Southern Nevada teachers spend part of spring break learning about mining, earth science
Students in Clark and Washoe counties got to enjoy some spring break downtime last week. But some teachers used that time to take earth science workshops and field trips to mining sites organized by the Nevada Mining Association. (Read more about this in the School Spotlight section.)
Other teachers travelled to the Legislature in Carson City as part of lobbying efforts by the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) and the Nevada State Education Association. I highlighted one of the bills that CCEA went to advocate for last Thursday in our Behind the Bar newsletter, which you should subscribe to if you haven’t already to stay up to date on all things about the session. You’ll also see more legislative coverage from me here for the next few months.
I want to hear from you! Send questions, comments or suggestions on what I should be covering to [email protected].
News briefs
🗣️Bill looks to add student voices to school boards — A bill by Assm. Duy Nguyen (D-Las Vegas), AB316, would require school districts to appoint a student as a nonvoting member of their school boards. The student board members would have many of the same rights and responsibilities as other trustees and potentially receive compensation for the role. Qualifying juniors and seniors would be nominated by their peers and approved by the school board.
- “AB316 seeks to ensure that students are no longer passive recipients of decisions that directly impact them, but are active participants in the conversation,” Nguyen said during a hearing on the bill last Wednesday.
- Nguyen was joined by the State Board of Education’s student member Michael Keyes, a Pahrump High School senior. Keyes said serving on a school board provides students with real-world experience working in governing, policy and leadership.
- In addition to Keyes, students already serve on the school boards in Washoe, Douglas, Elko and White Pine counties.
- Nationally, there are more than 200 student members across 42 states, according to the National Student Board Member Association.
- The bill received pushback from the Clark and Washoe school districts, the Nevada Association of School Boards and the Nevada Association of School Superintendents.
- “We do not believe we need to codify what [the district] does into a law that locks the hands of both our trustees and the voters in our community moving forward,” said Dylan Shaver, a lobbyist for the Washoe County School District.
- Clark County School District lobbyist Nathaniel Waugh said the district was concerned that it could lead to unintended consequences if it passed alongside bills that would grant appointed trustees voting rights and raise trustee pay from $750 a month to nearly $90,000 a year. He said paying a student board member could jeopardize their eligibility to participate in an athletic program.
💲Bill aims to decrease financial burden on international teachers — A bill sponsored by Assm. Erica Mosca (D-Las Vegas), AB472, would support participants of foreign teacher exchange programs such as the J-1 visa program and the H-1B visa program.
- Background: School districts such as Mineral County and Clark County have come to rely on these programs to fill vacant teacher positions.
- Last July, Mosca told lawmakers on the interim education committee that some programs charge teachers anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000.
- Her bill would prohibit school districts from working with programs that charge more than $10,000 in fees and other costs per applicant.
- It would also require the Nevada Department of Education to establish a grant program to help school districts offset the cost of sponsoring a J-1 visa teacher looking to obtain a H-1B visa or a permanent resident card.
- “What we're saying is we should do something as a state to help teachers who want to stay,” Mosca told lawmakers at a Wednesday bill hearing.
School Spotlight
Teachers learning about the role mining plays in Nevada
Stan Wilkerson, a geologist from Alaska, takes a pan filled with rocks and sand and dunks the edge into a tub filled with water.
He lets the water swish in the pan and then skims the edge on the surface of water, letting the sand and rocks wash away until he’s left with fine gravel and some pieces of silver and gold at the very bottom.
The panning exercise was one of the workshops that teachers took part in during a two-day training from the Nevada Mining Association (NVMA) and the Nevada Division of Minerals hosted at Faith Lutheran Middle School & High School last Tuesday and Wednesday.
More than 100 teachers gave up a part of their spring break last week to learn about earth sciences and the mining industry’s role in their everyday lives.
Although Nevada is known as the Silver State, in 2023, Nevada’s production of gold accounted for about 78 percent of the domestic total and helped make the U.S. the sixth-largest gold producer in the world, according to NVMA. Nevada alone accounted for about 4 percent of the world’s production of gold.
Nevada is also home to the only operating lithium mine in the United States. Other minerals and metals mined in Nevada include copper, dolomite, opals and turquoise.
It’s the 40th year that the free training, taught by local and out-of-state industry professionals, has been offered in Southern Nevada. The training is also offered annually in Northern Nevada.
“Our goal is to inform others about the mining industry,” said Becky Hall, the association’s community engagement manager. “Without mining, we wouldn’t have the lights in Downtown or the Strip or our cellphones or computers. Our motto is if it’s not grown, it’s mined.”
Teachers also get to take home rock and mineral kits and other supplies they can use to bring their lessons to life.
During one of the workshops, teachers tried gold panning, a mining technique where sediment is placed in a wide shallow pan and water washes away the lighter sediment while denser minerals, such as gold, settle at the bottom of the pan.
The sediment that the teachers practiced with contained small pieces of gold, silver, hematite and pyrite, or fool’s gold.
Damon Wahl, a Gifted and Talented Education program teacher at Kay Carl Elementary School in Las Vegas, has been coming to the workshop for about 20 years. Before becoming a teacher, he worked in mines in California and Montana.
Wahl said he does a version of this activity with the third, fourth and fifth grade students in the program to teach them about density, gravity and minerals. The school takes fourth graders to The Mine Experience located at Gordon McCaw STEAM Academy, a CCSD school in Henderson, where they learn about the history and importance of mining in Nevada.
“We want that to be passed along to the students and then hopefully one day they’ll maybe want to come work in the mining industry,” Hall said.
Have a student or staffer who we should feature in the next edition of School Spotlight? Share your nominations with me at [email protected].
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