Show Jara The Door

Dear elected officials, candidates, parents, teachers, and media,

Preface: Much of what is seen here was written prior to the breaking news of Superintendent Jara’s announcement to resign. Currently, being discussed are the terms of his resignation, dates, and financial compensation for his early departure. There is also talk about his successor and if she will be made a permanent Superintendent on February 7th. While reading about Dr. Jara, please keep in mind that his successor, Dr. Brenda Larsen-Mitchell, has been his apprentice as Deputy for years, and there is every indication she will just be a continuation of his work, attitudes, and management style. The two names can be interpreted as synonyms, or as a warning on what might await with the incoming leadership of Dr. Mitchell, it is your choice. Thank you.

Dr. Jesus Jara needs to be relieved of his duties as the Superintendent of Clark County School District at once. Students are suffering, parents are suffering, educators are suffering because of this man. His cancerous leadership has brought chaos, dysfunction, and misery to every part of public education he has touched in the nation’s fifth largest school district. He has failed our students at every turn, created a hostile work environment for staff, while frustrating parents and community leaders to a point that has never been seen in southern Nevada. His management has proven harmful in ways which will take years for the community to recover.

I thought it would be important to investigate Jara’s background. Who has he worked with prior to becoming CCSD Superintendent, who he is working with now, who has helped his career, what are his priorities, what was the topic of his dissertation? Understanding these things may help the public understand major contributors to the mayhem and hopefully lead you, the reader, to conjure other questions that should be discussed within the community.

 One influencer of Jara I want to write about is Robert Runcie. Runcie, according to his LinkedIn page was Superintendent of Broward County Public Schools in Ft. Lauderdale, FL from October 2011-August 2021. Prior to that, he was an administrative officer in several different roles within Chicago Public Schools. He was never a teacher; nor a school administrator, in any of his many jobs. Curiously, on his LinkedIn page, he lists “collaborating with faith leaders” when describing his role as Chief of Staff for the Board of Education of the City of Chicago. I didn’t think visiting faith leaders had anything to do with running public schools, but in the case of Robert Runcie, it does.

If you are not familiar with Runcie, you may remember him from the Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is in Parkland Florida, an affluent town in suburban northwest Miami. Its schools were a part of Broward County Public Schools and, at the time, under Runcie’s authority. Prior to becoming Superintendent, Runcie’s signature initiative was the “PROMISE PROGRAM” short for Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support, and Education. PROMISE looked to reduce student arrests. It did this by decriminalizing misdemeanors.

According to an article from RealClearEducation, “Students could commit three free misdemeanors per year before warranting consultation with a school resource officer (SRO, also commonly known as a school police officer). According to one SRO, the district instructed them to place some felony offenses under this program as well. The district (the Superintendent) also instructed some principals to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement if the officers came to a campus to arrest a suspected felon.”

That’s right, some crimes just won’t be crimes anymore under Runcie. PROMISE reduced arrests by over 60%. In lieu of a law enforcement referral, students attended an offsite PROMISE program. After a short stint in the program, a student can reintegrate into public schools. Family members of victims of the shooting say former Broward County state’s attorney Michael Satz later told them that PROMISE amounted to systemic obstruction of justice. However, Runcie became a national education reform star prior to the Parkland tragedy. (realcleareducation.com)

So, what is the big deal, you may ask? Cruz, the shooter, was not a student at Parkland during the shooting. Aside from campus security concerns, what does a Superintendent have to do with a nut walking in off the street? Well, no, Cruz was not an active student, and I’d like to come back to the security issues shortly, but he was a former student at Parkland. In fact, prior to attending Parkland, while still in Middle school, he was referred to the PROMISE program, which goes out of its way to prevent student arrests, but he never completed it. He was referred to the PROMISE program, after, of all things, vandalizing a student restroom in 2013 (theguardian.com).

In the book “Race to the Bottom”, Luke Rosiak, says Cruz “was able to buy a firearm despite a long record of infractions, in part because he never had a criminal record.” Rosiak adds, that “official school records did not document the vast majority of incidents the school knew about. At least five students had told the school’s assistant principal that Cruz had threatened to kill and rape people and brought knives, bullets, or bullet casings to school. Cruz told a friend that administrators searched his backpack in response and found bullets, but administrators made no record of this. When Cruz attacked another student, peers tried to show administrators video of the attack. They told students to delete the evidence.” (influencewatch.org)

                Following the Parkland shooting, and after learning how lenient Runcie is toward student discipline, the public went bananas. When people made connections between his approach and the shooting, Runcie called this “fake news” (realcleareducation.com). He claimed Cruz never committed PROMISE-eligible offenses and was never referred, though he was. (theguardian.com).

