Kamilah Bywaters (left) and Lorena Biassotti (right)
An open seat on the Clark County School Board has come down to a disgruntled teacher turned education advocate and a stay-at-home mom who made a name for herself protesting mask mandates and covid restrictions.
Kamilah Bywaters and Lorena Biassotti are competing to replace Trustee Lola Brooks, who has represented District E since 2016 but did not seek a third term. District E includes much of Summerlin.
The women emerged from the June primary as the top two vote-getters in a crowded field of nine candidates. Bywaters received 21.3% of votes while Biassotti received 19.9%.
Heading into the general election, Bywaters, who is still a licensed special education teacher and subs in the district, has a much longer list of endorsements and has significantly outraised Biassotti, according to their campaign websites and finance reports. But Biassotti, who has also gone by the name Lorena Cardenas, has been the focus of more media attention for her history as a “parental rights” provocateur and association with the controversial group Moms for Liberty.
Bywaters had raised more than $21,000 in campaign contributions as of July 15, according to her campaign finance reports. Those contributions include $2,000 from the Education Support Employees Association (ESEA), $2,000 from a Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) PAC, and $1,500 from a Nevada Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1107 committee fund.
By contrast, Biassotti had raised just $3,250 as of July 15. The majority of that — $2,000 — came from her husband. Her biggest outside contribution was $500 from Tony Grady, who lost the Republican U.S. Senate primary this year to Sam Brown.
Fundraising is not alway a good indicator of election results, particularly when it comes to down ballot school board races. In 2020, school board candidate Jeffrey Proffitt garnered a mountain of endorsements and raised more than $85,000 but lost to Katie Williams, a fellow political newcomer who only raised around $11,400.
Like Biassotti, Williams ran for the nonpartisan school board seat as a firebrand conservative and has been loud and proud about their support of former President Donald Trump.
Biassotti founded the Clark County chapter of Moms for Liberty. Both the local and national chapters are known for protesting vaccine mandates, advocating against diversity equity and inclusion policies, and pushing anti-trans narratives.
Bywaters is in stark opposition to Biassotti when it comes to those topics, but she says she is trying to focus her campaign not on culture wars but on her experience in the classroom and as an education advocate.
“My opponent’s extreme focus on transgender students, eliminating social justice, and not wanting to believe in DEI gets us off track of the real work that needs to be done,” Bywaters said. “She doesn’t seem to have an understanding of the role of a trustee.”
Here’s a closer look at the candidates.
Disgruntled CCSD teacher turned advocate
Bywaters’s path to the school board began with her father, a longtime public high school teacher who taught special education at Rancho High School. Bywaters, who graduated from Rancho, says her dad’s passion for teaching inspired her to follow in his footsteps and become a special education teacher herself.
But three years of teaching at Canyon Springs High School after graduating college made her rethink those plans.
“I was a young teacher,” she recalled. “You’d think your career would be supported by leadership, but I had the worst experience ever.”
Bywaters described the work environment as “corporate America” and says she was discriminated against and harassed. That experience pushed her to co-found a support group called the Las Vegas Alliance of Black School Educators (LVABSE).
After leaving CCSD, she returned to Howard University, the historically black college where she’d earned her undergraduate degree, to attend divinity school. When she returned to Las Vegas, she resumed work with LVABSE and began working on a doctorate degree in special education. She still holds an active teaching license and substitutes.
She believes all of her professional experience has prepared her to be an effective trustee that can focus on academic policy and outcomes.
“I’ve prepared myself to be in the position to support the community,” she says.
Bywaters says her top priority if elected would be advocating for a review and update of the school board’s policies, which she believes have been altered in ways that have reduced the board’s ability to properly oversee the superintendent and district.
“What we saw with Superintendent (Jesus) Jara was many, many decisions without the full board being informed,” she said. “That’s what we have to change if this district is to move forward.”
She added, “There should not be, in my opinion, any key decisions that do not come across the board.”
