Industry FocusEducation

 

It’s an unfortunate reality that, when it comes to education, Nevada has earned failing grades for years. Although the Silver State has seen some improvements, it is still far behind the national average. Recently, Nevada educators met at a roundtable sponsored by City National Bank and held in Las Vegas to discuss the many challenges they are up against and the outlook of education in Nevada.

Tarah Richardson, editor and chief of Nevada Business Magazine, served as moderator for the event. These monthly roundtables bring together different industries to discuss issues and solutions.

What value does Nevada place on education?

Dr. DeRionne Pollard: The greatest challenge facing education, whether it be K-12, higher education, technical education, charter, public or independent, is an absence of pride about education in this region.

Dr. Renee Coffman: We are proud of the Golden Knights, are we not? But we do not say the same thing about our educational system. What created the Golden Knights? It was a vision to say that Nevada can be a professional sports hub, and we saw the dominoes fall after that. [Now Nevada has] the Golden Knights, the Raiders, the Aces and whatever [else is] to come. There was a concerted effort around building infrastructure to make that happen. We have to think about education the same way. If we have a goal of creating an educational system we can be proud of, we must get behind it and create the infrastructure to allow that to happen.

Dr. Federico Zaragoza: In southern Nevada, because of its unique economy and history, the value proposition [of education] is not the unifying element that it is in other places, and we need to make it that. That is where the leadership component comes in, because education is a segue to diversifying the economy, to good jobs and to closing the gaps.

Pollard: We do not have pride and we do not have a collective ethos around what it means to value education, whether that be K-12 or higher education in our region. Until we are ready to redefine that narrative and [do] the work that goes into that, we will be sitting around this table wondering why we have the same outcomes and talking about the same issues.

Coffman: Nevada is ready to think more about the culture of education in our state and creating an educational culture. We all work in our little pieces, but [the reality is that] K-12 supports higher education and higher education helps support K-12. We also have opportunities to provide vocational education opportunities. That is all a network that works together.

Byron Brooks: We do not have a real system for education in the state of Nevada. That is a challenge because we have a process where there is K-12 education and it is separate from anything that would happen after that. [The system] should be placed together so that we have one unified system of education in the state of Nevada rather than separate areas.

Pollard: This is [also] the only place I have seen where we force a false dichotomy [between education and business]. Either you are this or you are that. The reality is that business is dependent upon us producing the outcomes that allow them to attract talent. That allows them to produce the outcomes of their businesses and to have consumers who can afford their services or products. Yet we act as if education is just a public good. It is a private good as well. It is about healthy communities.

Coffman: There is an economic benefit to thinking about an education culture and, [if] we put the same type of economic analysis into education that we did into the Golden Knights and the Raiders and so forth, [we would be able to see] what the benefit to the community is. We also miss the piece of the opportunity costs and the dollars that could come into our community if we had an educational culture.

Dr. Jesus Jara: There hasn’t been an infrastructure that’s been built. [We need to ask], “What do we want from a K-12 system?” Our [wants] have been very limited. [They’ve been] what I call, technical changes [such as], “Let’s break up the district. Let’s do decentralized school systems. Let’s do opportunity scholarships.” And I’m not anti-choice. I think choice is great. We’re competing and changing how we’re doing things to compete. The more the merrier.

How severe is the lack of educators in Nevada?

Pollard: We are having a public reckoning right now around how we have treated teachers and education and we are seeing that manifest itself now.

Jon Haskel: Data tells us the biggest factor in education is a teacher in the classroom. Students are going to learn based on that factor. [However] it is hard to find qualified teachers. We need that pipeline. We do have partnerships with some of the universities and those are great, but there needs to be more of an emphasis on it. We could do a better job in this state of having an emphasis on education, and it starts with developing people who want to be educators.

Jara: The bigger challenge that all of us are facing is that it is not attractive to become a teacher. And it is not the starting pay [that is the issue]. My youngest daughter just graduated from the University of Central Florida as an engineer and her starting pay is comparable to a first-year teacher [here in Nevada]. But [there is] potential to move and growth within her profession where our educators can’t compete. [My daughter’s] company pays for her Masters and then raises her salary. I can’t do that. How do I compete in a K-12 system and maintain good teachers in the classroom? That is something that we must think about.

Dr. Jay Berckley: In America schools have gone through some very transformational changes. Whether that is woke culture, critical race theory or everything related to the pandemic, it has really hurt our profession and the pipeline of teachers coming in. It is not just salary [that is the issue]. Adding another $5,000 to [a teacher’s] beginning salary is nominal when you can do the same thing, work less hours and have Fridays off [by working in another profession]. The equation that we are trying to look at is how to make the process [of becoming an educator] more meaningful for families by connecting businesses [and adopting] longer term thinking.

Pollard: We have politicized the classroom in such a way that a lot of teachers are tapping out. They do not want to have somebody telling them what book they can teach or not teach. They do not want to deal with boards of governance that do not understand their job and yet are making all types of moves that are completely inappropriate. And there are parents who have greater expectations for teachers than they have for what happens in their own home. We have crafted an environment where the folks who we need the most in society are tapping out because they do not want to be a part of that.

Dr. Steve Buuck: Finding qualified, energetic, and dynamic faculty is a challenge. Even in PE (physical education) [we are struggling]. It used to be that we would have 50 PE teachers applying. Now even PE teachers are hard to find. It is critical.

Pollard: We can’t recruit teachers here because we do not compensate them at the level to which they should expect to be compensated or provide the support they [need].

