Superintendent Jara announces dean reinstatement and next steps to balance budget

Clark County School District Superintendent Dr. Jesus F. Jara announced that the district will not be eliminating the Dean of Students position as a part of the 2019-2020 school year budget balancing effort. Instead, CCSD middle and high schools will need to reduce their budgets by approximately $98 per pupil of their projected enrollment, allowing building principals and School Organizational Teams (SOTs) to look at their own budgets and decide where they want to make cuts. This will allow for a more equitable distribution of the weight of the necessary $17 million in cuts needed to start the school year with a state-mandated balanced budget.

The decision comes after close to two weeks of collaborative talks between stakeholders, including teachers, principals, support professionals and more, about how to best balance the district budget. The talks yielded a host of ideas which Superintendent Jara and his team then gave deep consideration to ahead of the decision announced today.

“One of the things we were most sure about coming into the listening sessions we hosted after the July 11th board meeting is that we didn’t want to make any cuts to classroom teachers, support professionals or increase class size,” stated Superintendent Jara. “Our principals and SOTs know what their individual school communities need most. This new direction will give them the ability to make those decisions. Our students deserve this kind of collaboration.”

Additionally, Dr. Jara announced that CCSD will move forward with Student Success Project Facilitator positions in select secondary schools. This is being done in an effort to rethink how students are disciplined.

To view Just The Facts about the recent decision to reinstate Dean of Students positions, click here.

To view proposed secondary school per pupil budget adjustments, click here.

To learn more about the Clark County School District, visit ccsd.net.