The Las Vegas Review Journal in May reported that Jara had given his cabinet significant raises in the months before he was set to leave the district himself. At least one trustee, Linda Cavazos, said she was unaware of the raises until they were reported on by the media.
CCSD is notorious for giving trustees materials immediately before their meetings, says Bywaters, leaving little or no time for thorough review. That is unacceptable, she added, and could be addressed by a new board.
The Clark County School Board is composed of 11 members — seven elected, voting trustees and four appointed by Clark County Commission and the Cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. Of the four seats up for reelection this year, only one has an incumbent, providing ample opportunity for a switch in the balance of power.
“There is an appetite,” says Bywaters. “Once we get some new trustees.”
In addition to her professional experience, Bywaters also has firsthand experience as a CCSD parent. She is the mother of two elementary aged children. Both are enrolled in CCSD, and she says the experience has been positive.
“My son’s teacher called me the other day,” she said. “I don’t think she even knows I’m running for school board. She says, ‘You know, Ms. Bywaters, your son is doing an excellent job. We can tell you all are working with him.’”
Bywaters continued, “What I like about that is, that’s how you get parent buy-in. You call that first week of school. Connect with parents. … I know a lot of (CCSD) teachers who do this.”
From stay-at-home mom to school board candidate
Biassotti’s path to seeking elected office began when she left the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom.
“It was a sacrifice I made to have a closer relationship to my children,” she said. “Because I wasn’t working, I was able to directly supervise my kids with their schooling, and in doing so I came across a lot of policies that were wrong in public schools.”
Biassotti is a self-described conservative Christian and mother of four. Two of her children are teenagers who attend CCSD high schools, and two are elementary aged and enrolled in a private school.
“I would love for them to (attend a CCSD school),” she said. “It’s a struggle and a sacrifice to put kids in private school unless you’re wealthy — and I’m not — but there was no other choice because I will never be okay with my little boy, my little girl walking into libraries and seeing promoted beliefs that I have taught them to be wrong.”
While there have always been problems with the school district, Biassotti says, her tipping point was the covid mask mandates, which in 2020 affected her then-kindergartener. She began attending public meetings to voice her opposition. She introduced herself as Lorena Cardenas, her maiden name, in order to maintain privacy and avoid internet trolls, she says.
Biassotti attended at least one school board meeting wearing a bright yellow hazmat suit to try and make a point about the ineffectiveness of mask mandates. Her public comments have included accusing public teachers of grooming children, comparing trans-inclusive policies to pedophilia, and calling mask mandates child abuse.
She has been physically escorted out of school board meetings for being disruptive.
Biassotti describes those experiences differently, saying she was “shunned” by the school board for opposing their narratives and ideologies.
Biassotti acknowledged her prior interactions with the board may be a concern for some but says if elected she would be “civil and come with facts.” She added that if elected, “I hope (the board) will see that and could see past preconceived notions of me. Hopefully we can move past that.”
Chief among the concerns Biassotti hopes to address on the school board are CCSD’s restorative justice policies, which she believes allow children to “misbehave with impunity” and directly contributed to the fatal beating of a Rancho High School student last year.
“I can bring in more involvement from parents,” she said. “I would want to illustrate that it’s not just me — I’m representing thousands and thousands of parents. I would try to maximize their voice and offer the community hope.”
Biassotti is one of two school board candidates associated with Moms for Liberty. Lydia Dominguez, who is running in District B, is the other.
Last week, Biassotti announced she would withdraw her membership from Moms for Liberty Clark County, which she cofounded.
“The choice is not taken lightly, but it is one I make with a clear and unwavering resolve,” she said in a statement.
She did not elaborate on the decision, saying in her statement that “while I respect and support the work of Moms for Liberty, my path forward requires me to take this step.”
In her interview with the Current, which took place prior to that announcement, Biassotti defended the organization and pushed back against its classification as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“We are on the receiving end of hatred,” she said. “Our values are being hated. We’re facing discrimination for holding a traditional belief that we were raised in.”