Over her three years on the school board, Brenda Zamora has become a master of balancing her life as a working mom and school board trustee. 

On a recent Thursday, the 32-year-old mother of three visited two school sites and attended a district meeting before picking up her two eldest daughters from school. Her black SUV has become her office on wheels where she can take meetings via phone and stash a pair of sneakers and heels that she can change into while on the go. 

"The little one, my 5-year-old, is really good at being quiet until my call is done," she said. "The older ones are like, 'Can we get something to eat?'"

Trustees such as Zamora are crucial for the state's largest school district, helping make policy decisions and overseeing the Clark County School District's (CCSD) $4 billion budget. But some observers wonder whether the pay — which amounts to $9,000 a year — is enough to recruit and retain quality candidates to a role that is essentially full time. One recent attempt to raise trustee pay was unsuccessful.   

Zamora had expected the role would be similar to a part-time job. But she estimates that she spends about 40 hours a week on it, including regular board meetings, district debriefs, community events and school visits. 

Clark County School Board members are paid $750 a month, which is higher than the pay for other Nevada school district trustees, but it's significantly lower than other local elected positions such as Clark County commissioners, who receive $121,000 annually after lawmakers approved a 2025 bill to increase their salaries and give them additional raises for the next five years. 

When Zamora first ran for school board in 2022, she was one of five candidates vying for the District D seat. But this year, Zamora is only facing one challenger. 

Other school boards across the state are also seeing few candidates. Two out of three of Washoe County School Board's races are uncontested. Two out of Carson City School Board's four races are uncontested and one race got no candidates. 

Trustees' modest pay could be one of the reasons that there's fewer candidates running for a school board office this year compared to previous election cycles, even as school districts are facing challenges such as budget constraints, declining enrollment and superintendent turnover. 

A bill that sought to raise salaries for school board members of the state's largest school district to make these offices accessible to more candidates failed during the 2025 legislative session.

"I still need a job that will pay my bills and that will be flexible," said Zamora, who works as a deputy director for a nonprofit focused on reproductive rights. "I think that's one thing that can be a barrier. If you don't have a flexible job, you won't be able to do this position." 

The decline of Nevada school board candidates is worrisome, said Washoe County School Board Trustee Colleen Westlake, whose re-election is secured as she's facing no challenge. 

"I'm like, 'What the heck?''" Westlake said. "Are people so apathetic that they just don't want to even bother?"

It follows a national trend of open, nonpartisan seats going uncontested or without any candidate filing to run for them.  

But others take it as a sign that polarization around school board races, which flared up during the pandemic, has subsided and confidence in these local offices has finally been reset. 

"It seems to me we may be getting back to a sense of normalcy on school boards," said Washoe County School Board President Adam Mayberry. 

Trustee pay

School board trustees' pay is set by state law. Their pay ranges from $250 per month for school board members in counties with less than 20,000 residents to $750 per month for school board members in counties with 100,000 or more residents. 

It's more than the pay for other down-ballot elected officials — Board of Regents and State Board of Education members get $80 per meeting — but less than their peers higher up on the ballot. City council members and county commissioners are paid as high as $121,000 a year, and some salaries, such as those for Reno City Council members, are automatically adjusted annually in accordance with the consumer price index. 

Zamora said working full-time while being in a trustee position hasn't been without its sacrifices. She switched jobs twice since entering office until she found a position that worked well with her busy trustee schedule and personal life. 

She has also missed out on time with her three daughters earlier in her term. Zamora relied on before and after-school programs for her two oldest and made the heartbreaking decision to leave her youngest daughter, then only a baby, in day care so she could be free to do her work and trustee duties. 

"I truly believe if you want to be a good trustee, you do have to put the time and hours in," she said.

But not everyone is able to make it work. Carson City School Board Trustee Matt Clapham decided not to run for re-election because his new work schedule doesn't allow him to attend meetings, which usually take place on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. 

"I felt like the community and the school district deserves a person that can show up to the school board meetings," he said. 

During the 2025 legislative session, Assm. Erica Mosca (D-Las Vegas) proposed a bill, AB156, that would have tied the salaries of the seven elected Clark County School Board members to the base pay of their county commissioners. The salary increase for elected school board members would have been paid for out of the district's funds and left an option for the county and cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson to put in their own funds to raise the pay for their appointed trustee. 

The bill would have allowed other counties to use their funds to bring their school board members' pay to what their county commissioners are making, although it would have been optional outside of Clark County. 

One of the bill's supporters, Educate Nevada Now, a nonpartisan education policy organization that advocates for fair and equitable public K-12 education funding, said appropriately compensating trustees entices more qualified candidates and ensures a more professional commitment to the role.

The bill passed in the Assembly but died before getting a vote in the Senate. 

The Clark County School Board did not take a position on the bill.

Irene Bustamante Adams, president of the Nevada Association of School Boards and a CCSD trustee, said that although the salary increase would have been helpful for trustees, it wouldn't have been beneficial for the district's budget, which is currently experiencing a funding decrease, in part because of declining enrollment. 

Bustamante Adams was also concerned that if passed, the bill could have opened the door for future legislation to require other districts to make similar salary matches. 

"The timing was wrong because of where we are financially as a state and our financial health," Bustamante Adams. 

Westlake was also concerned about the potential ramification of the bill, had it passed, especially given WCSD's projected budget deficit. But after seeing a decrease in school board candidates, Westlake has softened to the idea of increasing trustees' pay. 

A grandmother of nine, Westlake, 64, decided to retire from her job as an office manager for a Reno dental office to make more time for her trustee duties. She estimates she devotes anywhere from eight to 16 hours to prepare for a school board meeting, which usually takes place at least twice a month and can last anywhere from three to six hours, depending on how long the agenda is. 

But she said that's not something some younger adults, especially those with kids, can afford to do. 

"It shouldn't just be older people that are on their way out of their profession, like I was, and it shouldn't be people that are rich … and they can afford to do this," Westlake said. "There's going to be people yelling, 'You're taking money away from the kids.' I guess, yeah, in the short term, but in the long term, a wider range of people come in and serve."

Zamora said she's open to matching trustees' salaries to the salaries of the teachers in the districts they serve. At CCSD, the starting salary for a teacher is about $57,000. 

"I feel like I can make that work," she said. 

Mending community trust

Bustamante Adams had a positive take on the decrease in school board candidates. She saw it as a sign that the general public is satisfied with their trustees' performance and how they are approaching challenges such as enrollment declines.

"The people feel heard and they feel included, and they know that they're tackling the challenges together," she said. 

Zamora's dissatisfaction with district and school board leadership after struggling to get accommodations for one of her daughters, who is visually impaired, and learning about challenges other families went through during the distance learning era of the pandemic was part of what motivated her to run for the office. 

Zamora said one sign that the Clark County School Board's reputation among the community has improved is it's no longer in the news for issues such as trustee infighting and dysfunction as it was two years ago.

"It is such a huge difference," she said. "We're trying to really get to the bigger mission of things and we're focused during our meetings."  

But even if a trustee doesn't have an opponent running against them, Bustamante Adams said that doesn't mean they shouldn't keep striving for excellence. 

"We cannot get comfortable," Bustamante Adams said. "If we do, we're going to be back in the same boat that we were before — not connected to student outcomes, not connected to the community and their involvement and not having a relationship with the bargaining units." 

Westlake said even though she's running unopposed, she plans to go door to door and speak with her constituents. 

"I'm still going to walk with my cards and pass them out and open up discussion and find out what my constituents like, what they don't like, and maybe hear some remarkable ideas that … can be put into action," Westlake said.