Well, the Clark County School Board
has two new Trustees.
During a special Board meeting in January,
District Judge Nancy Allf
administered the oath of office
to Irene Cepeda and Danielle Ford.
District G Trustee Linda Cavazos
was also sworn in.
She was appointed to the Board
in August 2017 to replace Erin Cranor
but won her seat in this past election.
An interesting fact, with the recent election,
the Clark County School Board of Trustees
is now all female.
Joining us now in-studio are the two newest
Trustees to join the Clark County School Board,
Irene Cepeda representing District D,
and Danielle Ford representing District F.
First of all, I want to say
congratulations to both of you.
I think probably we want to find out
a little about you because a lot of people,
unless they were in your district,
may not know as much about you.
Irene, let's start with you.
Tell us a little about--
give us a summary of your background.
(Irene Cepeda) Well, I'm a product of the Clark County
School District.
I went to elementary school at Fay Herron,
Von Tobel Middle School and then went to LVA
and Canyon Springs High School.
I'm a native;
I feel like I'm a native.
I went to UNLV.
I got a bachelor's in political science
and a master's degree in education.
My parents migrated here from Nicaragua back
in the '80s when there was a civil war
seeking a better life for me and my sister,
and here I am today.
It's a little surreal being a Trustee,
being able to represent my community,
and in-between there, I run an educational
nonprofit called the Latino
Leadership Foundation where we run
a youth conference every year;
we're in our 26th annual year.
I work at Nevada State College currently,
and I've been with the Nevada System
of Higher Education for almost 10 years
so I have a strong higher education background,
and that's kind of my forte.
Yeah, it's an honor to serve,
it's an honor to be here,
and I'm always ready for more work.
-What made you take the step
from being so involved in higher education
to say, you know what?
I think I want to run for the Board.
-Well, there are direct implications.
Our students, a large population
of our District go to our higher education
institutions here, our public institutions
like CSN, Nevada State College and UNLV.
I went to UNLV, worked at CSN,
and I work at Nevada State College now
so I love all our institutions equally.
-You're well versed. -I'm well versed.
At some point in my career I'm sure
I'll be at UNR, maybe, I don't know
if that's too-- what is it--
a betrayal of my university,
my alma mater. -Perhaps.
But you saw a connection between what happens
in higher ed and what happens in K-12,
and that's what made you run?
-Yes. Again my background,
at least in my day job, I work with transitions,
helping high school students
get into college,
so that college access piece.
There's always issues like remediation
when students get into college
and aren't at college-level math,
college-level reading, college-level writing.
So that was always something
on my forefront I saw every day.
But moreover, I know we have great students
in our district, and I want to make sure
every student has the opportunity
to be amazing and it not be by happenstance
that they get to go to college.
-Okay. Danielle, let me ask you that.
Let me find out a little about your background
and why you decided to run for the Board.
(Danielle Ford) Well, I think it's interesting
that Irene and I joined the Board
at the same time because we have similar values
but we have very different back stories.
I am also a product of CCSD
but I left CCSD a year early.
I got my GED and I went to eight different
CCSD schools, and the reason why
I ran ultimately was I felt like
CCSD failed me in a lot of ways.
I want to support our students
who are on track to attend college,
but I also want to make sure that the 70%
or so of students who aren't going
to college are ready for a career.
I ended up-- when I dropped out
of school, I got my GED the next week
and I went to beauty school,
and a year later the same month
that my friends got their diploma,
I got my aesthetic license
so I had a trade at the same age.
I ended up having two kids,
becoming a young mother.
I was a military wife
and now I'm a divorced military wife.
I've seen a lot of things with my kids.
My kids are now in high school and junior high,
and I was really involved in their
education especially in elementary school,
serving as a Cub Scout leader
and on the PTO and in the classrooms.
There's a lot of things I realized
that haven't changed since I was in CCSD.
-Do they go to CCSD schools?
-Yes, they both do, their whole life.
-All right. So let's talk about that.
