Partnership formed to tackle CCSD’s teacher shortage
Hoping to find solutions to the Clark County School District's chronic teacher shortage, a new partnership between three education interest groups will attempt to recruit, retain and train more high-quality teachers for Southern Nevada classrooms.
The partnership, dubbed the Sands Education Council, or SEC, officially launched Tuesday and aims to reduce the number of teacher vacancies in the nation's fifth-largest school system. District officials last week reported nearly 800 classroom vacancies across Clark County, prompting state education officials to lament the "horrific" human resources crisis.
The SEC also plans to train 50 new or internally developed school leaders in the district before the start of the 2016-17 school year.
"It's nice to have a mission statement, do a public launch event and then everyone goes their own way, but that's not what we're going to do," said Ron Reese, senior vice president for the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which provided an undisclosed amount of money to fund the SEC.
"Continued financial support from us is going to be contingent upon the groups doing their own things, but also working together to get results," he added.
The partnership includes the Public Education Foundation, a nonprofit that supports education reform and provides private funding for new practices, grants and scholarship in Southern Nevada schools. Teach for America, which places college graduates into needy schools for two years, and Nevada Succeeds, a bipartisan nonprofit advocating for improvement to Silver State schools, also will participate in the SEC.
"All children deserve a high-quality education," said Kim Wooden, a deputy superintendent for the district who attended the launch. "We know there are a ton of people who support things we can do for the students in Southern Nevada (and) the future of a well-educated workforce."
While the SEC will try to help lower classroom vacancies before the 2016-17 school year, each group also will embark on their own agendas to address the teacher shortage.
"Business plays a critical role in rallying the community to fix this problem," said Brent Husson, president of Nevada Succeeds.
His organization next month will launch a related initiative that brings together state and local leaders to recommend policy and regulations to state agencies while drafting proposed legislation before the Nevada Legislature convenes in 2017.
Teach for America, meanwhile, plans to increase its corps member ranks and place them in Clark County schools while sharing best practices with the district about teacher recruitment and retention.
The Public Education Foundation, which already hosts leadership training for principals that serve in schools across Nevada, also will send family engagement instructors to businesses and workplaces to train parents how to advocate for their children's education at the campus level.
Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @nealtmorton