Zaragoza: When we talk about teachers, we bundle them into one conversation when, in fact, current technology education [for example], is its own separate little bucket. The challenges there are significant, especially when you are trying to diversify the economy and create new pathways [economically]. That group of instructors are all in hard [to find] areas and, in those spaces, we are competing with business. We are [not only] talking about nursing and public health occupations, but [also trying to find a] plumbing instructor, HVAC or manufacturing instructor, a welder [and so on]. That is where the huge demand is and that area is one that requires different solutions and conversations.

Buuck: We have great power [just by] walking down the hallway and putting our arm around [a student and telling them], “you would be an outstanding teacher or a coach,” or “I see you young lady as a principal someday.” You have no idea the power of our words that we have. The world is filled with teachers and pastors because someone wrapped their arm around them and said, “You would be a great educator” or “Man, I would love to see you coach here someday.” We bear some responsibility [for the teacher shortage]. In the K-12 space, we need to stop pointing fingers at colleges and asking why they do not give us more teachers. We have a greater influence on kids than even higher education does.

Haskel: Our parents, the members of our community are where a lot of our teachers come from as well. Our teacher assistants, our PTO (parent teacher organization) presidents, are [naturally] teachers. They just need to be put in the right direction.

Jara: When 81 percent of the kids that are graduating stay local, that is tremendous for us. We are recruiting [for teachers] nationally, but that helps us. It is a local community because they stay here and that investment is something we are doing.

Haskel: We have programs set up at Pinecrest where we do tuition reimbursement. We try to partner with CSN (College of Southern Nevada) and have some students from Nevada State University and so our teachers are learning as they teach. We bear a responsibility to teach them while they are learning the job and are taking courses. A lot of them just need a little push in the right direction, whether it be financially or motivationally. I can’t tell you how many of our PTO presidents are now teachers. [We have] parents who just wanted to be involved in the school and then they started as a teacher assistant a year ago or they become a sub in a year. Maybe they cover a maternity leave [for another teacher] and you recognize that they have potential. There is an “it” factor that goes into this profession. It is not scientific. And when you see that “it” factor, you push that person in the right direction.

How do education and workforce development go hand-in-hand?

Zaragoza: I think this community is very collaborative. It has not been difficult to engage industry and to have them tell us the kind of workers and the kind of skill sets that they need. I am concerned that, for example, in manufacturing, the students’ vision of a manufacturing job is not the jobs that are out there. And there is not going to be the excitement that you have in terms of getting into these pathways. There is a lot of work we must do to make sure we communicate with our students about what these opportunities look like.

Pollard: New doctors, that is workforce development. New teachers, that is workforce development. New mechanics, new autopilots, all of those things are workforce development, but we have applied a gentrified sense [to] workforce development or higher ed. [People say] everybody does not need a college education, they can go to a vocational school. That is college.

Zaragoza: When we talk about diversification there are pockets that are moving already, [such as] manufacturing. That pocket has been moving for years and it is only going to accelerate. We just opened an advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Henderson with the sole objective of feeding and supporting the manufacturing sector [with] degree programs [and] incumbent worker training, which is going to be industry certifications. We are looking at what the industry needs and being able to align [with] that.

Berckley: We have a good partnership with UNLV and we have good partnerships with a number of organizations in the community. If a student is going down to the food bank once a year for ten minutes, we can’t really expect  that there is going to be any meaningful thought to one day working there, being the CEO or expanding the programs there because they do not have any experiential opportunities. We are asking ourselves, “How do we do things more meaningfully, richer, deeper, [and focused on the] longer term?”

Zaragoza: The success of CSN is really contingent on the success of CCSD (Clark County School District) and the work they were doing in diversifying their programs to align to the workforce. There are some strong assets in this community that align to the changing economy.

Jara: These big comprehensive high schools are not what parents want any more. We are building some smaller schools. We just opened up one in North Las Vegas and it is [focused on] workforce with entry level and higher ed opportunities. We have kids from Rancho High School that are graduating and going up to Barrett Mining and making $70,000 a year right out of high school. There was another kid from Rancho High School that is a pilot with Allegiant. He walked out of Rancho High School with a pilot’s license. Nobody celebrates that. Nobody celebrates a public-school kid graduating with a pilot’s license because it is not part of the culture and ecosystem that we have.

How has state leadership impacted education?

Haskel: The funding that just came through from the Governor’s office was huge at a school level. From that funding standpoint, the outlook [for education in Nevada] is great. We are in a really good spot right now.

Gil Lopez: We [did not receive the] funding for teacher raises [with] SB 231. Even though it was meant for public school teachers, public charters school [teachers do not qualify] so we got shut off funding that could have gone for more teachers’ raises. This goes back to the status quo and the state wanting to maintain the systems that are there just because it is easier to keep them as the status quo.

Jara: We appreciate the Governor and Legislature [passing] historic funding. What I saw this session, and what I continue to see, is [the question of] accountability. They are asking me, as a superintendent, what accountability there is. We want to be something, but we do not have the expectations of the culture for all children. [We need to able to say], “Here is a set of expectations that is more than just parking cars and flipping mattresses.” Now the Governor is [setting expectations] with SB 98 for the first time and I am excited they are starting to set metrics. My concern is that some of the metrics may be too rigorous when we have not done the basic things in 30 years. [Leadership] wants us to run, but we are barely crawling in expectations and culture.

Buuck: The leadership is what is going to drive change in the state on our campuses. And when I hear the leadership of this state talk about education, I get encouraged, and I really believe there is an optimistic future for our kids.