You each have different areas that will help you
address the needs but, you know, sometimes
the decisions that are made,
you're going to make people mad.
You know, you will.
Are you guys prepared for that?
I mean, not everybody's going to love
every decision you make, honestly.
-Absolutely. There's always going to be a group
that doesn't agree with your decision.
That's just how it's going to be.
Everything is really a lot of times
black and white, and we have to decide
what we think are the right things to do
and stick with that.
So that's what I intend to do.
-Yes, and you try to be methodical
with your decisions where you're taking
qualitative data and quantitative data,
taking the numbers and the stories,
and making sure that you make
the best decision for our students.
-For the students, yes.
So let's move on because it's interesting
to find out about you,
but we're going to run out of time.
The biggest challenge in the District,
what do you see?
-The biggest challenge I feel right now,
especially since being on the Board
just for the few weeks I have been already,
is the-- I don't want to say
lack of organization,
there's just so many things happening
that it's really hard to keep track of.
We really need to tighten it up
and be able to get better data
and really see what's working
because we do have some great things
that are happening.
A lot of things aren't so great,
but it's really hard to know where the money
is best used without having that data
to be able to quantify it.
-Right, and the Superintendent
seems to be all about that.
-He's all over it, yes.
-If it's not working, we're not going to do it.
-What would you say,
Irene, is the biggest challenge?
-I think I'll piggyback a little bit,
there are definitely some efficiencies
that we could streamline to make sure
we're the most efficient organization.
But with that, it's funding.
We need more money.
We grossly underfund our students,
our per pupil, which leads to a myriad
of other issues like class size.
We have too many students in a class.
They're not getting adequate instruction.
You know, sometimes because of the amount
of students in the classroom,
a teacher might not be able to see signs
where a student might need some resources.
So funding, funding, funding.
We're the last in the nation
when it comes to our student funding.
Our teacher-to-student ratio is abysmal,
and it comes down to money.
I don't think we've ever been to--
I've never heard anyone say money isn't going
to help this specific intervention,
to help fund this specific intervention.
-Let's talk about there's some pretty big
goals on the table that the Superintendent
laid out in the Focus 2024:
No one- or two-star schools,
90% graduation rate,
100% increase in college
and career-ready diplomas,
increase in Advanced Placement
and International Baccalaureate.
Those are big goals.
Do you feel prepared to help make that happen?
Those are big goals.
-I'm enthusiastic for it.
I think if we're aiming this high
and maybe we don't hit that,
we might get here, that's something.
If we aim low and make it here,
those gains are--
you know, it's amazing if we get those numbers.
I think if we're setting our goals high,
we're keeping the adults responsible,
that's really when we see results.
-The Trustees have kind of said the same thing.
How are we going--
are we over-delivering?
How are we going to make these promises happen?
The Superintendent is very--
we've been very clear that we expect
to see benchmarks, estimated benchmarks.
In two years what is that trajectory
going to look like to tell me that
it is succeeding, not just look at it
every year and see what we've done.
So he knows that's kind of what all
seven Trustees expect, and he's currently
creating a business plan
so we're able to really forecast it.
I have faith in him and his methods
because he's very methodical
and he's no BS.
He'll just cut things out.
-Quickly, like 10 seconds
because we're out of time.
You guys are great, though.
Personal goals: With your position
on the Board, what's your personal goal?
-To get more parents involved and educated
and rallying for their kids' education.
-Yes, participation is always big.
How about you, Irene?
-Being an efficient and effective board.
-Boom.
-Well, it's been great getting to know you.
I know we'll have you come back on,
but again, we wish you all the success
and thanks for making time
to share a little knowledge with us.
(both) Thank you.
And with the new year comes new officer roles
for the Trustees.
Trustee Lola Brooks was selected as president,
Trustee Linda Cavazos, vice president,
and Trustee Chris Garvey will serve as clerk.
To learn more about the CCSD Board
of School Trustees, you can visit
their website, CCSD.net/Trustees.
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