Coming back to the security issues I paused 3 paragraphs ago; victim’s families were also concerned that the school district failed to effectively spend bond money on school safety improvements. A student journalist pointed out the district had only spent $5M of the planned $100M. Later, NBC Miami reported the 2014 bond was worth $1 billion (nbcmiami.com).

Runcie also called this “fake news”. On one occasion, expecting criticism of Runcie from Parkland parents at a public meeting, Runcie’s deputy told local Black church leaders that parents’ concerns were rooted in racism. Busloads of churchgoers attended the school board meeting and booed families of victims when they called for accountability (realcleareducation.com).

Who would boo the families of murder victims? Is this what Runcie had in mind when he listed “collaborating with faith leaders as part of his duties as Chief of Staff in Chicago on his LinkedIn page? Are there any education leaders in Clark County, who are using religious organizations at public meetings for a nefarious purpose or distraction, of some kind?

The $100M (potentially $1B) bond the student journalist mentioned was managed by Leo Bobadilla. Bobadilla has previously led an $800M bond initiative in Houston. Shortly before he was hired by Broward County, rumors swirled there was to be an audit that would demonstrate terrible mismanagement of Bobadilla’s Houston bond, and Runcie covered it long enough to get Bobadilla hired. I’ll spare the lengthy details of both cover ups, but I’ll note that it reminded me of what I thought when I heard Eldorado HS in Las Vegas got $26M in security upgrades after the attempted murder of one of its teachers in April 2022 (ktnv.com).

Runcie was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for charges including perjury and mismanagement of school district funds. He received with his resignation, a severance that included $145K, $112K in salary, $230K in unused sick and vacation days, $187K in payments to pension, $25K to pay his lawyer who negotiated his departure. The Board also agreed to pay Runcie’s criminal defense which was estimated to cost between $100K-$350K. Runcie was to reimburse the Board if he pled guilty, or was found guilty, or pleads no contest. (tampabay.com)

The Board approved his severance by a 5-4 vote. 2 of the no votes came from family members of victims of the shooting that were elected after the tragedy. In a nauseating display of false humility, he told Lori Alhadeff, a board member whose daughter, Alyssa, 14, was killed at the school, “I know you’ve been in enormous amounts of pain that none of us can ever imagine, I guess I’m part of the source of that in some ways. If it’s going to give you the peace you’re looking for, I will step aside.” (theguardian.com). Wow, what a bastard.

Two years later, charges against him were dropped. He is not required to reimburse the Broward County School Board for his defense fees.

Robert Runcie is a complete disaster to education, right? About a month after leaving Broward County, he was appointed as “Chief in Residence” an interim leader of a national organization of about 50 high-level education leaders in urban areas. This new group faced a bit of backlash for putting him on, but side-stepped frustrations by saying “he’s not on salary with us, he serves only as an advisor.” 2019 tax returns show him listed as a director with zero salary (infowatch.org).

In August 2023, his new group put a ring on it, and made him the official CEO, which includes a salary. The 2021 salary for the previous CEO was $320K (projectspropublica.org). The new group, which trains urban superintendents nationally is called Chiefs for Change. Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara was trained by Chiefs for Change.  (chiefsforchange.org).

Jara became a “future chief”, as they call it, when he began his 12-month training with Chiefs for Change in April 2018. That’s interesting considering he was selected as CCSD Superintendent in a deeply divided Board vote on May 2, 2018. He began training as a leader of a large urban school district, weeks before getting a very rare job in which to use the special training. If you’ve inferred that Chiefs for Change had something to do with how the vote went down, you might be right; however, we may never really know, but we can look at some historical patterns.

Consider perhaps CFC just got lucky when our Board of Trustees chose Jara out of the 6 finalists for the job. CFC knew he was going someplace, just as they knew Rob Anderson, who was also a “future chief” in Cohort 3 with Jara, was going somewhere. Rob Anderson was a Deputy that also managed to make the jump from Deputy to Superintendent 3 months after being chosen by CFC. He started running Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District.

Karla Estrada was also a “future chief” in Cohort 3 along with Jara. She was Deputy in Boston prior to Chiefs for Change, but just one month after being placed in the 12-month cohort she left Boston for Sacramento. She got promoted again, then went to a new employer, Council for Great City Schools, (which we will talk about in a minute) and then became Deputy in Los Angeles.

