Advisory committee must proceed with caution

The process of breaking up the Clark County School District begins Monday.

There have been many calls in the past to break up the school district, the fifth-largest in the country, to make it more responsive to local needs, improve student achievement and improve efficiency. This year, the Nevada Legislature passed Assembly Bill 394, which creates a process to reorganize the Clark County School District into local precincts by the beginning of the 2018-19 school year. The advisory committee created by AB394 will convene Monday to formally launch the planning process.

Crafting the plan required by AB394 will be a highly complex endeavor. The school district spans 7,910 square miles, and maps developed by the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities illustrate that student achievement, income, the age of school facilities and demographic profiles vary significantly across the district. The Guinn Center does not endorse or oppose the reorganization of the Clark County School District, but we have identified five critical issues the advisory committee should consider as it develops the reorganization plan.

Community engagement and communication: AB394 requires Clark County commissioners to host at least six public meetings at which the advisory committee will present its preliminary findings and proposal. The committee should go beyond this requirement and establish a more robust public input process to ensure that parents and community stakeholders across the district have an opportunity to articulate their needs and offer solutions. The community engagement and communications plan should include focus groups, surveys and regular community meetings held throughout the district.

Educational and demographic equity: The configuration of precincts must ensure that all students have access to high-quality educational opportunities and that at-risk populations are served. The committee must be mindful of the historical and continuing significance of issues of racial and socioeconomic isolation. A reorganization plan that appears to marginalize certain groups could have long-lasting negative effects on the entire community. Each precinct should have roughly similar distributions of high-quality public school options (magnets, charters, career and technical academies) and high-performing schools, as well as effective, experienced teachers.

Funding equity: Achieving funding equity between precincts will be a challenging task. The committee will need to determine whether to equalize per-pupil funding across precincts or to provide funding based on historical operational costs. The committee must explore which functions could be performed more effectively and efficiently by the central district vs. the precincts.

Facilities: The age and condition of school facilities varies across the district. Older schools are located in the historic core, while newer schools are on the periphery of the Las Vegas Valley. If ownership of facilities is maintained by the Clark County School District, the committee will have to establish criteria for prioritizing construction and maintenance of schools across precincts. If ownership is transferred to the precincts, the committee will have to evaluate the impact of the transfer on the capital program and determine how to repay past debt and distribute property tax revenue earmarked for capital projects.

Governance structure: The advisory committee must determine how each precinct will be governed and how each board will be composed. Precinct boards could function like traditional elected school boards. Alternatively, they could be more like charter school boards, which have appointed members with specific areas of expertise. Additionally, precinct-wide or school-based advisory councils could be established to strengthen avenues for public input and provide mechanisms to keep precincts accountable for student achievement and fiscal efficiency.

This breakup should not be like the typical relationship breakup most of us have experienced, whereby the overall goal is physical and emotional separation. The goal here must be exactly the opposite. Those in precincts must still feel like they belong to a larger community, with the sum of the parts (precincts) being greater than any individual one. The separation of the district must not result in the separation of our community.

— Nancy E. Brune is executive director of the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, an independent policy analysis and research center. Victoria Carreon is the center's director of education policy.