LETTER: Trustees deserve blame too

Regarding your Thursday editorial, “It’s time for the school district to move on from Jara,” I in no way disagree with that premise. It would be best, however, if you put the onus on the right shoulders.

As a former member of a school board in California, may I point out that a school board’s task is not to run a school district? That is indeed a task delegated to the superintendent.

The board must set policies that the superintendent is supposed to follow. Hence, I would suggest that the majority of the Board of Trustees is every bit as guilty for the dismal results of the education system in Clark County.

I frankly am amazed that some disgusted parent or group has not begun a recall campaign to address this problem of lowering expectations to the lowest common denominator, which appears to be what the board has done. When leaders expect students of the district to do poorly, they do indeed do poorly, as we are witnessing here.

A successful school or district establishes its expectations to challenge the teachers and administrators to teach toward those standards and the students to strive to reach those goals. Only then will this sad waste of our children’s future be reversed.