Nevada’s primary elections are June 14 -- with early voting starting May 28 -- and we're talking to candidates running for various offices throughout Southern Nevada.
We turn to the Clark County School Board, and the District C seat currently held by board of trustees president Linda Young.
Young is running to keep her seat, and she joins KNPR's State of Nevada to talk about her race.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
Why do you want to keep your seat?
There are students out there that need the voice of me, and others like yourself, to continue their struggle as young children and that’s what I did and I want to bring that back.
We’re in the process of many things happening in the district. I would love to see our teachers… they need to be appreciated more. They need to be valued more. They need to be lifted up. They get discouraged as well. They get a lot of attacks unfairly.
I know there is great potential in our school district in our students, in our teachers in all of our educators and we’re not always coming through the way it should. I want to support our efforts in some of our testing programs that I think sometimes we over test and over push. At the same time, we do need to set the bar high. And I believe in high expectations.
Do you thing comprehensive sexual education should be better taught in Clark County schools?
I think everything we do should be better taught. What happened 10 years ago, you’ve got to look at and review. What we did in the past certainly may not be adequate in the future. Anytime we can come together look at what we’re doing, review what we’re doing, not hold onto things that happened five, 10 years ago. I think merits a strong consideration and a strong review and I’m always in favor of areas such as that.
Do you support the plan to create autonomous empowerment schools?
Oh! Big Time! Not only for administrators but for your teachers, your support staff, even your students, of course and your community and parents. Anytime you can empower people and come together and think about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, we get buy in. And then we get others to know the plan and the vision and then work toward that.
Are you worried at all about leadership?
For me, no. The leader doesn’t have to be principal. You can have a great teacher leader or a great support staff leader. Sometimes what we do is put the leadership on one person and maybe they have expertise in one area of managing a school but maybe a teacher may have a great expertise in the curriculum part of the schools. We have a variety of leadership roles for everyone involved.
I do believe there needs to be training – professional development and training. And I think there needs to be ongoing review and support to schools.
What can we do about the low graduation rate?
What we do have to do is get people in our community and in our homes to partnership with the schools. Schools can’t be the end-all and be-all for everyone. We can do our part. We have our little territory and we need to do that better, of course, but we need the partners in our homes and in our community and in our churches and people like yourselves. We’ve got to lift up these children and students. Many of them are having lots of challenges unfortunately, that sometimes none of us have any control over.
Why does a quarter of the ESL students stay in the program throughout schooling and what can be done about it?
When students gain the skills they need and then move on into what I call integrated learning opportunities. It is very important because not only do they learn from their teachers, they learn from each other. You want to model up.
Why are you so driven to do this?
I’m driven to do it because for lack of a better word, it is a calling to do. As you know, we don’t get very much money at all to do this. And I feel I have a true responsibility to carry on the work that we’ve started. That we must improve. I feel I’m positioned to do that. I’ve got the history of it and in my own understanding of all the dynamics and the strategic imperatives what we need to do to continue this work. This is good work too by the way.
What is the priority for you at CCSD?
The main one is to keep our focus on the students and to move the politics out of the way. That’s my main thing. If the students don’t succeed, none of us succeed.
And to help students know they do have the capacity and the capabilities to move forward, they just have to struggle a little bit like all the rest of us. But I’m very encouraged for them.
My second one is all of us in some capacity or another are teachers, but those that are certified and highly qualified, we need to support them. It’s pretty discouraging out there for our teachers and for our support staff as well.
We’ve got to get our salaries up. We need teachers to start at $50,000.
Linda Young, president, Clark County School District Board of Trustees
