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War and mutiny in Nevada education
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the phrase “the enemy of your enemy is your friend.” I’ve never really thought that was true. But then again, I’m not transactional. And that’s a very transactional view of the world. Last weekend, as Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group forces took over a Russian town east of the […]
Is the governor’s threat much ado about nothing?
This past Friday, just as Clark County lawmakers were boarding planes heading back to see their families for the weekend, Gov. Joe Lombardo laid down a gauntlet. He threatened to veto a school safety bill that was heard the day before in the Senate Committee on Education unless HIS school safety bill was also heard. […]
CCSD Board does not need appointed trustees. It needs oversight.
One of the most contentious bills in Carson City right now, some 20 days from the end of session, is AB175 – appointing four members to the Clark County School District Board of Trustees. Those four members would be chosen by the Clark County Commission and the three largest cities in the county – which […]
My favorite thing about Las Vegas
There are giants in the sky. Big tall, beautiful, (sometimes) scary giants in the sky. They are as much a part of the desert valley landscape as the phallic light from the pyramid; or the green glow from the erstwhile-named movie studio turned resort; or the muscular mountain gods surrounding us, watching over us, occasionally […]
The Worm Squirms: Nevada senators show what CCSD oversight can look like
Superintendent Jesus Jara and CCSD Police Chief Mike Blackeye were called to a joint meeting of the Senate Judiciary and Education committees on Wednesday. The ostensible reason was to answer for the abuse of force at Durango High School shown in this viral video. But senators were told at the outset that they couldn’t talk […]
Let’s Do The Timewarp Again
Saw an ad the other night that made me wonder if perhaps I had time-traveled. It was a GOP attack ad on the Nevada Congressional Democrats – Dina Titus, Susie Lee, Steven Horsford, Catherine Cortez-Masto. The ad wasn’t about them. And it wasn’t about reality. It was run by a group called Citizens for Sanity, […]
Breaking systems, harming families
Last month, I read with awe the incredible Caitlin Dickerson story in The Atlantic. The piece delved into what really happened with Trump’s family separation border policy in 2018. The piece is long and sprawling and presents a lot of details about ICE and the Dept. of Justice, leaders of Homeland Security, folks in the […]
The CCSD shell game (which they are really bad at playing)
Step right up, hims and hers and theys and thems, to the greatest game in the world. The object of this game is to follow this kernel of truth, which I am putting under one of these three shells. Note the shell that truth is under, and keep track of it as I move the […]
Jara, board attorney moving closer to settlement on ‘hostile work environment’
The $2.6 million that Supt. Jesus Jara was demanding is off the table, with CCSD Board of Trustees moving to agree to pay attorneys fees and play nice with Jara for the rest of his contract. How long the rest of his contract will run is still up in the air, yet a letter from […]
Jara still asking for millions as voters decide on his future
The CCSD Board of Trustees is still negotiating with Supt. Jesus Jara about compensation for his alleged “harassment and retaliation” at the hands of Trustees Danielle Ford, Linda Cavazos and Lisa Guzman when they voted to fire him last October. Remarkably, the majority of trustees seem willing to at least hear him out, if not […]
For CCEA, Democrats are bad because they’re Republicans, but Republicans are good
The nastiness has begun. Just days after heralding in the merry month of May, and the last cool days we in Southern Nevada will experience for the next four months, voters started getting flyers in their mailboxes. Nasty flyers. Untrue flyers. Political flyers. Sent by a group called Strategic Horizons. Which is related to and […]
The accidental superintendent: How Jara was hired, and how he might be getting a contract renewal
This week, with the latest list of licensed personnel separations revealing 148 more teachers heading out the door, Data Insight Partners came out with a damning series of data sets that show how many teachers are leaving CCSD, and how many are expected to leave by August. “It’s bad, and we are in uncharted territory,” […]