that it is a growing problem within the schools but

suggested a different approach. He felt that there is a misunderstanding between teachers and

students because of the growing cultural diversity in schools. He felt that teachers don’t

understand the cultural nuance of their diverse students and tend to over react to what they

perceive as behaviors. He felt that some students were receiving harsher punishments than others

and it was mainly due to a teachers’ culturally insensitivity. He suggested that the Board require

all teachers and staff undergo cultural sensitivity training and the Board implement a progressive

discipline plan, so all students get disciplined equally.

Legal Concerns

A Trustee of the Board then raised questions about a pending legal case. They have been

talking about the case over the past several meetings. What could be gathered from this meeting
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is a handful of teachers had their contracts terminated and were not given due process to dispute

the termination (Clark County School District School Board Meeting, 2018). There were some

questions raised as to why those contracts were terminated, but during this discourse they didn’t

seem to land on anything solid. They also spoke of what could potential happen if this case was

taken to a federal court. One trustee was certain the Board would lose the case and would need to

back-pay these teachers and back-pay would continue to accrue until the day of the judgement

(Clark County School District School Board Meeting, 2018). One Trustee asked if the teachers

had found other employment at this point and whether or not if they found employment would

they be required to still pay back-pay. They discussed briefly what would be in the school’s best

interest as far as this case goes. Terminating a contract without due process and not being sure

why that contract was terminated both seem to put the Board at a disadvantage if the case goes to

federal court.

Additional Agenda Items

The meeting continued onto additional agenda items. The next CSSD employee to speak

raised concerns of administrator abusing staff. For example, there are several staff members who

perform jobs outside of their pay grade (Clark County School District School Board Meeting,

2018). She has found that the work administrators are asking staff to do has open positions on the

CCSD job website. Administrators aren’t hiring for those positions and opting to have

unqualified or untrained staff do the work of two. She also has found that because of the

increased workload staff can’t finish their work and are completing it off the clock (Clark County

School District School Board Meeting, 2018). She insisted the president look into this

immediately.
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Next a teacher spoke about the recently 3% bonus teachers had received. She stated she

was grateful for the bonus but was disappointed to find that since it is a bonus it is taxed at a

higher rate (Clark County School District School Board Meeting, 2018). Also, she again

expressed her appreciation but said it was not enough and just because she is grateful for the pay

raise this in no way means she won’t continue to keep fighting for a fair wage. She also

expressed that support staff, such as custodians, bus drivers and food services, continue to get the

short end of the stick when it comes to pay raises (Clark County School District School Board

Meeting, 2018). Several trustees agreed with her at length about the pay for both teachers and

support staff. One even commented that she’ll be happy she won’t be on the Board during the

next legislation meeting, so she can fight for pay for CCSD employees.

Lastly, before the first recess of the meeting, several employees came up to speak on

exceptional education employees. The Board voted to have three school given the namesake of

the exception educators who were talked about during this meeting. On that high note the Board

took a brief recess.

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References

Clark County School District School Board Meeting. (2018, October 18) Meeting of Board

Trustees. Retrieved from http://ccsd.net/trustees/pdf/agendas/10-18-18-regular-board-

meeting-agenda-pdf