Lombardo appoints compliance monitor to CCSD, demands corrective action

The Clark County School District will have a new monitor checking its actions, Gov. Joe Lombardo and Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert announced on Monday.

Ebert sent a letter to Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell and Trustee President Evelyn Garcia Morales earlier Monday notifying them of the district’s lack of compliance with laws pertaining to financial support of a school system and alternative school management.

As a result, the district will need to submit a corrective action plan by Dec. 27. Ebert also appointed Yolanda King of King Strategies LLC to serve as compliance monitor for the district.

“Clark County students, teachers, and families deserve to have confidence in their school district,” Lombardo said. “To help CCSD meet compliance standards, we have appointed a Compliance Monitor to the district, and we will require CCSD to develop and implement processes to improve communication and transparency through a Corrective Action Plan. As I’ve reiterated since taking office, unprecedented funding requires unprecedented accountability, and we will not accept a lack of accountability for our school district.”

The move comes after mulitple exchanges between Ebert and Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell in which Ebert sent public letters requesting information about the district’s budget issues earlier this year.

“After reviewing those responses, NDE remains concerned about the District’s leadership, policies, and processes that prevented CCSD’s local school precincts from receiving timely and accurate funding information prior to the start of the 2024-25 school year,” Ebert wrote in Wednesday’s letter.

In Larsen-Mitchell’s responses to previous letters, she acknowledged a failure to provide up-to-date information to local school precincts and said that CCSD did not have processes and procedures in place to adequately manage new information received by the district after Jan. 15.

She also had identified the root causes of the failure as “insufficient process documentation and communication and organizational and process silos.”

Ebert said that the failure to update the information had hindered NDE’s ability to have oversight over the school district. She also said that the failure to provide information to schools had not been in compliance with reorganization law, as local school precincts had been unable to control their plan of operations.

As compliance monitor, King will be allowed to attend any meetings related to the reorganization and operations of CCSD. Her written report will be an agenda item at each school board meeting.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X and @katiefutterman.bsky.social.