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Residents in two Clark County School Division districts will decide Board of Trustee nominees on Tuesday. The top two candidates in Districts A and B will advance to the general election ballot in November, when school trustees will be decided.
Both of the district’s current trustees are being forced to step aside after term limits were brought into place earlier this year. District A Trustee Mary Beth Scow and District B Trustee Ruth L. Johnson have been trustees since 1996.
The main issues of the campaign include where to make cuts to the district budget, whether to allow the use of education vouchers at private schools and whether the district, which is the fifth largest in the nation, should look at breaking itself up into smaller, more manageable districts or sub-districts.
District A
Though five people indicated they would seek a seat on the Clark County School District’s Board of Trustees, just three names will be on the District A ballot Tuesday.
Board chairman and 12-year veteran Mary Beth Scow was prohibited from seeking re-election after a Nevada Supreme Court decision instated term limits. Former candidate Gordon Hale withdrew from the race.
Following Scow’s failed legal challenge and reluctant withdrawal from the race, she eventually threw her support behind a former opponent.
“I interviewed all three candidates … and I am going to endorse Deanna Wright,” Scow said. “I felt Deanna had the kids more at heart. I think that … her decisions would be made in the best interests of the kids.”
Wright is a 37-year-old homemaker who has two children in Clark County schools. She entered the race because she is “concerned about the education in Clark County from (kindergarten) all the way through high school” and believes, if elected, she will bring “new ideas, some fresh perspective, and some fresh blood, so to speak.”
Her challengers are Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of the county’s Education Services division, and 55-year-old tax consultant Steve Bergstrom.
After 28 years with the Clark County School District, Goldman said he feels he has the necessary “knowledge, experience and awareness” to serve as trustee. Bergstrom, meanwhile, thinks his no-nonsense approach, paired with his enthusiasm and emphasis on engaging students, teachers and the community make him the right person for the job.
“Teachers right now are teaching their students how to pass tests instead of about how to learn about a subject,” he said. “We need to change that.”
All three hopefuls said wasteful spending on support staff, whether it be with middle-management, maintenance or elsewhere, needs to be addressed in order to find part of the $136 million in cuts the board must make to the district’s $1.2 billion operating budget.
Wright believes cuts will have to be made to after-school programs, and fees for supplemental subjects, such as band and choir,will have to be added or, in some cases, raised.
“I really want those things to be accessible to everybody, but the reality is that if the budget continues to be cut, and we don’t want to cut (core subject areas), the peripheral things are the things that will go first,” she said.
Goldman said increasing class sizes would be a last resort and instead thinks block scheduling, which allows high school students to take 32 classes instead of the standard 24, should be put on the chopping block.
“(Block scheduling is) nice, but we can’t afford that when we’re being asked to make these kinds of cuts,” he said.
Bergstrom, on the other hand, is advocating for expanded course selection to re-engage students.
“We are losing the enthusiasm of the students and the teachers,” he said.
The father of seven would like to improve access to magnet programs, like the one at Rancho High School that inspired one of his children, to rekindle enthusiasm for learning across the district.
He said he believes students should be able to attend any school they want, regardless of where they live.
He’s advocating for choice in respect to both course selection and schools, and believes vouchers should be available for private schools, as well.
Goldman said he would be willing to look at opening a voucher program that would allow parents to send their children to whatever private school they chose.
“I’m open to discussion about it, it does not frighten me,” he said.
Wright, however, is opposed to the idea.
“I don’t think we need to take more funding away from our public education and put in it private schools … the ones left behind will suffer,” she said.
Bergstrom said he believes expanded course selection will help improve the district’s high school drop-out rate, which is currently one of the highest in the country.
That statistic is something Wright and Goldman both want to address.
“I’m very concerned about drop-out rates at high schools,” Wright said. “I think that it’s imperative that kids … get a high school diploma.”
Goldman is looking for a structured teaching approach to bring consistency to the transient school district. Standardized textbooks also factor into the 51-year-old’s plans and he would also like to improve teacher morale.
“We need to work at making this a place where they want to stay,” he said, noting the district loses about 5,000 of its 18,000 teachers every year.
None of the candidates are eager to split the division into smaller divisions or sub-divisions, but none of them strongly oppose the idea, either.
“It’s not my number one priority … but I’m not opposed to the option,” Bergstrom said.
Goldman holds the strongest position on the subject.
“I believe that the district is too large, (and) I do support the idea of a Henderson school district.
“If (the school division) is broken up, I believe it should be done on a municipal boundary basis and it should be permissive,” Goldman said. “Cities within the county should be allowed to form their own districts.”
Wright, on the other hand, said she thinks a north-south split would be more appropriate: “What we need to do is break what we have now … down the middle, through the center of Las Vegas and have two superintendents.” She calls her idea a “division within a division” approach.
