LETTER: Clark County School District thinking too much about skin color

In your Monday story “CCSD addressing zones,” the School Board members say they are changing the variance application process for “equity and efficiency.” Then district official Mike Barton says that schools with the highest numbers of zone variances had the highest number of Caucasian students. But the district has “no central system” for tracking detailed data such as the ethnicity of those students. In fact, Trustee Katie Williams was concerned that students won’t be able to attend a school based on their skin color. When will we forget skin color and instead focus on the needs of the students?

As far as efficiency, the board wants to switch to a system similar to the one used for magnet school applications — even though that process has been criticized because families sometimes have a difficult time navigating the magnet school application system. We need to think first of what is best for our students.