It’s not a lack of funding… it’s Jara

If the public wants to know why Clark County School District educators have been shutting down board meetings and are ready to engage in “work actions,” they need to look no further than our very own Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara.  

Despite what some in the media are claiming, the average educator in Las Vegas earns substantially less than individuals in other professions with similar levels of education and experience. Given the average price of a home is $440,000, utilities are approximately $400 per month, and gas is $4.50 per gallon, it is no surprise that CCSD still has 1,200 teacher vacancies.

The Nevada Legislature recognized the need to address the teacher shortage, so they not only increased education funding by $2.6 billion dollars, but they passed Senate Bill 231, which earmarks $250 million specifically for raises. CCSD would receive the bulk of that funding, so it would stand to reason, then, that CCSD can afford to pay educators what they deserve.

But instead of using the funding to address the fact that thousands of children have once again started the school year without a licensed educator, Supt. Jara chose to waste millions of dollars this past summer creating new “associate” superintendent positions in order to micromanage schools, several more million on blindsiding educators with useless new curriculum without researching its effectiveness, and gave every administrator an average raise of $27,000 over two years.

Meanwhile, Jara’s latest proposal for educators is nearly 10% less than what we are asking for, includes a sunset clause of 2025 (which means our pay can go back down in two years), is sneaking in an extra 57 hours to our workload, and getting rid of our current salary table and replacing it with a new one that makes advancement much more difficult unless educators earn a Ph.D. 

This comes as no surprise, however, because Jara has a history of rewarding only those most loyal to him while spending millions of dollars to bribe those who are not. In 2021, for example, he gave significant raises to his top staff members, the most notable of which was Chief Financial Officer Jason Goudie, who received a generous increase of $45,000 per year. Then he and Goudie “pulled a Godfather tactic” as columnist Carrie Kaufman put it in the Nevada Current, and spent millions to buy out principals who were close to retirement and whose “vision” did not align with his.

One has to wonder how Jara and Goudie continue to find money to fulfill their own political/professional agendas, yet claim time and time again that they do not have the money to pay teachers. According to state Sen. Carrie Ann Buck, “It’s so easy to do the math, but yet again CCSD does not take care of their people.” “The money is there with $2 billion going to education, & the majority to CCSD, so why is the superintendent not negotiating in good faith? Most charter schools gave a 20% increase. What is going on in CCSD?” 

Actions speak louder than words, and Dr. Jara has done nothing to incentivize working for CCSD as an educator. He has single-handedly created one of the most toxic and hostile work environments I have ever experienced and continues to fuel the fire with every self-serving decision he makes. This is why morale is so low and CCSD is experiencing a crisis in terms of the number of teacher vacancies they have yet to fill. Perhaps it is because of his lack of actual teaching experience, but he has made it abundantly clear that he thinks very little of educators and has no idea what it’s like to be a classroom teacher. 

The bottom line is this: If teachers can achieve unattainable results with inadequate resources, then Jara and his sycophant Jason Goudie can do the same with the abundance of money gifted to them by the Nevada Legislature. 

This column has been revised to remove a reference to average salaries.