Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, left, and Clark County Schools Superintendent Jesus Jara, right, are shown in separate photos in January 2023 speaking at the annual State of the Schools Address at Resorts World Las Vegas. The two met Wednesday, Aug. 30, to discuss CCSD’s stalled contract negotiations with the Clark County Education Association, the bargaining unit for the district’s teachers.
Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023 | 6:57 p.m.
Gov. Joe Lombardo has begun talking with representatives from both the Clark County School District and the Clark County Education Association as the contract feud between the two entities continues.
A Lombardo spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that CCEA had reached out to the governor’s office, and has “already had initial conversations with CCSD and CCEA, and he will continue those discussions this week.”
A district spokesman said Superintendent Jesus Jara and Lombardo talked in person for more than an hour Wednesday.
While he did not get into detail, Chief Communications Officer Tod Story said the talk was about the state of contract negotiations and that union representatives were not part of the meeting.
“Since before his election, Superintendent Jara has had a cordial and productive relationship with Gov. Lombardo to ensure resources are provided for students to succeed academically and for our educators who deserve proper compensation,” said Story, who said the superintendent and governor have had a relationship since Lombardo was Clark County sheriff. “Today, Superintendent Jara shared the district’s fair, equitable and financially responsible proposal to CCEA with Gov. Lombardo. Superintendent Jara looks forward to further conversations with the governor in the future.”
The union, which is locked in bitter conflict with CCSD over a new two-year contract, voted on Saturday to call on Lombardo to “end the stalemate” with the district. In response, Lombardo said he was “eager to help resolve this conflict in a way that best serves the children of Clark County.”
An attendee at Saturday’s union meeting, which was closed to the public and media, shared a photo with the Sun of a slide shown to the crowd. It read, in full:
“The level of vacancies in CCSD are at a crisis level. We have close to 2,000 vacancies with close to 35,000 students without a full-time classroom teacher. Governor Lombardo and the Nevada Legislature made a historic investment in our public school system, with a significant amount coming to CCSD. To date, CCSD has refused to use that investment to address the vacancy crisis. We are entering our 2nd month of the school year, and more educators are threatening to quit before the school year ends. Accordingly, we are calling on Governor Lombardo to use his authority as Governor to intervene and end the stalemate CCSD has created in addressing this crisis of vacancies.”
The union has also encouraged teachers to only work the daily 7 hours and 11 minutes specified in its contract. In a unionwide email sent this week and obtained by the Sun, CCEA instructed teachers who are “being forced, threatened, bullied, or coerced by your administrator to work beyond what is required under the contract” to keep a record to be included in a “class action grievance” against the district.
The union has also held several rallies in recent weeks as it remains at odds with the district, including two raucous demonstrations at school board meetings in August. CCSD sued CCEA in July, arguing that union leaders had made veiled threats to strike – which is illegal for public school teachers and other local and state government employees in Nevada – but a judge denied the district’s bid for an injunction to block a strike as premature.
Among other demands, CCEA is seeking 18% across-the-board pay raises over two years. As part of its counterproposal, CCSD has offered 10.5% raises across the board over two years, and, upon request for teachers hired after 2016, placement on a proposed new pay scale that the district says emphasizes college education and years of experience more than the current scale.
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