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CCSD needs meaningful change in wake of brutal attack
This is what we know. A 26-year-old, second year teacher at Eldorado High School opened the door for one of her students at the end of the school day on Thursday, April 7. Jonathan Eluterio Martinez Garcia, 16, said he wanted to know about missing assignments. The teacher walked to her desk and sat down […]
State Board of Ed threatens CCSD with receivership: What might that mean?
On March 14 the AB469 subcommittee for the Nevada State Board of Education met to discuss the authority the state has to put the Clark County School District into receivership for not implementing the reorganization law, which was passed in 2017. There’s been a lot of speculation on what this means. The district, of course, […]
Who ya gonna call? Gate Busters!
The ghost of Emily Litella inhabited the CCSD boardroom last Thursday during a meeting whose main agenda was supposed to be about how to address escalating school violence. Instead, most commenters pointed to an item Supt. Jesus Jara and his team seemingly snuck into the consent agenda that would, on the surface, fund police officers […]
Party like it’s 1994
Supt. Jesus Jara demonstrated my favorite word again at the CCSD Trustees meeting last week when he tried to argue that it wasn’t his fault so many teachers are leaving the district. At the beginning of the discussion about his performance evaluation, he noted, “the last time the Clark County School District opened fully staffed […]
Firing Jara was Cepeda’s idea, say two trustees
On October 6, 2021, the Board of Trustees for the Clark County School District were told after their work session that they needed to go into a closed meeting. None of them were aware of what the closed meeting was about and, by all accounts, were pretty shell-shocked when chief negotiator Fikisha Miller walked in […]
This way madness lies
I spent last weekend reading King Lear. And Facebook. One is about a world that is degenerating into madness in the face of a great storm, where nothing is what it seems and nihilism and betrayal are everywhere. The other is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. It started Friday, when two pieces of news collided. […]
A heartbreaking year at CCSD
This is the week of the year when we journalists look back and give a summary of what we’ve been writing about or reporting on. This is my summary: It was chaos. Utter chaos. That’s pretty much it. Thanks for reading, folks! OK, fine. I’ve been writing about CCSD, of course. Specifically the Board of […]
Chaos is the point
It’s deja vu all over again at the Clark County School district, where Supt. Jesus Jara is still in charge (or maybe was never not in charge) after a protracted negotiation with CCSD Trustees. Presumably, the negotiation included, “I can do anything I want and no one can stop me,” because that is the gauntlet […]
Evelyn Doublespeak and the Gaslighters
Doublespeak: deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language. Example: I’m sorry you were offended by my motion suggesting you might not be fit to live. It was not my intent to offend you. I am just stating a fact based on the, um, facts that your behavior has demonstrated on certain, perhaps, occasions when there is […]
Fired but not gone yet, Jara still roiling CCSD
Recently fired CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara started out his first week as a lame duck by announcing he was giving raises to 16 of his top staffers – including 15 currently employed people and one Chief Information Officer to be named later. Then, the Trustees who are loyal to the ousted superintendent derailed an attempt […]
Cirque du CCSD
The Clark County School District’s latest environmental performance piece Thursday was one of the best theatrical spectacles I have ever had the pleasure of attending. It was funny. It was infuriating. It had unexpected plot twists. It had suspense. A lot of suspense. It was incredibly interactive. And, ultimately, it came to a resolution. A […]
Will Jara’s dictatorial tendencies come back to bite him?
“Don’t use my name.” “I never spoke to you.” “Somebody’s got to expose what’s happening here, Carrie.” “It’s a culture of retaliation.” “They give us responsibility, then set out to undermine us so we will fail.” These are actual quotes – chosen from a bevy I’ve collected over the last couple of years – that […]