When CFC waves you into the group, things have a way of happening in a hurry.  It’s something like we see in mob movies where the character gets “made” and their career goes on the fast-track and everyone starts calling them “Don”. Maybe Jara’s CFC training had nothing to do with a move. He could have used his training right there in Orange County, FL., right? Well, his replacement in the deputy role, Maria Vazquez, was the Academic Officer who became a “future chief” in Cohort 5, right around when pandemic lockdowns started happening. After completing her training, she was promoted again to Superintendent of Orange County Schools.

Jara, Anderson, Estrada, Vazquez, four people whose careers went on the fast track the minute CFC made them a “future chief”. These 4 names are the first 4 I looked up in terms of rapid advancement, and CFC hit 4 out of 4. But what of Jara’s last boss? The Superintendent of Orange County when he was Deputy there? Her name is Barbara Jenkins, and if you’re wondering if she was a CFC, of course she is. In addition to being a member since 2016, she became “Chief in Residence” in 2022 holding that title for a brief period alongside Robert “don’t call the police” Runcie, before he became CEO of CFC. Jenkins is still “Chief in Residence for CFC, and we’ll visit with her later in this letter.

Deborah Gist, an original CFC, retired, after a lot of hot water, from Tulsa Schools as Superintendent after the Oklahoma Board voted, to continue to allow Tulsa to be accredited. For a district to almost lose accreditation is a big deal. It’s education’s version of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oklahoma has since pulled the plug on DEI policies leaving many DEI teachers without a friend in the Superintendent’s office and unprotected by state laws and politics. Many of those teachers are left scrambling, but CCSD has just held a hiring fair in Tulsa. Is this smart recruiting? Or is it simply one chief looks out for another. Probably a little of both.

Let’s look briefly at the early history of CFC. CFC became an independent non-profit in 2015. CFC was an affiliate of Excellence in Education which was founded by Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2010. It’s original purpose, obviously mixed with a healthy dose of Republican politics, was to support school choice, the adoption of Common Core state standards, and to elect Jeb to the White House in 2016 (washingtonpost.com). Also worth mentioning is that CFC is funded in part by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates, strong supporters of school choice, and other interests, spent $44M over a couple of years in 2015 and 2016 to influence education policy over many states (tampabay.com). Both CFC and The Council for Great City Schools were among their recipients. I could write a whole mess on the financials of both organizations, but in the interest of brevity, I decided to skip it.

CFC originally wanted to be made up of just Superintendents and State heads of Education. They soon found the benefit in adding “former this and that’s” to their numbers to be a good way to go. For a while, there were more “formers” than there were people employed in top jobs.

One blogger (curmudgucation.blogspot.com) took to calling them “GLOWER” (Glorious League of Washed-up Education Reformers). It was fast becoming a bingo club of retired “has-beens”, but somewhere along the way they found their car keys.  More people, more influence. More influence, more money. More money, more influence.

The Bush train had broken down, and it was time to find a new way to raise funds, so there was a split, from Excellence in Education. It seems to me that Excellence in Education and CFC separated so that CFC could appoint their own officers and focus on their own specific agenda, predominately, the selection, training, and placement of their people into America’s largest districts as Superintendents and State Superintendent jobs as shown above, and the other being an aggressive “diversity” agenda.

Diversity and inclusion are worthy pursuits. I strongly believe that a comprehensive faculty should include all walks of life and backgrounds. With that said, when I say “diversity” is one of their primary interests, I’m being kind, it’s more like an obsession. I think they stay up nights trying to work the words “diversity” and “equity” into new sentences on their website.

When it comes to diversity and equity in public education in America, I think many things were not as they should have been. Mistakes were made. Some mistakes are still being made, and there are so many new mistakes to make. I feel certain approaches to diversity are better than others. So, as we investigate Chiefs for Change policies on “diversity in education” let’s keep past mistakes in mind and recognize them when they wear different clothes.

We’re fortunate that CFC keeps on their website many articles that express their objectives/beliefs. Here is a sample of some of the content.

Exhibit 1: “For the first time in American history, the federal government projected that 51% of all students at the start of the 2014-15 school year were identified as non-white. The United States Census Bureau reports that five short years from now whites will become a minority group amongst all children under age 18. The diversity of this nation is one of the education system’s greatest assets. Yet, the under-representation of people of color as teachers, principals, and system-level leaders across the education sector undermines the significant benefits a diverse society offers to all citizens.”

Exhibit 2: “We need all system-level leaders to commit to implementing strategies and tactics that can attract, develop, place, retain, and advance education leaders of color.”

Exhibit 3: “…nationwide, schools are seriously segregated by race. What’s more, 15% of Black students and 14% of Latino students attend schools where white students make up only 0 to 1% of the student body.”

