Wade Vandervort
Superintendent Jesus Jara will attend a meeting of the CCSD School Board of Trustees at the Clark County School District Education Center on Thursday, October 28, 2021.
Sunday, November 28, 2021 | 2 a.m
Recent demonstrations of dysfunctional leadership by the Clark County School District Board and the Nevada Board of Regents have sparked discussions about how these bodies can be restructured or redesigned to make them more effective. Ideas include appointing some or all of the regents, increasing the requirements for board membership, and increasing salaries.
But while all of these ideas are worth discussing, the conversation takes away a fundamental and immediate need. At all levels, our community needs responsible, moderate and qualified leaders in order to develop.
The Sun will offer more on the subject in the coming months, but the disastrous situations at CCSD and the higher education system are crying out for good candidates – people devoted to education, not a particular ideology – to positions on these boards in the 2022 election to occupy.
This also applies to other offices in order to fend off a movement by extremists to fill management positions, even in politically largely impartial areas.
Not only that, but nationwide extremists have become a growing presence in meetings at these levels where they seek to intimidate leaders into indulging their wants and desires. Our community needs responsible, moderate, and skilled individuals to withstand this element, keep extremist politics on the sidelines, where it belongs, and work in the best interests of southern Nevada as a whole.
We have already seen the chaos that can result from this movement as the CCSD’s pandemic precautions have sparked an outcry among anti-Vax and anti-mask parents against Superintendent Jesus Jara. Undoubtedly, the noise from these trolls played a role in the board’s vote in late October to fire Jara, which threw the district into an uproar that continues despite the vote being withdrawn last week. Jara has not indicated if he will keep his job and the board has no idea how to replace him. This is terrible in a district where students and families are still trying to get past the disruptions of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the chief administrator of the Nevada system, Chancellor Melody Rose, claims that pandemic protection was a key issue in her complaint against Chairwoman of the Regents, Cathy McAdoo and Vice-Chairperson Patrick Carter.
Rose alleged in the complaint that after McAdoo and Carter announced they were working on implementing a vaccine mandate for the eight institutions overseen by the Nevada System of Higher Education, they launched an orchestrated campaign to oust them. Rose said the two board members demeaned her, undermined her authority, discriminated against her based on gender, and committed several violations of ethics and code of conduct guidelines to get rid of her.
For both the regents and the trustees of the CCSD, dealing with these situations underscored the need for higher quality leadership.
McAdoo and Carter ensured that oversight of the system was blocked for weeks by refusing to step down from their officer positions while Rose’s allegations are investigated. It should have been instinctual for these two to give up the officers’ seats – keeping them was an obvious conflict of interest. As part of the oversight structure, the chairman and vice chairman usually work closely with the registrar to determine and prioritize the affairs of the regents and to maintain the effective day-to-day operation of the system. With no communication between Rose, McAdoo, and Carter, the system paralyzed until the regents finally voted to replace his officers.
This vote was also too long in coming. It only took five votes to get the leadership vote through, but it took a few responsible regents – John T. Moran and Amy Carvalho – weeks to convince enough of their peers to get involved and do the right thing to do.
As for the trustees of the CCSD, it was an amazing show of bad leadership for the four board members who voted to fire Jara without a succession plan.
Now the district is in limbo.
The Sun knows we have readers who understand that things need to change and are able to make a difference.
To borrow from the famous Uncle Sam military recruitment posters, Las Vegas wants you.
We need leaders who are well educated, experienced in organizational leadership and who are watching the extremism insurgency with growing concern.
With the submission deadlines for a number of political positions coming up this spring, it is not too early to consider running.
It is one thing for our community to change the structure of the boards or increase the pay or requirements. (Especially requirements for the regents and the school board, both of which currently do not even require a university degree. That is embarrassing when you consider that it is about education.)
But regardless of how positions are set up, their success or failure depends on smart, level-headed, and capable people who come forward and make things work.
