How would school board candidates ease budget woes and enrollment challenges?

As Nevada school districts continue to confront budget challenges driven in part by enrollment declines, candidates for the school boards leading two of the state's largest districts shared their visions with The Nevada Independent of how to help public schools navigate that storm. 

Since the pandemic, student enrollment at school districts across the country including Clark County and Washoe County has been falling as birth rates decline and more families look to different school options such as private schools, charter schools and homeschool.

Those enrollment declines have taken a toll on districts' budgets, which primarily rely on the state's per-pupil funding allotments, which haven't changed much in two years and that officials say are not only well below the national average, but aren't keeping pace with inflation. 

This cycle, school board candidates are looking to bring fresh ideas to help their districts grapple with these issues, and incumbents are hoping to continue the work they've been doing for the past four years. 

What do school trustees do?

The Clark County School Board is made up of 11 members — seven elected and four appointed by the Clark County Commission and the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson. The Washoe County School Board is made up of seven elected members. 

School board members set district policies and make budgetary decisions, including setting the pay for district staff. One of their biggest jobs is to hire and manage their school district's superintendent, who oversees schools' day-to-day operations. 

The qualifications for the job are simple. Under state law, candidates running for school board offices must live in the district they are seeking to represent and be registered to vote in their respective district. Trustees may serve for up to three four-year terms. 

Clark County School Board members receive a salary of $750 a month or $9,000 a year. Washoe County members get $400 a month or $4,800 a year. 

There are three seats on the Clark County School Board up for grabs this election cycle.

In Clark County, District D incumbent Brenda Zamora, a mother of three and nonprofit deputy director who was elected to the board in 2022 and previously served the board's vice president, is running against David Gomez, a father of seven who has served on multiple district commissions including zoning and facilities. District D encompasses downtown Las Vegas and the northeast valley. 

The District F race features incumbent Irene Bustamante Adams, a former Democratic state lawmaker who currently works in workforce development. Bustamante Adams was elected to the board in 2022 and serves as the board's vice president after previously serving as board president. Her opponent is Rob Hutchinson, the district's facilities director.

The District G race includes incumbent Linda Cavazos, a part-time family therapist who was appointed to the board in 2017, elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022 and previously as board president and vice president, and Paul Casey, an entertainment production businessman and father of a district student with a background in law who worked as a substitute teacher for the district at the elementary level for four years.

There's one seat on the ballot for the general election this cycle for the Washoe County School Board because Trustees Colleen Westlake and J.J. Phoenix ran unopposed to retain their seats. 

Brooke Westlake (no relation to Colleen Westlake), who works as a sales and business development director in the senior living industry, is running against Sheena Harvey, a UNR professor and director of the university's fitness facility, for the Washoe school board's at-large District F, which comprises the eastern part of the district. The winner will replace Trustee Adam Mayberry, who was elected to the Sparks City Council after securing more than 50 percent of the votes in the June primary. 

The Nevada Independent spoke with seven out of the eight school board candidates to get their ideas on what they want to see their school districts do to mitigate these issues. Gomez did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.  

Dealing with budget constraints

Candidates are looking for creative solutions to ease their districts' funding challenges. 

Zamora said the Clark County School District's declining general fund budget, which has decreased from about $4 billion to $3.8 billion for the 2027 fiscal year, has resulted in cuts to music and other elective programs at schools. She said one of the schools she represents had to end their ballet folklórico traditional Latino dance program that was also open to students with disabilities. 

Zamora said she's asked the district to look into using potential funding it can get through a Trump administration school choice federal tax credit program to support school art programs, though the program's full rules aren't out yet. 

"I'm very intentional about asking to see if there's other ways we can fund those types of things," said Zamora.

Her opponent, Gomez, didn't respond to requests for an interview from The Indy. But he said in a questionnaire from Opportunity 180, a Southern Nevada-based nonprofit focused on increasing students' access to quality schools and helping launch new charter schools, that CCSD should align staffing, facilities and programs with actual student needs, invest in what is shown to improve academic achievement and phase out what doesn't. 

