Author

Carrie Kaufman

Carrie Kaufman

Broadcast, digital and print journalist Carrie Kaufman writes the You're Overthinking It newsletter on Substack. She has covered the Clark County School District for public radio and The Nevada Voice since 2015. Follow Carrie on Twitter: @CarrieKaufman

COMMENTARY
bus bus bus

Well, THAT’s specious

By: - October 14, 2021

Regular readers of my columns will not be surprised to learn that I have favorite words. “Hyperbole” is one. I love the way it rolls off the tongue, though I don’t love when people exemplify it. “Onomatopoeia” is another. I mean, seriously, what a fun word to say. And I love the idea that there […]

COMMENTARY

How mean girls work, or why the CCSD Trustees are the most sexist group I’ve ever seen

By: - August 16, 2021

Last week I wrote about speech in public meetings. Today I want to talk about something courts have pretty much avoided, which is the ways in which people use speech. Not what is said, but how we say it. A few years ago, I happened upon the movie “Seeing Allred” on Netflix. There was a […]

COMMENTARY

The First Amendment and public meetings: It’s complicated.

By: - August 12, 2021

On June 24, the CCSD Board of Trustees meeting was delayed several times by disruptive behavior, heckling and verbal threats, which created, for many people, an atmosphere of hostility.  At the next Trustee meeting, on July 8, Trustee Lola Brooks laid the blame for the prior meeting’s disruption at the feet of board president Linda […]

COMMENTARY

Principals vs. teachers

By: - June 22, 2021

Ladies and Gentlemen (and non-binary and gender fluid individuals) welcome to the intermediate round of The Fight Over Control of Our Schools. In one corner we have AB469, the 2017 bill that created Clark County School District reorganization, represented by THE PRINCIPALS! In the other corner, we have… the UNIONS, represented by… lots of people […]

COMMENTARY

They’re NOT racists. Just ask them.

By: - June 3, 2021

“The lady doth protests too much, methinks.” So says Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, during the play within a play scene toward the end of Hamlet. Shakespeare’s Danish prince has constructed the play so he could show his mother and his uncle/stepfather that he knows they killed his father. Gertrude is reacting with annoyance to the character […]

COMMENTARY

A CCSD Passion Play, Act 2: Waiting for God… Oh?

By: - May 20, 2021

Yesterday I wrote about the latest environmental performance piece produced by the Clark County School District Board of Trustees – otherwise known as their bi-weekly meeting. Today we’re going to talk about the through-line of the piece, the central idea of the performance – whether to prop up The Man.  Let’s go over the characters […]

COMMENTARY

A CCSD passion play, act 1: ‘Tis Mad Idolatry

By: - May 19, 2021

I love environmental theatre.  Maria Irene Fornes’ enigmatic avant garde piece, “Fefu and Her Friends,” has been a fave since college days. The show takes place in four rooms of a home in which the audience walks through, spending 10 minutes with each story. It has a cast of eight women, and was regarded as […]

COMMENTARY

CCSD: If you can’t beat ‘em, bribe ‘em

By: - April 29, 2021

Supt. Jesus Jara has tried since he arrived in 2018 to undermine both the school reorganization law (AB469) and the administrators who have been defending it. Regular readers know he tried an end run around principals last summer, attempting to con the Legislature into centralizing control over carryover funds, which are now controlled by individual […]

COMMENTARY

Things that make me scratch my head

By: - March 26, 2021

There are things in life that just make me scratch my head. I’ve learned to shrug it off. For instance, when my kids were younger, I wondered – and actually wrote about – why Hannah Montana never, until the last season, mentioned her mother, who died sometime before she was 12. I mean, isn’t losing […]

COMMENTARY
Superintendent Jesus Jara

CCSD Supt. Jara thinks his contract runs until 2023

By: - March 11, 2021

CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara’s contract runs out on June 30, 2021. But his representatives argued in two letters to CCSD outgoing attorney Mary-Anne Miller that his contract actually expires in 2023. The letters concern the automatic renewal clause in Jara’s contract – usually a fairly straightforward extension clause after the stated term of the agreement […]

COMMENTARY

CCSD now teaching students it’s OK to plagiarize

By: - March 2, 2021

Nathan Trenholm blew away the wealthy business people sitting in the Smith Center’s main theatre. It was at the BE Engaged Conference in 2019, where principals and admin rub shoulders with the people they hope to partner with, to plug the funding holes in their budgets. Trenholm gave a clear, concise, entertaining 17-minute presentation showing […]

COMMENTARY
no income tax tho!

CCSD to school: Spend money we haven’t given you yet, and may not ever give you

By: - February 23, 2021

Dear Clark County School Trustees, I was recently forwarded a letter that had been sent to you from your boss… er, employee… Jason Goudie, who is, of course, the Chief Financial Officer of CCSD. The letter was in answer to my last column in the Nevada Current, detailing the Academic Support Funds shortfall to Bailey […]