FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Contact: Keenan Korth
Phone: 702-498-0987

CCEA Statement on CCSD Declaration of Impasse

LAS VEGAS, NV—The Clark County Education Association (CCEA) released the following
statement on Tuesday afternoon regarding the Clark County School District’s declaration of
impasse:

Today, CCSD declared impasse in negotiations and refused to continue bargaining. Since
March 30, 2023, CCEA has made contract proposals that are in alignment with the priorities
passed in the 2023 Legislative Session and the governor’s budget. These proposals were
designed to address the high vacancies that exist in CCSD, where there are currently nearly
2,000 vacancies and more than 35,000 students without a full time teacher.

Our Title I schools have 82% of all vacancies. Our special needs students have high vacancy
rates among all special education teachers. Two key proposals CCEA made were to pay those
positions more in order to retain and recruit more educators for those students. CCSD never
attempted to address those issues until this past month—and even then, made proposals that
did not adequately address the vacancy crisis.

Furthermore, 69% of all educators recruited by CCSD to fill these vacancies come through the
Nevada teacher pipeline, which means CCSD competes primarily with other urban school
districts, many of which are in Southern California. Currently, CCSD’s entry level pay is more
than $12,000 less than the starting pay in Southern California. That is why CCEA proposed a
10% adjustment on the salary schedule in the first year and another 8% in the second year—so
we can be competitive enough to address the high vacancy rates.

CCEA also proposed the 10% and 8% increases to better retain our educators, who are
currently leaving faster than we can hire them. These educators have not had a COLA increase
in two years despite 8% inflation in one year alone. They started the school year with CCSD
reducing their salaries by 1.875%—a pay cut. The 18% CCEA proposal is also coupled with a
one-time review of placement on the salary schedule for all educators.

On health insurance, CCEA proposed that CCSD increase the monthly premium contributions to
keep up with rising healthcare costs. Otherwise teachers, many of whom are single parents, will
have to pay more out-of-pocket costs for health insurance.

Finally, CCEA proposed increasing instruction time to help mitigate lost learning from COVID by
extending the instructional day with educators’ pay increased to compensate them for their
additional time.

Unfortunately, CCSD refused all of our proposals. Rather than taking care of educators, CCSD
rewarded their highest paid employees—principals—with 12% increases in pay and health
insurance. Superintendent Jara was stuck on proposals that created more disparity in our ranks
with educators falling even further behind.

Impasse has been declared. CCEA has gone this route before with CCSD. The good thing now
is a third set of eyes will see just how much more money—hundreds of millions of
dollars—CCSD received from the legislature, including the $250 million specifically allocated for
educator salary increases. It won’t be up to Jara; it won’t be up to CCSD’s CFO; it won’t be up to
trustees blindly following the Jara wagon.

Unfortunately, arbitration doesn’t happen like a light switch. And in the time it takes to resolve,
CCEA is sad to say that, under Superintendent Jara, 300,000 students will lose another year of
instruction because more educators will quit, their classes will be the largest in the nation, and
CCSD will fail to recruit the new educators needed to teach them.

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The Clark County Education Association is the largest educator union in the state of Nevada and the largest
independent educator union in the nation, representing more than 18,000 classroom educators and other licensed
professionals in the Clark County School District.