LETTER: Time for change on the Clark County School Board

It’s candidate filing time again for the November elections. While we are primarily focused on the governor, Senate and congressional races, the most important races may be for the three open Clark County School District trustee seats. These can have immediate impact on our community and, indeed, the future of Southern Nevada.

Face it: The present school board is the most dysfunctional government entity in Nevada, and our dismal academic ranking and results reflect this. If we want to improve the district, and we all should, this is where we have to start.

We need our schools to focus on reading, writing, math and science. These subjects should be required of every student at every grade in every year — and be graded. Critical thinking is also a necessity. Students should not advance unless they demonstrate the proper proficiency in these subjects. Young people will have a very hard time to reach their full potential without these skills.

We need good candidates to step up and represent our children and grandchildren and their parents. Good candidates include parents. Bad candidates include members of the teacher unions or other school unions, who would instantly be in a conflict-of-interest position.

Candidates have until March 18 to file. If you are interested at all, please file and get on the ballot so that we can eject Irene Cepeda and Linda Cavazos from the board. Our kids deserve better than this. Why accept mediocrity when we can pursue excellence?

The other important thing we can do is break up the district into smaller, logical pieces. The time has come.