Exhibit 4: “DEVELOP STRATEGIES TO RETAIN TEACHERS AND LEADERS OF COLOR. (by) Implement(ing) promising strategies to retain staff of color such as financial incentives, leadership and growth opportunities, greater autonomy, and an inclusive workplace culture.”

I have some questions and concerns regarding the information presented in these excepts. In the first: I’m encouraged to see they feel at least that America itself is diverse. What a relief, I thought for a second, they were going to suggest otherwise. As to the under-representation among faculty, I know the numbers, in terms of percentages yes, minorities aren’t on the payroll as much as they are in population. There’s a fix for that. Go to education school. A good start for that is to graduate high school. Those are the things other people must do to get teacher certifications.

Second, we DON’T need leaders to commit to tactics you’ve listed here. We don’t need your wealthy organization implementing “anybody but one of them" strategies when it comes to retaining, developing, and advancing. What you are describing is called bias, and if it’s bad for one group to practice it, then it’s bad for another group to practice it both in print and in an intentional manner.

Third, “schools are seriously segregated”? Schools are made up of the population around them. If you’re proud of the nation’s diversity, but you’re not excited about it when it walks into the nearest school, that’s a fallacy. A school population looks just like the neighborhood around it. “15% of black students and 14% of Latino students attend schools where whites are 0-1%”? I don’t know who you thought you were fooling with that one, but Black students are 15% of all students, so to say 15% of 15% comes out to 2.25% of all students go to school with 0-1% of white students. I wouldn’t expect any major policy shift for 2% of the population. You are completely joking.

Finally, under “retain teachers of color” it lists “financial incentives”, and “greater autonomy”? So, you want more money, less meddling from administrators, in addition to accelerated advancement over other peers? This is also known as the “get out of my office moment”. Pay me more, leave me alone, promote me first. This interview is over. Ballgame. Thanks for coming to Allegiant Stadium. I was taken aback when I read, they want extra financial incentives based on an applicant’s race but given so much else I’ve seen while reading on CFC, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Becoming a teacher is difficult at best. It’s challenging for any student, especially one from a low-income home, to say nothing of an entire semester of student teaching that gets done without income. I wouldn’t expect an organization such as CFC, who has crafted shortcuts to high-levels jobs to know anything about any of that. When I went to school it was years before I had a male teacher. The same is true for many children in the elementary ages, I turned out ok.

In many of my upper division math classes, there was a strong majority of young men, but the smartest of us by a mile, was a 20-year-old young woman whose politics were nothing like mine. I didn’t need someone that looked like me in the front of the room, or to see someone like me do it before I gave it my best shot, and neither did she. I think history gives us a great number of examples which disprove “look like me” is essential. It’s a comfort item, I don’t deny it helps, but it’s nonessential and often an excuse.

These teachers, in underserved classrooms spreading knowledge, are phenomenal. Often, these teachers help in ways far, far, outside of classroom teacher requirements. They furnish supplies, assist students, and their families in finding clothing and hygiene products, etc., and more importantly, often provide perhaps the only adult leadership the students have available to them. It’s a genuine service that is so selfless in nature it has its own word. Altruism. These educators, more than most give the full measure of devotion, sometimes while receiving multiple forms of abuse and for some to claim it would be better if they were “more like me” is shameless, pitiful, and scurrilous.

I think teachers should have advancement opportunities because they are strong educators. I think passing up a strong educator because there was someone else in the picture is a double injustice. It’s bias, and its discrimination and if you’re thinking “How do you like it?” that’s part of the same problem, In different clothes.

I think Chiefs for Change has not a policy of inclusion, but of exclusion. They have gone out of their way to build membership that does not resemble demographics of the nation’s educators. While linking it to the real-life fact that the nation’s educators often do not look like the students they serve. Their exclusion is supposed to be ok, but trained teachers showing up to their jobs is somehow a systemic injustice.

Here’s an idea: why don’t we try open-minded respectful learners, instead of gas-lighting the people that went into teacher programs who are doing their best? As soon as I think I am hopelessly ineffective, unrelatable, and incapable of passing along knowledge, I swear to God, I will walk right into the offices of Chiefs for Change located, by the way, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC., a stone’s throw away from the South Lawn of the White House and see if they can engage the youth in my neighborhood. End of song.

You might be thinking, “Sure, Chiefs for Change seems pretty bad, I understand the training looks a little suspicious, and the equity by exclusion issues are politically risky to attack, but how are Chiefs for Change getting these people into Superintendent jobs?” I’ve seen the news reports that explain the Board of Trustees in my district select the Superintendent from finalists. Let’s take a trip down to the earlier mentioned “Council for Great City Schools” (CGCS).

