RUNNING HEAD: SCHOOL BOARD MEETING ASSIGNMENT

Jamie Lohmeyer

EDU 210

School Board Meeting Assignment

Dr. Dale Warby

College of Southern Nevada

10/14/2019
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I streamed the CCSD board meeting on September 12, 2019. There were many

important agenda items for the board to decide on including the Negotiated Agreement

with the Clark County Education Association, lowering the chronic absenteeism rate in

the district as well as improving trust and improving the perception of CCSD. As a

support staff employee these agenda items were a high priority for me.

According to the board by 2024 they want to lower the chronic absenteeism rate

to 16%. To do so CCSD plans to implement support strategies including educating

parents on the importance of school attendance, provide training to employees on the

Data Visualization tool, and the continuation of Attendance Matters workshops run by

the Family and Community Engagement Services team.

There is a lot of added stress put on the district to bringing down chronic

absenteeism. In a school district that has many transient students this is a challenging

aspect. I know that our school’s problem with absenteeism is heavily based on our

students who go out of the country for several months at a time. As we learned in chapter

10 Underwood, J., & Webb, L. D. (2006). School law for teachers: concepts and

applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. “In addition to

constitutional protections, a number of federal and state statutes prohibit discrimination

on the basis of race, sex, gender, religion, national origin, age, and disability.” If we make

a stand on this issue how are we able to combat this when it is part of their culture

without it being perceived as discrimination against their national origin. The parents will

need to realize there is a fine line in between celebrating their cultures and educational

neglect.
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As for improving the perception of CCSD I believe they have their work cut out

for them between employee morale and parent confidence being at an all time low.

Parents are eager to move their students to charter schools and employees are eager to

find employment outside of the district. The board however has no concrete plan set in

place to promote this ideology of improving perception according to their 2024 Parent

and Community Support Presentation. My opinion is that to have a better perception of

CCSD they are going to have to focus on family engagement, by allowing the parents to

see how many of the staff indeed care about their students that will establish a trust that

will help bring up the perception of CCSD.

As pertaining to the CCEA agreement for teachers pay there were many

inconsistencies that I found while listening to the board. As we learned in chapter 2 of

Underwood, J., & Webb, L. D. (2006). School law for teachers: concepts and

applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. “Negotiations are

generally on topics such as wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.

Although most states allow teachers to negotiate in some way, most of them do not allow

teachers to strike.” Our teachers threatened to strike this school year if their demands

were not met. I find that interesting when the support staff has not only received no raises

but, in fact has had decreases in their pay. It is also illegal in the State of Nevada for

teachers to go on strike which means if the teachers had gone on strike CCSD could have

terminated their employment.

During the time that I watched the CCSD board meeting I found that they have a

great deal of work ahead of them. It is apparent that there is misappropriation of funds as

well as an incredibly low perception of the school district. As a future educator the
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amount of work ahead of me feels overwhelming. Not only is it my duty to educate these

students but, to figure out how to increase the trust these parents have in me teaching

their children.
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References

go.boarddocs.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://go.boarddocs.com/nv/ccsdlv/Board.nsf/files/BFQRFC64D16D/$file/09.12.19 Ref

3.01(B).pdf.

Underwood, J., & Webb, L. D. (2006). School law for teachers: concepts and

applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.