The architect of the effort to reorganize the Clark County School District is announcing a bid for the district’s board of trustees.

Former Republican Assemblyman David Gardner told The Nevada Independent that he’ll run for the southwest Las Vegas seat held by board member Carolyn Edwards, who’s prevented by term limits from seeking re-election in 2018. Gardner lost a bid for re-election in 2016 in his Democratic-leaning district, and says many of the key decisions on reorganization are now happening at the school district level.

“As much as we at the Legislature want to help with education, we give broad guidelines, we give money and hope that they follow them,” he said in an interview. “If you really want to have a say and help in education, you need to be where the actual decisions are being made.”

Gardner said his goal if elected to the school board will be to “keep CCSD honest on it.” Trustees have pushed back on some provisions of the legislatively mandated reorganization, which moves more authority and money from central administration to school sites, and even filed a lawsuit over the regulations at one point.

“We have seen the leaders on the school board continue to resist any changes and appear to accept our struggling K-12 system that neither helps our students succeed in higher education or provide them the job skills they need to succeed in the workplace,” he said in a statement. “This can no longer be tolerated and new voices must take the place on the school board.”

On sex education, a topic that’s bedeviled the district in the past, Gardner said he doesn’t see a problem with the current curriculum or the opt-in system that requires affirmative parent permission before a child can participate in the course. Gardner said he believes the district can do more to seek consent from parents who don’t respond to permission slips, and also said he hopes the district can post the sex ed curriculum online so parents are more informed.

He said his other priorities included pushing for greater transparency on the district’s budget. If elected, he said, he’d ask staff to spend days with him to help him understand the spending plan.

“When you are left out of the loop, you become a yes man,” he said.

Gardner is married to Melissa, a former CCSD teacher who is now vice chair of the Blue Diamond Elementary School Organizational Team. They have four children under the age of 9 -- three will be attending Blue Diamond this fall -- and a fifth child on the way.

Gardner is of counsel at Connor & Connor, a firm that specializes in business and marijuana law, and in-house counsel at Real Water, a company owned by Republican former Assemblyman Brent Jones.