One-time Clark County School District board member Danielle Ford is challenging incumbent René Cantú for a seat on the Nevada State Board of Education.
The learning environment for Nevada’s school children is largely driven by policies and regulations determined or approved by the Nevada State Board of Education — including graduation requirements, teacher performance evaluations, and school star ratings.
If you’re unfamiliar with the state board and its duties, you’re not alone. Since it was restructured by the Nevada Legislature nearly a decade ago, the nonpartisan board has largely flown under the radar. But its policies and the direction it gives to districts can affect schools and students across the state.
Eleven people sit on the Nevada State Board of Education. Four are elected by voters — one from each congressional district. The other seven are appointed by the governor or various public bodies.
Nevada law requires the Board to develop a 5-year strategic plan to improve the achievement of students enrolled in public schools across Nevada. Part of those plans include setting standards for how schools and educators are evaluated, and establishing graduation requirements, including the number of credits needed or the types of diplomas offered by the state.
The board also guides policy development for school discipline, curriculum, class room sizes, social worker-to-student ratios, and other areas.
But those guidelines are not mandatory because the board does not control state funding levels for education, meaning they cannot provide monetary resources to help schools accomplish said goals. The board’s financial power is largely limited to setting priorities for who receives certain grants or scholarships.
That said, members can — and often do — advocate on education issues and work with state legislators on bills.
Career – not just college – bound
In District 3, which covers northwest Las Vegas, Nevada State Board of Education member René Cantú is running against former Clark County School Board trustee Danielle Ford. Felicia Ortiz, the current elected board member representing District 3, was term-limited and could not run for reelection.
Cantú is the executive director of Jobs for Nevada Graduates, which targets vulnerable youth and helps them finish high school. He currently represents District 4 on the state board, but because of the political redistricting process in 2021 is now running in District 3.
The Latin Chamber of Commerce, Vegas Chamber, Make the Road Nevada Action, Nevada Veterans Association, and the Clark County Education Association have endorsed Cantú.
From January through June his campaign has raised about $14,600 in campaign contributions and spent nearly $6,000. His largest campaign donor was the Clark County Education Association’s political arm, which donated $10,000 to his campaign.
Cantú advocates wider, more equitable access to Career, Technical Education (CTE) programs, which he believes is a need in both urban and rural areas of the state.
Career and technical academies were first established as vocational schools for young people who were not college bound, said Cantú, but now serve as a preferred stop for high achieving students as well. Cantú said CTE programs should be expanded in all high schools in the state, both urban and rural.
“We need to do everything we can to make CTE schools the rule rather than the exception,” Cantú said. “Every young person needs to be either college bound or career bound.”
When it comes to student safety, Cantú advocated for a systemic “multi-tiered system of support” in K-12 education, a framework that gives educators academic and behavioral strategies for students with additional needs. The system calls for robust behavioral and mental health support for struggling students.
“It’s a preventative tool in terms of identifying young people who need intensive interventions to succeed,” Cantú said. “One of the key pieces of that has to do with providing trauma informed care, training for teachers, and counselors.”
The state Legislature sets funding levels for education and social service programs, not the state school board. But Cantú said Nevada’s historically inadequate funding in both areas is a major barrier to students’ achievement in the state.
Poor education funding exacerbates inequality, which is a major indicator of future student success, Cantú noted. According to the Kids Count Data Book — an annual publication measuring state-level data on child welfare — Nevada ranks 47th nationally, largely due to the lack of education, health, and economic well being among children said Cantú.
He advocated for robust wraparound services for students and their families and emphasized the importance of meeting basic needs for successful student learning.
“If you want to raise student achievement, you need to take a holistic approach, where you look at education, health, mental health, and economic well being,” Cantú said.
Local control
Running against Cantú is Danielle Ford, who served a term on the Clark County School Board from 2018 to 2022 before being unseated by Irene Bustamante Adams.
She has remained outspoken and involved in education since leaving office, and now runs a podcast called “Unraveling Education.”
During the three-way primary in June, Ford earned 45% of the vote, beating Cantú — her nearest competitor — by 2,469 votes.
She’s been endorsed by the Nevada State Education Association. From January through June her campaign has raised nearly $2,000 in campaign contributions and spent about $600. Her largest campaign donor was the Nevada State Education Association’s political arm, which donated $1,000 to her campaign.
Ford said her campaign priorities are universal Pre-K, reforming standardized testing, and reducing the number of state mandates on school districts.
Early education and Pre-K is the simplest and most comprehensive way to improve long-term academic success for all Nevada students, said Ford.
Ford said she believes there is a major need to reform standardized testing, especially in a state like Nevada which faces several challenges. Nevada is among states with the nation’s lowest per pupil funding. The state also has had chronic teacher shortages, a large student body who are English-language learners, and a large transient population, all factors that make evaluating students using a narrow set of metrics more difficult, said Ford.
Serving as a trustee on the Clark County School Board — the largest school district in the state — has given her a clear understanding of how state mandates affect school districts, Ford said.
One example Ford gave is the myriad of “unnecessary reporting mandates” set by the Nevada Department of Education for educators, administration, and support staff without providing the necessary support to adhere to those mandates, said Ford.
“It’s a big reason why we have such a shortage of educators and support staff. ” Ford said. “They don’t want to file a report or jump through these unnecessary hoops that the state board has placed upon them.”
“It’s well intentioned, but it ends with the district putting mandates on the principals, and the principals putting mandates on the educators, and now educators have to use their prep time to grab all this data,” she continued. “ I guarantee there’s a dozen at least we could trim the fat off.”
However, Ford emphasized that she is “in no way anti-government or anti-bureaucracy,”adding that mandates have their place, but require clear reasoning. For example, one major mandate the board of education needs to address is the Clark County School District’s failure to implement the 2017 reorganization law.
While on the Clark County School District board, Ford was one of the most outspoken trustees against then-Superintendent Jesus Jara. She criticized Jara for undermining the reorganization law, which gave schools and their organizational teams more autonomy on how to spend their budgets. The conflict led to the Nevada State Board of Education meeting to discuss what authority the state had to put the Clark County School District into receivership for not adhering to the reorganization law.
“That’s the first thing we need to do, is enforce the reorg so schools can make their own purchasing decisions,” Ford said. “
“I’m still very concerned that the state is going to take over that school district, and that’s another reason why I’m running for the position, because if the state board is going to be taken over, then I’d rather be on it to give the power back to local communities,” Ford said.