Still, Wright said it would be “a logistical nightmare” and wonders how schools, land and equipment, like busses, would be divided.
Splitting or subdividing the Clark County School District would require state legislation and a possible local referendum.
This is the first time Wright has sought public office. Meanwhile, Goldman unsuccessfully ran against John Hawk in the 2000 race for State Board of Education, and Bergstrom lost his 2002 bid for Constable of North Las Vegas to Herb Brown.
District B
The race in District B is being fought four ways, after incumbent Ruth L. Johnson was forced out after term limits were brought in earlier this year. She had been in office since 1996 and endorsed candidate Gaya Guymon after stepping aside.
"Gaya Guymon … knows the schools, she knows the community, she knows the growth challenges that we are facing," Johnson said in a statement.
Guymon, however, could not be reached for comment and did not return phone calls late last week.
Her challengers are Ron Taylor, Mike Noland and Chris Garvey.
Taylor is a 57-year-old middle school teacher with 20 years of teaching experience who says he’s “a classroom teacher that knows what goes on in the classroom.” If elected, he promises to be an advocate for district teachers.
“I’m not afraid to do what needs to be done,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult, but it needs to be done.”
After teaching at the state prison for the past two years, he will engage seventh and eighth grade students at Levitt Middle School this fall.
His opponent, former custodian and building engineer Noland, retired last year after 27 years with the Clark County School District. He said he believes his first-hand experience with the school system would be an asset if he is elected trustee.
“The main issues are to get more money for the teaching staff so they can do a better job with the kids,” he said. “If you have 30 or 35 kids in a classroom it’s difficult to give them everything you need to.”
Although Garvey has yet to collect a paycheck from the district, she has been involved in the county’s school system for nearly two decades, serving on a variety of committees and working to build coalitions, improve zoning, and on the district’s bond issue, he said.
The mother of three says she has the devotion, efficiency and fresh ideas the position requires, and vows to be accessible to parents, teacher, and the public.
“We need to be proactive in making sure we have clean, safe, well equipped schools so that our children have a place to learn,” she said.
Taylor would like to see existing truancy laws, which apply to students who miss three consecutive days of classes, enforced.
“If a kid isn’t in the classroom, you can’t teach it,” he said. “If a kid is truant for three days, they’re cited and sent to court.”
In terms of budget cuts and money-saving measures, Taylor said the district should sell its plush office building on West Sahara Avenue, which was purchased for $14 million and has undergone $6 million in additional improvements.
He also sees potential savings in the district’s $30 million consulting budget and would like to look at the current out-of-classroom specialists program at elementary schools.
Noland said millions of dollars could be saved if the district made an effort to spend its money wisely. He point to lighting as one example and suggests each elementary school could save $10,000 per year if it used more efficient light bulbs. These savings, Noland said, would translate into between $1.8 to $2.1 million in savings per year.
When asked about budget cuts, Garvey pointed to the district’s large administration, and inefficiencies across the system. “We need to get our house in order (and) look at how we’re using our money,” she said.
Garvey cited financial reasons, such as the duplication of services and infrastructure, as reason for not dividing the school division, which some have proposed.
“I oppose breaking up the school district at this point,” she said. “I don’t think we have the financial flexibility to do it … We need to focus on streamlining and making our existing system better.”
Noland also opposes breaking up the school district, suggesting, “It makes no sense.”
“(I) don’t see any savings there. In fact, I see a big loss there … If you look at it, you’re adding 35 more board members and then you’re looking at five more superintendents and maybe 40 more administrators at the upper level per district … And some of the areas would be in big trouble because there’s not the tax base there for them.”
Taylor disagrees. He said it is simply a matter of time before the Clark County School District is split up.
“We’ve already got regions right now … Now it’s just a matter of saying, OK, we need to get rid of this top-heavy administration and split it up,” Taylor said.
In the meantime, however, he would like to see outlying cities in Division B be better served. “They’re 80 miles away and they’re treated like stepchildren,” he said. “At the very least, Mesquite and Moapa need to have their own trustee.”
Taylor also supports the notion of education vouchers for private schools. “I’m not opposed to it as long as private schools are held to the same standards as public schools,” he says, “(but) there’s no empty seats in private schools so it’s really not an issue.”
His opponents, meanwhile, do not support the idea. “With the school district the way that it is, we really don’t need to take any money away from it,” Noland said.
Garvey shares his position: “I don’t support vouchers,” she said, suggesting the district’s current empowerment programs, magnet schools and charter schools are adequate means of enhanced, publicly-funded education.
None of the District B candidates have previously sought public office, with the exception of Taylor, who launched an unsuccessful campaign in the early 90s for District 4 State Assembly.
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