Bustamante Adams said she thinks the Clark County School District needs to educate principals on how to best prepare their budgets if district funding remains flat for the next two years and explore how to make their operations more efficient, such as through a study that Superintendent Jhone Ebert commissioned, and adjusting school facilities to meet enrollment demands. 

She said that also includes a difficult vote the board made earlier this year of lifting a "critical labor shortage designation" on certain positions, which had previously allowed retired teachers to earn a full salary and health benefits from CCSD while still receiving their state retirement benefits.

"It was hard … but we knew that it was the best decision for the school district at the time," she said. 

Hutchinson said the district could save money by cutting back on spending on administration and non-instructional contracts. He cited a $1.5 million contract for a roofing contractor to support his facilities maintenance team of four. Hutchinson said the contract's worth is the equivalent of 12 employees. 

"I feel like it would be way cheaper for me to have more employees that can do other things besides roofing and be more efficient than just having a contract," he said. 

Others are questioning some current spending choices. 

Cavazos said she disagreed with the district's decision to move up middle school start times in Ebert's quest to start high school later so older students can get more sleep. Ebert previously said the shift cost $5.6 million in one-time bond funds and an annual cost of about $5 million. 

Cavazos said in an Aug. 18 interview that as a mental health expert, she was concerned about middle school students and would have preferred a cost-neutral option that would have pushed back start times for all grade levels or leaving the bell schedules as they were. 

"Spending the additional funds on the buses and additional bus drivers at this particular time … was something that was a really, really big bite to take all at the same time," she said. 

Casey suggested that the district could save money by converting underutilized schools to special education centers or using them in the evening to host trade schools. The district is already working on its new facility master plan that includes ideas such as closing schools, repurposing school buildings and adding more grade levels to schools with extra space. 

"If it helps redefine accountability and the cost factors. That will be good for us, and that way, we're not losing that property, and we can utilize it," Casey said. 

Bringing back CCSD students — and keeping them

Zamora said she's hoping to combat the negative stereotypes around the Clark County School District that are making some families choose a different schooling option for their children. 

She said one way she's tried to address this is by helping restart trustee community forums to increase transparency and communication between the elected officials and the people they represent. 

Gomez said in a video on his website that he believes making CCSD better starts with trustees who listen to the community. 

Casey said there should be a greater focus on cultivating a better relationship between CCSD administrators and parents and students. One way he thinks trustees can help is by visiting each of their schools more frequently (District G alone has 47) and addressing issues such as removing controversial books from school libraries, a move that's been pushed by a local chapter of the Moms for Liberty conservative parent group, which has endorsed Casey. 

"That's my job to make that better for them," he said. 

Cavazos, who said she regularly visits her schools, said she liked to see the district offer career and technical education programs at the same caliber as its magnet school programs at all of its schools. She explained that she hears from many parents who want to place their students in one of those schools but there aren't enough seats to go around. 

She also voiced support for the district's ongoing efforts to track down chronically absent students by organizing door-to-door home visits. 

"It's kind of like a great big giant jigsaw puzzle where not just one piece is going to make our kids want to stay in school or to come back," Cavazos said. "It's like plugging in all the pieces to bring that enrollment up." 

Improving Washoe County School District

Westlake, who has one child enrolled in a Washoe district school and one child in a charter school, said three of her priorities include supporting school choice, supporting more career and technical education and improving school quality by raising teacher pay if funding is available.

"So if you want to incentivize families to come back, you also have to incentivize having good teachers there that are going to educate our kids too," Westlake said. 

In addition, she said the district needs to do a better job of listening to parents, including concerns about books they consider to be controversial. 

Harvey said she supports continuing to expand on extracurricular activities at the Washoe County School District to get children back in school and reduce chronic absenteeism. 

"That's where students really truly build their social capital, and I think they gain a better sense of this intrinsic motivation of like, 'I want to do better in school,'" she said.