Newest CCSD trustee Kevin Child eager to roll up sleeves, tackle problems

By Ian Whitaker

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015 | 2 a.m.

By the time Kevin Child is halfway through the line at Dunkin’ Donuts, he’s already made a few friends.

He chats merrily with one of the store clerks and a woman sipping coffee nearby. In the course of a few minutes, he finds out a lot. The coffee sipper is a school principal in Orange County, Calif. — Child’s line of work, as of the midterm elections.

“The schools are struggling there, too,” he said, shaking his head.

Meeting people is something Child does best, and he’ll tell you it’s a big part of the reason he managed to unseat incumbent Stavan Corbett for the District D seat on the Clark County School Board. Child was sworn in Monday and attended his first meeting as a trustee Wednesday.

His victory by 855 votes was widely seen as an upset. Corbett, a veteran teacher and administrator, was appointed to the position in late 2013 to fill a vacancy and led in the primaries by 10 percentage points.

Child, a 53-year-old real estate agent and graduate of Bonanza High School, said he put all of his energy into manning the phones and canvassing the streets of his sprawling district, which stretches from Jones Boulevard in the west to Nellis Boulevard in the east and Silverado High School just south of the 215 Beltway to as far north as Cheyenne Avenue. He estimates he knocked on over 2,500 doors and phoned more than 6,000 residents.

Troubled by what he sees as poor stewardship of public money throughout the state, Child gained a reputation for running for local office as a dark horse. In addition to smaller bids for county commission and county recorder, Child ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly in 2012, where he garnered 22 percent of the Democratic primary vote against incumbent Irene Bustamante Adams.

“They always called me the ‘perennial candidate,’” he laughed. “It paid off, didn’t it?”

It did. Child is now one of seven people who preside over the fifth-largest school district in the country. It’s not typical for someone to jump on the School Board like that.

When you ask Child what he hopes to achieve during his time as a trustee, he points to the license plate on his red SUV. It reads “WRKNG4U.” He got it when he got into real estate to prove that the customer is king.

District spending is his chief concern. He has vowed not to ask taxpayers for more money until he is sure the district has done all it can to trim the fat from its own budget. He said he has yet to scour the district’s $2.3 billion budget for inefficiencies, but chalks it up to his rookie status, and says if he doesn’t know something, he’ll “go find out and report back.”

Board Chairwoman Erin Cranor, whose first foray into the world of education policy was as a concerned PTA member, said a focus on fiscal responsibility is exactly what the board needs.

“If he is about fiscal accountability, strategic use of resources and actually accomplishing something for students, he is here at the right time,” she said.

What he lacks in experience, Child makes up for in sheer number of ideas on how to solve the district’s problems.

“We actually sell a product,” he said, “and we have to have a great product.”

His answer to a CCSD teacher caught selling marijuana to an undercover Metro Police officer? Send a message by instituting random drug testing. (Yes, he knows this will be wildly unpopular with teachers.)

The debate over sexual education standards? Simple. The parents should decide.

Poor public perceptions of the district and teachers as a whole? That’s two-pronged: Do better at showcasing CCSD’s positives and get parents involved in their child’s education, which he feels is at an all-time low.

Whatever the issue is, he said he respects the views of those who will inevitably disagree with him.

“We won’t agree on everything,” he said. “But if I can be a positive change on that board, I’ll be pretty excited.”