I couldn’t write a better introduction to CGCS than former CCSD Trustee Danielle Ford did in her podcast “Unravelling Education”. In episode 1, she chronicles many events from her becoming interested in becoming a Trustee through the first 6 months of her term. I highly recommend watching at least her first episode. That episode was a leading inspiration in my doing the research that led to many of the things you are reading in this letter. For the record, I’ve never met Trustee Ford, our perspectives are different, although we share many of the same goals. Please watch her first episode here.

In “Unraveling Education” Trustee Ford illustrates a bizarre conflict of interest that takes place between the Board of Trustees and the Superintendent facilitated by Council for Great City Schools. Without butchering her fine work in the video, she describes a “retreat”, more like a seminar led by CGCS’ CEO Mike Casserly. Oh, great is the honor to have such a decorated and fine leader in public education as Mr. Casserly to come to our city to train our Trustees! This is the prize you win for winning your election and entering the school board.

This, itself, is fine, I guess. A little weird that the public elects its best people, then, an out-of-town group shows up and says “OK here’s what you got to do”; but let’s set that aside for a minute. Being a Trustee is a vastly complicated job. Among the many responsibilities of Trustees is the supervision of the Superintendent of Schools, which can be tricky considering a random person with unknown educational policy knowledge can get votes. We’ll discuss one important example of this shortly.

How would a random person expect to be successful reigning in a potentially rouge Superintendent when the job’s main prerequisite was performing well on election day? A bit of training makes a fair amount of sense considering everything. Where there is conflict, is in the fact that Mike Casserly or, CGCS, also mentors the Superintendent. So, Casserly, gets to advise both the Superintendent, AND advise the Trustees on how to supervise the Superintendent. Mike Casserly gets to play the game with BOTH controllers.

CGCS has member districts in 39 states and Puerto Rico, including Nevada, specifically in Clark, and Washoe Counties. So, you may be thinking “this is fake news, or this is old news. The story you are talking about was in 2019. Make Casserly isn’t even the CEO of CGCS anymore.” Well, it was a 2019 story, and Casserly has stepped down. He is still with CGCS as a “Strategic Advisor”. As far as it being only a 2019 story, there was a retreat on January 10, 2024. Agenda item #2 says: “Professional Learning from Council of Great City Schools”.

Specifically, listed in the meeting agenda as: “Discussion regarding CGCS Student Outcomes Focused Governance Framework…”. If you lost consciousness reading that last line, it’s ok. That’s normal. They bore you to tears on purpose, so you won’t notice what they’re really doing.

Superintendent Jara, with CGCS, unlike with Chiefs for Change, is not only a member, he, along with Casserly, is on the 24-member Executive Board. If that weren’t enough, Jara is also on the Board of Directors. Very busy, indeed. You know who else is on the Board of directors with him? Clark County School District Trustee Lola Brooks from District E. You see, to be a “member district” in CGCS you need to bring both a Superintendent, and a Board member. CCSD is happy to comply. This, to me, is a RAGING conflict of Interest.

What does this Governance training look like? Why does anyone care? How can we be sure it’s nefarious? CGCS has, of course, a Director of Governance. His name is AJ Crabill, unless he has recently changed it again. Just reading about him will have you reaching for the antibiotics. To briefly summarize Crabill, is a task. A proper description of him would take thousands of words, so I’ll leave many details for you to discover. Here are some selected highlights, just know, that many had to be left out for brevity’s sake.

It's unclear if Crabill graduated from high school. He attended the University of Kansas for a while in Kansas City but did not graduate. He says he left college to go work in the tech industry, but there is no evidence of that. He owned some tech companies, which failed or were sanctioned. He became a community activist. At least he had that going for him.

He parlayed community activism into a seat on the Kansas City School Board. While in KC, he met Mike Casserly who contributed to Crabill’s campaign, but Crabill didn’t report those donations. He billed Dallas ISD $24K for 4 days of training while still on the KC Board. At one point, he changed his name, moved to Texas, and took a Board Governance job to the tune of $180K (Seattle).

Crabill can make bread with both hands and has his hands in more than a few pies. One of my favorite things I found about him is: “he gets paid one sum if a Board follows his guidelines but receives another, much larger sum, if they do not”, says Save Seattle Schools’ Blog. Imagine hiring an Algebra tutor for your child, and if your child fails their test your tutor shows up, blames you, and wants more of your money. In the case of CCSD, he will train for a lower fee if the Board approves the training unanimously, but 50% more if the training is approved by only a majority. It’s the “we can do this the hard way or the easy way" pricing plan. Our Board approved the brainwashing for the higher price. Too bad for the taxpayer, huh?

