The Ed-Watch series is designed to increase access to information on what decisions are being made regarding public education in Clark County and Nevada.
Clark County School District Board of Trustees
What is the Board of Trustees & what are they responsible for? The CCSD Trustees are publicly elected decision-makers for the school district. They are responsible for providing oversight to the Superintendent and establishing District-wide policy. Trustees are accountable to work with their communities to improve student achievement.
Click here to learn more and see a list of current Trustees
Click here to Find your Trustee District
How often does the Board of Trustees meet? Trustees meet twice per month (second and fourth Thursdays) at 5pm at the Edward A. Greer Education Center (Board Room): 2832 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89121.
Click here for a full list of Trustees meetings and agendas
Click here to visit Hope For Nevada’s #NVEd Calendar
Can community members engage at Trustee Meetings? Decision-making bodies benefit greatly from hearing public input and multiple perspectives. Community members can sign up to speak after the agenda has been posted– by calling the Board Office at (702) 799-1072 at least 3 hours before the scheduled meeting, or signing up in-person at the beginning of the meeting. Prior to each agenda item being voted on, speakers can share their perspective after the Board’s discussion and prior to the vote.
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Clark County School District Board of Trustees Meeting
Click here to see the meeting agenda & addendum
What happened at this meeting?
Public Comment
Members of the public submitted comments online. Public comment was not read directly into the record, rather an oral summary of the comments was provided to Trustees.
- Click here to view public comment submitted on agenda items
- Click here to view public comment submitted on non-agenda items
Board Approved Consent Agenda
Highlights include:
- Approval to purchase assessment supplies from NCS Pearson for use by licensed school psychologists and psychological services assistants to assess students for special education
- Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Silver State Health Services to provide physical and mental health care services and supports to students at no cost
Board Approved Purchase Awards
The approved $28 million for chrome-based devices and $4.8 million for T-mobile WIFI hotspots. The board also approved entering into contracts with Cox Communications ($4.8 million) to purchase in-home internet services through August 2021, and Kajeet ($1.8 million) for up to 5,000 mobile hotspots to provide qualifying students in CCSD households cellular hotspot devices.
Board Approved Construction Change Order
Change orders come before the board when the actual cost of construction for a new school building or school improvement increases more than 3% percent or 5% respectively. CCSD staff, Superintendent Jara, and the Board discussed reviewing the change order process regularly to identify and remediate potential inefficiencies in the process and decrease risk of increased expenses.
Click here to view all change orders.
Board Approved Notices of Intent to Change Board Policies & District Regulations
The following Board Policies will come back before the board for approval at the August 27 Trustee Meeting:
- B/SL-2: Unity of Control
- B/SL-4: Delegation to the Superintendent
- SE-1: Global Executive Assurances
- SE-2.1: Commitment to Diversity
- SE-3: Treatment of Students and their Families
The following District Regulations will come back before the board for approval at the September 10 Trustee Meeting:
Board Heard Update on Human Capital Management System (HCMS) Remediation
In December 2019, CCSD transitioned to a new Human Capital Management System (HCM). Due to implementation errors, issues arose including teachers not receiving pay or being underpaid, substitute teachers receiving inaccurate pay, and inability to post open job positions. CCSD is working with a technology implementation consultant to refine and reimplement the HCMS. The consultant provided updates on the implementation remediation to date, stating that 95% of remediation tasks have been completed, with the remaining tasks related to long-term training and implementation. Implementation barriers that caused the initial implementation issues included:
- Budget & staffing constraints,
- Isolated testing and training,
- Lack of sustainability planning for employee turnover & training, and
- Insufficient vendor/implementation partner knowledge to address complex scenarios.
The implementation remediation process will be completed in early 2021.
Click here to see the presentation
Board Approved Medium-Term Bond Authorization Resolution
The approval allows CCSD to finance all or a portion of the cost of acquiring, improving, and equipping school facilities, including transportation. The medium-term obligations will be repaid within a ten-year period, subject to approval by the State of Nevada Department of Taxation.
Click here to see the Resolution
Board Approved Data-sharing Agreement with Community Partners
Due to meeting broadcast issues, portions of this presentation and discussion were not available to view by the public.
CCSD has launched a Family Support Center to facilitate families’ access to devices and internet connectivity. The Family Support Center is supported through the statewide effort, Connecting Kids, a partnership with districts, community organizations, and the Nevada COVID-19 Response, Relief, and Recovery Task Force.
The Family Support Center serves as a call center & central point for families to communicate their connectivity and device needs, and provide updated contact information. Trustees approved a data sharing agreement with Cox Communications in order to directly communicate student household information to install/connect internet services.
Additionally, the data sharing agreement allows for community partners and volunteers to continue to staff the Family Support Center at the scale necessary to connect the remaining 100,000 students in the district with unknown connectivity and device needs.
Families can get in touch with the Family Support Center at 888-616-2476 or connectingkidsnv.org.
Click here to see the data sharing agreement
Click here to view the Family Support Center hotline script
Board Heard Updates from Superintendent Jara
- Budget:
- Overall, the Nevada Legislature and Governor cut $170 million to K-12 education in Nevada, and $92 million from CCSD; however, CCSD expects to receive approximately $80 million in federal emergency funding, as well as $37 million provided through AB3 of the 2020 Second Special Session, for a net budget cut for schools of approximately $40 million, or about $125 per pupil. School principals and School Organizational Teams (SOTs) will make budget reduction decisions in September.
- Professional Learning:
- Educators have been engaging with professional learning to familiarize with Canvas, the online Learning Management System that the district will utilize in conjunction with Google Classroom. Parents will be provided with online learning modules to learn how to access and navigate Canvas and Google Classroom as well.