The White Pine County School District is facing an urgent crisis, and it is clear that it cannot solve this problem alone. The community is asking for our help, and it is our responsibility to respond with urgency and compassion.

For more than two decades, we have explored tax policy changes, traditional and nontraditional financial arrangements and other options to build a new school, but all have been fruitless.

Heavy infusions of federal funding — courtesy of three coronavirus relief packages approved by Congress — have flipped the script In Nevada schools and others across the country. Suddenly, school districts’ financial outlooks aren’t so bleak.

The decades-long fight to dramatically boost Nevada’s K-12 education funding has been waged in school boardrooms and legislative chambers, with incremental increases notched along the way, but now that adequacy battle is headed to the courtroom.

The newly formed Commission on School Funding met Friday and assessed the Herculean task that lies ahead. But before members even dug into their work, political divisions appeared during public comment when the Nevada State Education Association criticized the new formula and the commission makeup.