Crabill’s Student Outcome Focused Governance is summed up something like this. The Board is focused on outcomes of students. It’s just like it sounds, which has a nice sound to it, but what exactly are student outcomes? CGCS literature explains in detail, but basically; the Board can focus on: test scores, college and career readiness, progress, test scores, graduation rate, and did I mention test scores?

Things that are NOT student outcomes such as school lunches, happy parents, public comment, busses, budgets, holding the Superintendent accountable, buying books, fussing over the use of school property, collective bargaining, and teacher retention, are some of the many things with which the Board should not be involved, according to Crabill, and you’ll notice, Jara.

If the Board isn’t supposed to be concerned with these things, then who is, you may ask? The Superintendent. And decisions made by the Superintendent are NOT to be questioned. Crabill’s SOFG model, strips the Board of power. That’s a problem for me because the public chooses the Board. The Board is how taxpayers are supposed to have a voice in public education. Crabill’s Superintendent Czar model is plainly undemocratic. When I get to go to the polls, I want to choose a Trustee that will be capable of standing up for my interests, and making the tough decisions, not just smile, and nod and bring the Superintendent his pipe.

I strongly suspect that the January 2024 Trustee’s retreat that featured CGCS, and the SOFG presentation talked a lot about staying out of the Superintendent’s way. You want to know why the Board hasn’t weighed in on Jara’s many mistakes? It’s because they can’t talk while Crabill/Jara drinks a glass of water. You don’t have a voice in public education anymore. He does.

It was easy to find reviews of Crabill’s work in other school districts. In addition to Kansas City, and Dallas, his “gaslighting the Board” band plays in lots of cities. His reviews in San Fransisco and Seattle are fun to read. SF Education Alliance asked: “Are the payments going to the Council of Great City Schools or to the Effective School Boards Initiative or to Crabill himself? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that the district pays $25K annually of your tax dollars for membership to CGCS, and taxes are also paying for travel expenses to CGCS board meetings and other functions.

The Council for Great City Schools doesn’t just do Board training. They’ve expanded into training top Superintendent officers and deputies too. For two consecutive years, 10 top cabinet members from around the nation are trained by this “There but For the Grace of God Society” to be Superintendents. The 2024 cohort has in it the earlier mentioned coast to coast opportunist Karla Estrada. In the very first cohort of Superintendent Trainees in 2023 was our very own Deputy Superintendent Dr. Brenda Larsen-Mitchell. Soon, Chiefs for Change will announce Cohort 8, and I’ve a hunch, look for Brenda Larsen- Mitchell among the selected. She has already completed the very first cohort of Superintendent training for CGCS in 2023.

When Jara was a candidate for Superintendent of CCSD, the United Teachers of Monroe shared their thoughts. (Letter) I thought this was interesting because Jara worked in Monroe County from February 2010 until July 2012, but the letter from UTM President Holly Hummell-Gorman is dated April 2018. Mrs. Hummell-Gorman was still furious about Jara’s management 6 years after his departure. There were, in one school year, over 20 grievances filed on behalf of her members because Jara didn’t require his administrators to understand or adhere to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

That’s something to think about when Jara requires CCSD’s teachers to watch endless hours of training videos while micro-managing what goes on your whiteboard. Racking up grievances at the rate of 2 per month is concerning for a district of any size, but Monroe County had only 8,000 students. It must have been complete anarchy. No wonder she was sending us warning letters long after his stink had left town. United Teachers of Monroe tried to warn us, we should have listened.

Chiefs for Change focuses on work with Superintendents by training them, placing them, and keeping them out of trouble. Council for Great City Schools keeps the Board “in line” by distraction and gas-lighting to marginalize public voices in the education. They do this not in competition with one another, but simultaneously, like a two-headed monster. There are many cross-over members that push levers for both groups. Jara is among them. The same is true for Barbara Jenkins, Jara’s last Superintendent, as well as Karla Estrada in Los Angeles.

Remember back, while wrapping up the section in this letter about Chiefs for Change, I pointed out that CFC offices were on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC? The office for the Council of the Great City Schools is next door. CGCS is next to Chiefs for Change, which is next to the US Treasury Building, which is next to the White House. Right there on “underprivileged row”, hmm? These aren’t by any stretch champions of underserved youth! They’re the NFL of smooth-talking lobbyists that take $200 lunches.

