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Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Dwight Jones
Sun archives
- Colorado’s Dwight Jones offered job as Clark County schools superintendent (9-29-2010)
- School District to select new superintendent Wednesday (9-23-2010)
- Superintendent candidates differ on views of empowerment schools (9-22-2010)
- Finalist for superintendent withdraws from consideration (9-20-2010)
- School District names 3 finalists for superintendent (9-16-2010)
- Jim Rogers out of contention for schools superintendent (9-14-2010)
- School District to keep superintendent until January (8-4-2010)
- School District chooses search firm to replace superintendent (6-1-2010)
- School District plans meetings on superintendent search (5-11-2010)
Sun Coverage
Dwight Jones, who has been offered the job of school superintendent, said the teachers union in the Clark County School District has nothing to fear from a tough teacher-effectiveness law passed recently in Jones’ home state.
The School Board voted 6-1 Wednesday to offer the $270,000-a-year job to Jones, the commissioner of education in Colorado. The other finalist was Michael Hinojosa, school superintendent in Dallas.
Jones, 48, said in a telephone interview that any “new ideas” in Clark County would evolve in collaboration with teachers and others.
“The teachers union has nothing to worry about,” Jones said, “because they ought to be excited I’m coming. I am such a huge supporter of teachers.”
In May, over the opposition of the teachers union, the Colorado Legislature passed a bill, backed by Jones, that made it easier to fire poorly performing teachers.
The law grants teachers a form of tenure, the lifting of probation, only after three years of being judged “highly effective.”
A teacher granted limited tenure might lose it if judged “ineffective” after two years.
The measure of effectiveness is still being worked out but will be based, in part, on students’ testing data and what the statute terms student academic “growth.”
“Getting a definition of educator effectiveness is the first thing,” Jones said. Whatever the new effectiveness benchmark, it won’t take effect in Colorado until 2014.
Evaluating teachers has been a hot national topic for years, but Colorado is unusual in having a law passed and soon to be implemented. In Carson City, lawmakers in both parties are discussing teacher tenure and effectiveness.
Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, which represents most of the district’s 18,000 teachers, said, “Colorado is Colorado and Nevada is Nevada.”
He said, “I want to make sure whatever school reform is passed that it is done in a fair and equitable way.” The Colorado law “sounds like a work in progress.” Murillo said he had not studied the law and could not comment on it directly. He noted, however, that the probationary period for a Clark County teacher is two years, rather than three as in Colorado.
Jones made it clear in the interview that he wants the superintendent job. He said that he will meet with the Colorado board of education next week to work out a transition plan and that lawyers still need to negotiate an employment agreement.
But, he said, it is his intention to arrive in Clark County “sooner rather than later.”
Walt Rulffes, the current superintendent who is retiring, has agreed to stay until January but is willing to leave earlier.
The transition may be bumpy. The Legislature meets in February. Lawmakers face what the state budget director estimates as up to a $3 billion deficit in a two-year budget of more than $6.5 billion.
And Jones won’t be the only new player in budget talks: Nevada will have a new governor, and many term-limited legislators will have been replaced.
Jones said the School District’s budget is “going to be right up there at the top of my priorities” when he arrives.
He noted that in Colorado, he worked with a new governor and new state legislators when he was relatively new. Jones has been education commissioner since 2007.
The Nevada deficit looms large. “I am certainly worried about the big gigantic hole in the budget,” he said. He was not more specific. Jones also alluded to the fractious politics of Clark County. “I am quite honored to serve,” he said, but “I am aware there are some folks we still have to win over.”
Some of that fractiousness was on display Wednesday night. A few supporters of Jim Rogers attended the meeting where School Board members picked their new superintendent. Rogers, a former higher education system chancellor, had offered to work as superintendent for free.
Rogers has a reputation for abrasiveness and wasn’t a finalist. One School Board member, Deanna Wright, was angry. Following public comment on the finalists, she said she was “offended” that some speakers had questioned her integrity by saying there had been backroom deals to ensure the selection of Jones.
“This community is afraid of change,” she declared.
A gasp was heard, a chorus of boos seemed close. But nothing else happened. IQ’s were not questioned. Protesters were not ejected, as happened at a recent meeting.
Barely 90 minutes after they began deliberations, the normally loquacious board members voted to offer the job to Jones.
The single dissenter in the 6-1 vote was Linda Young, who said her constituents were divided and that she thought the selection process was too speedy.
Young said, however, if Jones “comes here, he will have my full support.”
Three finalists were announced Sept. 16, following weeks of a search firm sifting through dozens of candidates. James Browder, a Florida school superintendent, dropped out to take another job.
In picking Jones, the School Board chose an educator with experience working with other state education commissioners and the federal government.
But he has not run a school district since 2007, when he was leader at Fountain-Fort Carson in Colorado. Clark County has 310,000 students, or more than 40 times the number in Jones’ former district, which has 7,500.
Jones’ former district is near the Fort Carson military base and has an $84 million annual budget. As state commissioner, however, Jones works with 178 school districts, educating 830,000 students. He supervises an annual budget of $5 billion, but much of that is controlled and spent locally.
Clark County has a budget of $2.2 billion. In Colorado, Jones makes $224,000 a year.
