LETTER: Let’s allow Southern Nevada cities to escape the Clark County School District

The search for a better school system does not have to be done alone or from a “bottom-up” process. The burden does not have to lie solely on a parent. It can be done by municipalities which recognize that smaller, more community-centric schools are an option that once again places the duty of educating our children on the shoulders of the public school system — but a public school system that works.

The Community Schools Initiative is asking for a law that allows a municipality or township to “opt-out” of the Clark County School District. Of the 18 school districts in Nevada only the CCSD was shut down 100 percent during the pandemic. The exodus that the Review-Journal spoke of in a March 28 editorial is not statewide, where smaller more manageable school districts exist, but in the behemoth Clark County district.

The decisions were more difficult for officials in the fifth-largest school district in the country because they had to deal with 360,000 kids. Imagine a community school district of some 100,000 students that has the ability to be more agile in a time of crisis and to make decisions in the community in which they have the most accurate and direct knowledge.

In a new world of smaller community school districts in Clark County, the teachers’ union would have to strong-arm a larger number of smaller, independent and determined-to-educate school districts. How ironic would it be that the power of schools be placed back in the hands of the communities they serve.