Many people don’t realize that school level administrators such as Principals, Assistant Principals, and Deans also have a union. In Southern Nevada, it is called Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-technical Employees (CCASAPE). It turns out that leaving the classroom to go into school administration doesn’t mean you have to forfeit the benefits of collective bargaining and submit to the supreme power of the Superintendent. Central authoritarian Superintendents quite obviously have a problem with this notion and demand loyalty and devotion.

The purpose of writing about this is not to form your opinion about unions. Choose to like them or not outside of this letter. I want to mention here that the unions Jara is tasked to work with legally exist, and as long as they do, there are good ways to slug it out with an opponent, and there are horrifyingly bad ways.

When Jara became Superintendent of the Clark County School District, among the early challenges he faced was to get the budget under control. To that end, just prior to his one-year anniversary he made a particularly famous move; he announced he was eliminating Deans positions across the district. If you’re thinking he met with his Deputy, and cabinet, who then reached out to Regional and Associate Superintendents who were directed to have meetings with Principals who could arrange sit-downs with the Deans, no. That would be one of the right ways to do it.

What he did was he sat down in front of a camera in his office and posted a 7-minute video to the CCSD website. The video describes for the first 5 minutes the sad state of affairs with the shortfall then at 5:22 as if in the middle of a paragraph 170 administrators get a gut punch. Many of them found out while watching the news. Imagine being a school administrator in the early part of your summer break and your turn on the TV and find out from an education reporter that you will be back in the classroom come August. Wow. What a bastard.

The CCASAPE was going ballistic. They were completely blind-sided. Eldorado High School Principal David Wilson was particularly annoyed. He was a principal who, better than anybody, was effective at giving past habitual disciplinary students a new life at his school.

Dave hated expulsion. He would pull these expelled kids in from all around, sit them down, make it work, give them a new environment, and a final chance to get right, and it worked, a lot. Much of what made it work for Dave was the relationship with the kid, but also a solid discipline manager. Deans are those administrators.

Dave was an administrator’s administrator. He was very well respected among teachers, as well as peers. Dave, in addition to being a top Principal was also the President of CCASAPE. If there was a short list of people to make a move against this ridiculous elimination of student behavior officers, Dave Wilson would be on top of that list. Jara was running the Robert Runcie playbook from Parkland, and Dave was just the guy to stop it.

He met with the media, of course. He also gave strong public comment to the Board of Trustees, but his first and most powerful weapon was that within 2 days he called a no-confidence vote from Middle School and High School principals. In very strong language, it was a rebuke that CCASAPE had never issued in 47 years. It passed unanimously (ktnv.com). How bad are things for a Superintendent when your principals meet, in the middle of summer, to unanimously say you are incompetent? Pretty bad I would guess, but in the case of Dave Wilson, his CCSD career was over.

During the first week of August, after staff returned to Eldorado, but before classes resumed all staff were called to an unscheduled meeting. Teachers arrive to see high level members of the Superintendent’s cabinet, and all of Eldorado’s assistant principals very sullen looking on stage, but Dave was not present. The staff was devastated to learn Mr. Wilson was assigned to home indefinitely for reasons the district would not explain.

Staff members essentially sequestered, they were told not to contact Mr. Wilson, and that he would not comment. Staff were also advised not to discuss the change and to direct questions to the school or district office. One must wonder what would have happened if a teacher had told the story to the media, but no one dared. This turn of events was stunning to many as Dave, in good spirits, led the welcome back meeting just the prior morning.

Roann Triana was soon assigned principal’s responsibilities for Eldorado as well as her own school until CCSD could appoint a permanent principal for the school. Roann is now a regional Superintendent in Region 1, (welcome to the fast track) she reports to the Deputy Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell, and Superintendent Jara. Roann’s assistant, Dana Crowley, was an Eldorado Assistant principal for Mr. Wilson. Dave Wilson is now retired and lives out of state.

Jara getting rid of Mr. Wilson was a mafioso maneuver that not only got rid of his biggest threat but got other administrators to fall in line. Comply or you will be shown the door. This is exactly how a hostile work environment operates. Smash all opposition. Ever since, negotiations with CCASAPE have been without major disagreement and rewarding to administrators.

What about Jara and the teacher’s union, CCEA? This will be discussed in a separate letter. For now, suffice to say healthy bargaining between the two is a memory, and students and their families pick up the tab. This was especially obvious in September 2023.

