LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Clark County students will be heading back to the classroom in exactly two weeks.
On Monday, Clark County School District (CCSD) leaders shared important information employees and families need to know before students return, including new and ongoing school safety measures.
School Safety
CCSD police say student safety will begin before students even arrive on campus.
“Well, definitely for the first two weeks of the school year, you will notice an increased presence of law enforcement, just not from CCSD, but it’ll also be from all of the other agencies in the Valley—Metro, North Las Vegas, and Henderson. They’ve all committed to send as many of their officers out on the streets as they can,” said Lt. Bryan Zink with the CCSD Police Department.
The increased law enforcement presence is something that’s done every year.
But this year, it holds even more significance after more than 400 students in Clark County were hit by vehicles last school year.
The CCSD Police Department’s Traffic Unit, currently made up of one lieutenant, one sergeant and eight officers, is also expected to grow.
“The chief has said that we will be adding traffic officers to the bureau. We just don’t know how many,” said Lt. Michael Campbell, who leads the CCSD Police Department Traffic Unit.
Campbell says a new law for active school zones that took effect on July 1 will also help address the crisis of crashes involving students.
“We’re going to have those double fines, those double points coming in. But we’re not going to be doing anything different. We’re going to be going out there with our zero-tolerance mindset. So we’re going to be enforcing those laws because these laws haven’t changed on what you can and can’t do,” said Campbell.
When it comes to infrastructure, CCSD’s chief of facilities provided an update on efforts to secure school campuses.
“So as a result of the incidents unfortunately up at Eldorado back in 2022, we started a robust security initiative. And so we transitioned to the high schools. Those are now nearly complete. The middle schools are now rounding out, and so we’re starting to move into the elementary schools,” said Brandon McLaughlin, CCSD’s chief of facilities.
The initiative began after an Eldorado High School teacher was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten by a student.
It includes four major safety improvements:
- Single points of entry to monitor who is coming onto campus.
- Perimeter fencing to create a barrier between campuses and the public.
- Secure routes from school buildings to portable classrooms.
- Camera upgrades.
Inside school campuses, CCSD police say they also saw improvement when it comes to weapons confiscations last school year.
“So, we have a random generator and every morning I get a new school. I go to that school. We do a sweep of four classrooms, sometimes the parking lot, sometimes the gym, PE lockers. And we hang on the campus all day so the kids can see us and meet us and let them know what we’re doing there,” said Joseph Thomas, a K9 officer with the CCSD Police Department.
CCSD Police say the drop in weapons confiscations has also come from an increase in the concept of see something say something and reporting any suspicious activity.
Anyone can do so through the anonymous tip line Safe Voice.
Staffing Levels
On Monday, CCSD human resource officials also gave an update on staffing.
They said the district will be starting off the school year with 99% of classrooms filled with licensed educators.
“We have 151 licensed vacancies, 86 of those are for special education positions,” said Jo Anna Grant, CCSD Assistant Human Resources Officer. “So we know that our special education positions are typically hard to fill positions. Things that we are doing to kind of mitigate that is our wonderful recruitment team has been working really closely with partnering with different universities across the nation, the ones that obviously have the special education programs and that yield us the most graduates that actually come to our district.”
She said when it comes to support professionals there are more openings.
“We’re sitting at 468 vacancies, and 95 of those are what we call SPTAs, which are our support professionals, and those teaching assistants, the specialized program teaching assistants,” said Grant.
She said they are currently hosting local events and resume support to get these positions filled.
Back-To-School Transportation
When it comes to the district’s transportation department, the annual bus driver bidding is happening later this week.
That’s when the team will know what the staffing situation is when it comes to drivers.
Amber Rideout, assistant superintendent for transportation said they anticipate having over 1,500 bus routes.
“We anticipate that with traffic, congestion, folks getting acclimated to their route, we always ask the community and parents to be patient with our drivers. They too are getting acclimated to their routes. The first two weeks, that could be some change, but we anticipate making sure that we are doing our absolute best to be timely as we always are,” said Rideout. “But if we are running delays, or if we have students that still need service, we will continue to go back and pick up students if for some reason they are not at the stop at the assigned time.”
She said there is an onboard tracking application that allows families to track their children’s bus ride and make sure they’re getting to school safely.
Air Conditioning
Students and employees will be starting school during one of the hottest times of the year, and air conditioning is top of mind.
McLaughlin gave an update on their efforts to update HVAC systems at schools that need it.
“We’ve had a robust preventative maintenance schedule underway, and so HVAC has been a target area for us. So the goal would be that we have 100% of our schools fully working HVAC the first day, but in full transparency that’s just unrealistic for what we’re up to. And so the thing I want to share is just we’ve got a robust amount of resources out there for that first day and first week in particular,” he said.
McLaughlin said they have resources ready to go as quickly as possible if there are any issues.
Food Distribution
As students return to school, every student will have access to free meals for breakfast, lunch, and some schools offer supper for those who have after school activities.
These meals have to be eaten on site.
All food provided have to follow federal guidelines.
“We served 40 million meals last year. We do about 229,000 meals every single day,” said Jake Yarberry, coordinator II and dietician for the CCSD Food Service Department. “So we have to make sure that we’re serving a certain amount of orange vegetables, a certain amount of dark green vegetables. We have to make sure that we’re doing 51% whole grains, whole grain rich breads. We have to make sure that we’re offering milk. We have to follow this whole meal pattern. And then we also have to make sure that we’re under calorie limits. We have to make sure that we’re under sodium limits.”
For details on how to access these meals on your campus go to: menu.ccsd.net.
Family Engagement and Support
CCSD has several resources for families to take advantage of ahead of school.
The Central Family Support Center has services for families across the Valley, including helping students register for school, and provide newcomer orientation for students coming from out of the country.
The Central Family Support Center, located at 1720 S. Maryland Parkway.
Students can receive free vaccinations at the campus.
They can also receive medical services by appointment at the UNLV clinic by appointment. This is also free for students. They will ask for insurance, but don’t require it.
“We also have support with college and scholarship applications, as well as a UNLV clinic at our center that’s located right in the same location.
And we have other resources within our center that are staggered across the week, like such as legal services,” said Juan Guitron, Foreign Transcripts Analyst for CCSD. “We have the food pantry that’s there too as well for qualifying families.
And we also do workshops for families and English classes for adults.”
CCSD’s Family Engagement Department also has 12 locations across the Valley to service families where they are.
They can take English classes.
There are also free workshops on subjects related to their students’ classes and anything that can help parents assist their students with their homework.
Families can also get assistance with understanding their children’s grades, and navigating Infinite Campus.
“I believe that the students just, they feel supported when they leave the school environment and then they get home. They have a connection with their parents, like the same connection that the students have with teachers in schools. They can have it at home with their parents because their parents are in tune with what’s going on at the schools,” said Rudy Avalos, the bilingual interpreter and translator for CCSD’s family engagement department.
If families have any questions, they can contact familyengagement@nv.ccsd.net or call 702-799-0072.
