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Clark County School Board Meetings

Clark County School Board Meeting Similarities and Differences

Artifact #1: EDU-210 Nevada School Law

Evelyn Hernandez, Maria Garcia, Leticia Siqueiros, Maritza Cardenas

College of Southern Nevada

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Clark County School Board Meetings

As future Clark County School teachers, we are highly encouraged to know about who we are

working for, what our rights are, and what it is that we need to fight for. Our school district is made up

of seven school board trustees who get to make decision about how our school system is ran. It is up to

us as employees, parents, and the community to make sure our voices are heard about the choices

being made. We each had the opportunity to view different school board meetings and elaborate within

each other about the differences and similarities.

Maritza Cardenas 10/13/2016

School board meeting taking place on October 13, 2016 began with a proper

introduction, introducing all of the school board member trustees. Lind D. Young the president

began with listing the agenda. As I began to watch the meeting, I took notice in the fact that

there was barely anyone in the audience. Two women packed their belonging and walked out

five minutes into the meeting. As Lind D. Young listed the discussion topics she would ask the

trustees and the public for any comments or questions on the topic. Unfortunately, most of the

topics had no one from the public on the list to speak their views., or the person listed was not

present in the meeting.

Three different support staff personnel spoke about the issue of CCSD employees not

receiving the raise that is well deserved. A woman mention that during the event of Week of

Respect all board members participated and encouraged respect within the community. She

felt betrayal as she feels no respect from any of them. An ESEA representative also came up to

the podium to discuss the pay of the employees.

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Clark County School Board Meetings

They discussed about different ways to make the meeting more known to the people.

They mentioned about possibly creating a live stream meeting with possibly using a live

questionnaire. The public that is not able to attend the meetings can call in and participate.

School Board members spoke about different school events coming up. One of them was the

Board Walk that will take place in Western High School in March. They will be promoting

healthy life styles and have activities for the students. The meeting felt informal as the would

go back and think about what they would speak of next. Side comments were made that

weren’t necessary for example, one trustee mentioned that she would be unable to attend the

Board Walk event. I learned a lot about what is going on in our district and came to realization

that we all need to become more aware of our school district.

Clark County School Board meeting

Evelyn Hernandez November 10, 2016

During my school board meeting experience, I learned about the abundant proceedings

that happened throughout the meeting. Not only did the board of trustees attend, but also

parents, students, teachers and association administrators. Everyone came together and

addressed issues happening throughout the school and community. This meeting was very

formal and organized. Clark County School Board meetings always seem to have an agenda

routine. Beginning with a flag salute, sometimes the meeting follows with agenda item 1.02

invocation.

However, this meeting went from initiating with a flag salute to three members of the

community pleading with the trustees to reconsider their decision and keep Fremont
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Clark County School Board Meetings

Elementary School open. The community members continued and explained the many

obstacles younger students must face if in fact the board decided to close Fremont ES. For

instance, students must wake up earlier to travel to a farther school.

Next, it was interesting to see how one parent came out strong in defense for his son

reporting to the trustees about a teacher violating students’ rights. His son’s teacher did not

allow the student to use the restroom. Thus, the student had an incident. The students father

warned the trustees of a similar case that occurred in San Diego, California that resulted in a

lawsuit.

One concerned teacher from Rancho High School spoke about the inconveniences of

teaching education in portable classrooms. He explained about the need for re-zoning and

facility expansion. He also explained about the disadvantages students undergo when attending

class in parked portables. Throughout the meeting, superintendent Pat Skorkosky reported to

the trustees about new updates that have recently occurred. He covered important topics such

as, school organization functions, communication, budgets, training, and parent involvement.

I enjoyed everything that took place during the meeting. I appreciate that parents and

community members, teachers and students are all able to speak up during these meetings and

speak without restraint about issues happening in our community.

Leticia Siqueiros December 7 2016

The school board meeting was a “special meeting” held on Dec. 7, 2016. The board meeting was

about 2 months ago and it was addressing school funds, hardware and technical resources. The

meeting was awfully long, it was four hours and thirty minutes. The difference between the first
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Clark County School Board Meetings

meeting and the others is that there was obvious personal problems between the public

employees and they allowed that to get in between them. There is better communication in some

than in others and more professionalism. My meeting was by far the most informal. I did have to

skim through some of it, considering that some parts of the video were awkward to watch. It was

uncomfortable as “the audience” to watch because one of the superintendents and two of the

trustees had issues and it was getting super personal and real. There was a lot of

miscommunication between the superintendents and trustees, as they were trying to figure out if

the hiring of another agent to better organize their meetings was needed. In the end the

superintendent and the trustees came to an agreement which was to provide them with special

programs to enhance their meetings. The last couple minutes included that particular

superintendent calling on the two trustee addressing a rumor about him and whether or not it was

true. It was hilarious to watch, for my first school board meeting. I would change everything in

general. I would suggest hiring that extra agent, that most of the trustees seem to be requesting to

help them organize their meetings. I did learn the true purpose of these school board meetings

and that is that it is a critical public link to public schools. The school board meetings are held to

served communities and districts. If the public has any concerns it is the school board that help

decide what differences should be made to better public schools.

Maria Garcia 12/8/2016

I learned that in the beginning of the meeting they prayed and I found that to be rather interesting

due to that fact that we can't express religion at school. Professors argued how they don't get

anything while school police get new raises, but that's due to the fact that they have new

bargaining group than teachers. A UNLV professor also discussed how CCSD wants to close a

school without revealing it to the community and he wants to know why is that. One of the last
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Clark County School Board Meetings

speaker was more concerned about improving Nevada. Creating conditions for successful

students, making sure every kid is open to a five star education.

Overall, we learned plentiful amount of information throughout our meetings. Some of

the similarities we discovered not only as a student, but as respective teachers that not all board

meetings are formal that some could be intense and poorly organized. Board meetings are long-

lasting while others short. They speak of important and debatable topics. We mainly agreed that

we all need to become more involved and aware of the different issues that are occurring within

our state's educational system.