On September 1, 2023, 44 teachers out of 105 did not come to work at Southeast Career Technical Academy. The school remained open, but classes were shuffled around so that every student had a “teacher” of some kind. I put “teacher” in quotes there because sometimes it wasn’t always a licensed instructor or a substitute, they can pull a hall monitor to watch kids in special cases just to cover the supervisory need for students.

Over the next 14 days similar situations occurred at 14 other schools. The “sickouts” occurred throughout the valley, as each Trustee Region took a hit twice, with one getting a third incident. Of those fifteen, eight schools closed their doors for the day, citing inadequate staffing to supervise students. In each of those eight cases, the decision to close the school came just prior to when instruction is to begin. Said another way, kids were at, or on their way to school on busses, bikes, on foot, or in parent cars. Only upon arriving did many learn there was to be no school today.

Parents of young students, now faced with unexpected childcare obligations, had to call off work, or make emergency plans for the supervision of their kids. This was, for Jara, an excellent opportunity to point the finger at the CCEA. He, and other minions, took to social media to paint the teacher’s union as uncaring for students who would endanger students learning to gain an upper hand in bargaining. It was a pretty good paint job, but anyone who has ever sold a used car knows you can’t paint rust with lasting success.

Three strong arguments to be made that disprove the union was closing schools. First, when were these sick calls made? Standard call-in procedure involves going to a substitute scheduling website to request a sub. The sick teacher also sends an email to their supervisor, and in many cases is asked to also email or call the school’s office manager. Phone records won’t prove when sick calls happened, but “SmartFind” would be able to show if they received an odd spike in sub requests just before classes began. CCSD knows when the calls and emails were sent, they’re just not telling you.

Second, in the case of Sewell Elementary, 29 of the 40 teachers called off work. Union membership is, in most schools, at or above 50%. Let’s assume 60% in this case, so if all the membership participated (big if), then in the high end, up to 24 of those calls came from union teachers, while also assuming those calls came right about when little Kyle was headed to the bus stop. It would be easy for the district to show this was how it went down but they don’t. Remember when Jara has the facts, he elucidates them. When he doesn’t, he misleads.

They want the public to think that was how it occurred. The fact is, some, or many of the sick calls came from non-members, and I’ll bet dinner and drinks that many of them came the night before. Those site administrators knew they were going to take a hit before they went to bed.

Third, how many people were sent to schools to help because of a spike in sick calls? Zero. Not one associate or regional Superintendent was dispatched to a school that would be under-staffed for a day. Each of them has licenses that would permit it, but none came. Everyone in the central office sat on their hands and blamed teachers. Blaming the union was manipulation, the district closes schools, not teachers, not weather, or other events.

Finally, what is going on with staff demographics within the district? In 2019, there were 275 teacher vacancies. In 2023 there were 1,563 teacher vacancies. (Data Insight Partners)

In 2019/2020 SY, there were 12,768 Caucasian teachers, in 2023/24 SY there were 11,423 Caucasian teachers. Not including the 83 that were moved to administration, there are 1,262 fewer Caucasian teachers than there were 4 years ago. Vacancies went up 1,288, Caucasians went down 1,262. (ccsd.net)

A teacher shortage? It might appear to some as a Chiefs for Change faculty cleansing. For every net reduction of 10 teachers, 23 of them were white. This didn’t happen because they were fired, but it’s more likely they were harassed by administrators, and bullied by insubordinate youth, and under-represented by their bargaining unit. You decide.

Jara, including Deputy Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell, Board President Evelynn Garcia Morales, Vice President Irene Bustamante Adams, Lola Brooks, and Q-anon/Moms for Liberty member Katie Williams have all got to go. Jara thankfully has resigned; his replacement is feared to be worse, somehow. The other names are that of the voting block that enables his terrible agenda.

We’re stuck with Trustee Adams for two more years, but with one Board member leaving, and 3 other incumbents that can be replaced, we have an opportunity to elect our very own majority to the school Board in November and I aim to get it. Eliminating Jara is just the start of the good work that must take place.

We need candidates that will be elected by the people; and represent them, and only them, in Clark County public education. This includes not putting people on the Board that will be playing footsie under the table with Crabill before the server brings the menus.

This Board has created policies that prevent them from speaking to the public, so I’m looking for Trustee candidates that are speaking to the public. I find it hard to support candidates that are silent to minimal on social media while some of the most important education news in a very long time is breaking. If we want non-muted Trustees next year, a good indicator is to not pick the ones that are muted now!

Visit on https://www.facebook.com/groups/ccsdspf. It stands for Students, Teachers, and Faculty with the goal of making a better public school system for all of us.

Who should I write about next? Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Elwood @Calculuscab