When people think of Las Vegas, they don't normally think of education. If it does cross their mind, my guess is that their thoughts are generally negative. As a student at UNLV, I've heard people on more than one occasion say, "Wow, I didn't even know people went to college in Las Vegas." Sometimes you'll even get people who are shocked there are children in Las Vegas and that we have public schools.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have people who only have negative things to say about education in Las Vegas. You get locals who repeatedly complain about our school district or colleges. You get the never-ending comments on being ranked last in education on more than one occasion. Recently there was a study released on education levels in various cities, and Las Vegas was not-shockingly ranked as one of the least educated cities in the US. I'm sure a lot of this isn't news to anyone, so why aren't we working to change it?

Complaining about something is not the equivalent of actively changing something.

If you're upset with the state of education in Nevada, you should be. If you've been ashamed at the lack of progress in Clark County School District, that's understandable. But as far as I'm concerned, you lose the right to complain if that's all you plan on doing. People love to sit back, whine, and say they're powerless, but the beautiful thing about America is that isn't always true. Specifically, in Clark County, we do have the opportunity to change things and that opportunity is right now.

In response to the consistent failures in CCSD and the lack of progress, legislators have recently proposed a bill that would lead to the massive decentralization of Clark County School District. This bill would turn each of CCSD's 357 schools into their own autonomous precincts. This will give schools the power to control their own budgets, control their own hiring, and decide what their individual school and students need for that year.

Some believe this change is exactly what CCSD needs, others have several concerns about specific details in the plan, and the rest of the Las Vegas population either doesn't know about it or doesn't seem to care.

The details of this bill are readily available to the public. The city has been holding several open town hall meetings to gather the opinions of the public, and there are a few left we can still go to. The legislators are literally asking for our opinions to help shape the future of our district, and all we do is sit on the internet and complain.

My Thoughts on AB394

While I, generally speaking, approve of giving individual schools in the district more autonomy, there are a few things about this bill that concern me. Based on the reactions of others who spoke at the town hall meeting I attended, others share my concerns.

Diversity. The meeting I attended was the first town hall meeting in Henderson, Nevada. The friend I went with immediately commented on the fact that of the 10 people presiding over the meeting, 9 of the 10 were middle-aged/older white men. The other person was a middle-aged white woman. One of the speakers that evening commented on this fact as well. It's hard to believe these likely upper-class middle-aged white citizens can honestly say they understand the remarkably diverse student population in CCSD. The logical solution to this problem would be to get input from those students or their families, which is what they're attempting to do with these town hall meetings.

There is, however, a problem with this as well. Of the nearly 100 people that attended, the vast majority of them were also white. Additionally, most of the people who spoke were district employees. There were very few parents there representing their own views and interests. This allows a mostly white group of politicians to propose changes to a mostly white audience which will give the majority white teachers and administrators more power over a district that is by no means made of a majority white student population.

Publicity. To get a thorough idea of how the public feels, citizens from all walks of life in Las Vegas should share their opinions. The problem is, most people don't even know this bill exists. With that lack of knowledge, there is no way to expect a variety of people will attend the meetings. These meetings are getting little to no coverage in the news, and the articles that do pop up rarely discuss the issues people actually have with the bill. As a district employee, I have been given zero information about these changes they plan to implement in the near future. The only information I've found is information I had to actively look for.

The already powerful stay in power. I'm going to give a very simplified version of this and recommend actually reading the bill for more details, but in this system, each school becomes its own precinct. In this precinct, different groups nominate someone to be their representative. This representative controls the vote for their group and presides over all meetings where they decide the details of the budget and other major decisions for the school. The principal of the school, an Associate Superintendent (a representative from CCSD), one teacher, one parent, and one student are the only people who are required for a quorum at these meetings. The only people who are going to either know about these meetings or volunteer to be involved will likely be the people who were already involved in the first place. Without any sort of restrictions or requirements for diversity in education or diverse representation, these people will just be given more power.

One of the speakers from the audience at the meeting I attended commented on the "experts" mentioned who were brought in to discuss this decentralization. Of the three, they chose one to take charge on the bill. What this audience member clarified for us, however, is that one of the experts apparently said he did not want to be involved in decentralization like this. From his experience, this kind of decentralization makes a school district drastically more segregated. In our district, we are already segregated enough.

Additionally, the expert they chose is a man named Michael Strembitsky. While I agree with a lot of his ideas, I must admit his views are a little outdated. The success stories he and the other members presiding over the meeting mentioned were predominately from his implementing this decentralization in a school district in 1976. To make matters even worse, this school district was in Canada. In each example of his achievements in "Edmonton," everyone failed to mention that Edmonton isn't even in the US. I find it hard to believe experiences in a Canadian school district from 40 years ago can be that similar to the fifth largest school district in the US in 2016. We are a very unique and diverse district that need unique and diverse influences.

The groundwork for this bill is progressive and could drastically help our district that is undoubtedly in need of help. Some changes, however, still need to be made to ensure each student and parent is being adequately represented.

While this bill can ensure all students are adequately funded, it does not currently ensure all students are adequately represented.

Instead of complaining, read the bill. Go to a meeting. Share your opinions. Work to solve the problem instead of sitting back and allowing it to continue. The dates of the upcoming meetings are hyperlinked above. I'll be there to try and affect the changes in our district— will you?