Guinn: Ex-official merits school honor

Friday, Feb. 4, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

A campaign to have a Clark County School District campus named after Claude Perkins, its only black superintendent, was endorsed Thursday by Gov. Kenny Guinn.

"Claude Perkins has had a distinguished career in education and deserves to be honored by the school district," Guinn said through his spokesman.

The governor, who served as the district's superintendent from 1969 to 1978, hired Perkins as his assistant in 1971, putting him in charge of desegregation programs. Perkins, who was 36 when hired by the Clark County School Board to replace Guinn in the district's top post, resigned under pressure in 1981. His three-year tenure was marked by frequent skirmishes with the teachers' union, Clark County School Board members and some community leaders.

"Those kinds of things happen when you're a young superintendent and don't have experiences to draw on," said Perkins, now 63 and associate vice president of academic affairs at Albany State University in Georgia. "My focus at the time was solely on improving the academic performance of all students. I didn't want to waste any time on politics."

That stance, Perkins said, probably cost him his job.

"I'm a very upfront and honest person," Perkins said. "I put the best interests of the district first at all times and I was very candid in how I expressed my position."

In the summer of 1981, during a meeting with the editorial board of Valley Broadcasting, Perkins reportedly said his only responsibility to teachers "is to pay them and provide them with a place to work. Providing them with a daily massage and a whorehouse is not my job."

Perkins said Thursday he regrets that statement even now, more than 24 years later. But, Perkins said, the statement was made during what he believed was an off-the-record discussion. Perkins said he was trying to explain to the editorial board why he had pushed for a significant pay hike for teachers.

"I was ambushed, it was a set-up," Perkins said.

He also said his remarks were also taken out of context.

Jim Rogers, chairman of Valley Broadcasting, urged Perkins to resign in a July 1981 broadcast on KVBC Channel 3, calling him "vindictive."

Rogers, now interim chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada said Thursday it was "an absurdity" for Perkins to describe his meeting with the editorial board as an ambush.

"Statements that cannot be made in public because they are prejudiced, bigoted or otherwise improper cannot be off the record," Rogers said. "I'm certainly not in a position to judge this man. He may have done great and wonderful things, but there are a lot of other people schools could be named after, people who have also done great and wonderful things but didn't say the kinds of things he said."

During his tenure as superintendent, Perkins was criticized for what many considered intemperate remarks. During the 1981 legislative session, lawmakers chided Perkins for remarking that special education programs were being provided "at the expense of" normal students.

But Perkins said he also pushed successfully to increase attendance and graduation requirements, hired the district's first woman cabinet member and presided at a time when student test scores were on the rise.

The district did not have statistics available from Perkins' tenure to verify his claims.

But Ralph Cadwallader, a veteran Clark County school administrator promoted by Perkins to serve as associate superintendent of secondary education in 1978, said Perkins' accomplishments in the district were well-documented.

"There was no question about that," Cadwallader said. "We increased graduation requirements beyond what the state was requiring at the time. We added an additional year of math, added a fourth year of English and required world history."

The district's students regularly scored above the national average on standardized tests used at the time for eighth and 11th grades, Cadwallader said.

When asked whether he supported having a campus named after Perkins, Cadwallader, who already has middle school bearing his moniker, demurred.

"I'm asked to write letters all the time in favor of one nominee or another and I always decline," said Cadwallader, executive director of the Nevada Association of School Administrators. "It's important that I remain neutral in those debates and not play favorites."

Steven Horsford, a founding member of the Caucus of African American Nevadans, said the fact that Perkins does not yet have a school named after him is an example of "not giving credit where credit is due." Horsford, whose group has teamed up with the Urban Chamber of Commerce to advocate on Perkins' behalf, said it is past time for the Clark County School Board to address the issue.

The district currently has 301 schools, 190 of which have been added since Perkins' resigned in 1981.

"This is a matter of fairness," Horsford said. "If the district does not respond in a positive manner to this request I think there will definitely be an outpouring of community support to put pressure on the board and the school naming committee to ensure the proper recognition is given."

The school committee is made up of three School Board members, one district employee and two community representatives. After vetting suggestions the committee makes recommendations to the full School Board for a vote. Elementary and middle schools may be named for educators, local leaders and "pioneers," while high schools may only be named for geographic localities. In 2001 the School Board approved an exception, Liberty High School, as a way of commemorating the events of Sept. 11.

Perkins isn't the only former superintendent for whom a campus or district facility has not been named. Since the district consolidated in 1956, three individuals who have served as superintendent have not yet been chosen by the school names committee: James Mason (1966-69), Leland Newcomer (1961-65), Robert Wentz (1982-1989).

The district has also not yet honored its first female School Board member, Peggy Hyde Phillips, who died in 1997.