Deanna Wright said in the above article, "she was 'offended' that some speakers had questioned her integrity by saying there had been backroom deals to ensure the selection of Jones." Deanna Wright is a publically paid employee and should not be offended by the taxpayers that pay her salaries. Her now famous, incredulous and ignorant public outburst at a public board meeting to a tax payer, "Shut up and sit down!" was not an insult? Mrs. Wright has forgotten who she works for and who pays her salary and for the leather chair she occupies at board meetings. She like the other trustees has come to believe that she was elected to rule rather than to serve the public. If Deanna Wright cannot stand the heat of public criticism and comment she should resign; We, the taxpayers pay your salary and your past behaviors and performance on this board warrant in depth scrutiny; we have a right to be openly critical of everything this board does because 6 of the 7 of you have not served the overall public interests in this district very well.
No, Deanna Wright you were not insulted in anyway by public comment. Too many of your collective decisions have involved impromptu changes to policies, regulations and processes that have suited your collective self interests and motives and not necessarily those of the public taxpayers. You in fact have been warned that the eye of public scrutiny is now one you like a piercing laser beam. If you can't stand the truth and the heat of public criticism you need to get out; resign now and save us all the embarassment of more of your public outbursts.
Where are your collective school trustee apologies for insulting and degrading black citizens from West Las Vegas who were trying to protect the interests of their children? Where is the apology and concern for veterans, senior citizens and other taxpayers when they are threatened with being manhandled, wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and escorted out of a public board meeting? Where are your apologies for insulting veterans by implying that they were too much of 'risk' to allow a student naming committee to meet with them over the naming of a East Las Vegas high school near Nellis AFB as Veterans Memorial HS? Where is your apologies for limiting public input and discussion to 2-3 minutes instead of following the example of the City Commission and the County Commission board meetings? Where are the apologies for the secrecy and limited public input in interviewing and questioning cadidates for superintendent?
This is a teachable moment for our children. Wright gets a big fat "F" in intelligence and public relations. . .
Deanna Wright and some of the other board members are on their way out. She is ignorant of the CCSD needs. Its all about the board not the CCSD. Merit pay is out of the question for teachers in the CCSD with the caliber of administrators the district has hired. Blame it on the teachers, not the ineffective administrators. Watch for Jim Rogers political commerical backing Small for school board against Edwards, its a good one.
Funding and salaries tied to performance, and national standards to get on par with global competitors, are long overdue. Research now in on charters exposes them as the non-solution they are. They do not produce any better result than public schools, only drain funds from them -- a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth
The school board lacks class. Its power and control they represent. The board lacks an educational backgound and experience, thus they don't want to be observed or questioned. Other than Linda Young, the other members won't be around long. Televise these wise and overbearing elected officials and they won't serve another term.
Linda YOung is the only board trustee that represents reason, intelligence and honest integrity. The other 6 are total incompetents; those that are not effected by term limits will do everything to remain control masters of the policies and other matters of this district. Their greed continues to feed their egos and their warped sense of public service which is that they were elected to rule not really serve. We need a clean sweep of these irresponsible fools to rid ourselves of those ruining this district. The new superintendent will be able to do little because of these 'pseudo-education' experts. Carolyn Edwards regards herself like a future reining queen with absolute dictaorial policies. She has not served the best interests for her district but rather for her own self interests. She wants to serve a term or two longer to earn PERS credit and then try to get on the County Commission like Braggert, along with Mary Beth Scow. This latter three did more than their fair share of destroying this once great school district. Let's not let them destroy the Clark County Commission!
I still find it hard to believe that this board turned down Jim Rogers offer to serve up to 3 years without taking a salary. I keep hearing how the CCSD is financially hurting. If they had taken Rogers offer they could be saving easily a million dollars which they could have applied elsewhere. The board does seem to have a problem responding to public comments. I guess they think we are all a bunch of unintelligent dummies. I think we need some new blood on the board.
Comment removed by moderator. name-calling.
My appolgies for violating the Sun policy regarding posting comments on this site. Violation of the policy was not intentional nor was any harm meant.
jemster, CCSD is financially hurting, but even more importantly, their results are as bad as they can be. I think Rogers would have been another guy from inside the system, pandering to the unions, complaining about lack of funding. It's not worth saving $300-$400K/year if we're going to continue to be the worst in the country.
I'm hoping this new guy shakes things up, and implements changes similar to what Michelle Rhee did in Washington DC.
I go along with the wisdom of the rascal - televise these meetings so we can see whose interests are prominent.
The national standards in both English Language Arts and Math are fabulous constructs. Let our kids have a fair shot at learning, and with all that learning, let them get some understanding.
ELA and Math teachers need to get w/ teachers of Social Studies, Physics, Biology, Art, etc to find how many ways they can OVERLEARN - to overlap curricula - so the learners get those standards applied across their experience.
When they master a topic and revisit it from a new perspective, their replay and interactions with old material in new settings empower and confirm as the experience grows new views of their understanding.
Constructivists are made of this. And researchers, scientists, oncologists, astronauts, entrepreneurs, parents and firemen.
airweare, I forget, are you a teacher? You have (what sound like to me, at least) some great ideas. I like the overlapping curriculum.