LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — In the past three months, nearly 200 more teachers have left Las Vegas valley classrooms, bringing the current total of teacher vacancies in the Clark County School District to 1,341.
The new contract for Clark County teachers is supposed to help address the increasing educator shortage, but how the district is finding new teachers, where they're traveling to recruit them, and how much that costs has been controversial.
Late last year, 13 Investigates began tracking your tax dollars as they took flight, sometimes landing at the beach.
CCSD dodged accountability by not answering our questions, so we found a way get the superintendent on the record about some of the recruitment trips that have recently come under fire — trips critics say are even more questionable in light of the new number of teacher vacancies.
From Miami Beach to the island of Oahu, CCSD staff went across the country in search of teachers.
As we reported in early December, CCSD documents show district staff made more than 50 trips to attend job fairs, conventions and other events in the 14 months from September 2022 to Nov. 3, 2023 — all-expense travel paid for by taxpayers, totaling more than $150,000.
"I think that's absolutely insane," said former school board Trustee Danielle Ford. "I think that the public deserves to know every single cent that was spent, who it went to, why that decision was made and whether or not there was a return on investment for them."
We still don't know whether any teachers have actually been hired from any of those trips.
For our December story, the district declined multiple requests for on-camera interviews with Human Resources or anyone else, including Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara.
But earlier this month, we were given a 10-minute window with Jara on a day he was talking to all media about the new union contract, so we took some of that time to ask him about some particularly questionable recruiting trips — like the one to a beachfront hotel in Florida that cost nearly $40,000.
DARCY SPEARS: Looking back on the Miami Beach recruiting trip — where 17 employees went to Florida the week of July 4 for a district-created event where only two people showed up and neither filled out an application — was that a successful expense of tax dollars and employee time?
JESUS JARA: Well, obviously it wasn't...But I can tell you this: in the State of Florida, teachers are under attack by the governor, by the legislature, so why not go out and recruit where we can try to find teachers to come? We're very inclusive. We've been recruiting outside before I got here. Obviously, we didn't get a return on what we wanted, so we've got to re-look at our (return on investment). But to me, we have to continue looking and going to places where the public education is not supported. And I came from that state, you know.
"I wasn't there; I didn't go," Jara added, referring to the Miami Beach recruiting trip.
At that point, CCSD chief communications officer Tod Story — who was sitting in the room off-camera — tried to cut the interview off.
Before he could do that, 13 Investigates posed another question.
DARCY SPEARS: The Hawaii trips that were also part of the recruiting — any travel outside the continental U.S. has to be approved in advance by the superintendent of schools, according to CCSD regulations. You approved those Hawaii trips?
JESUS JARA: Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEARS: Were those successful?
JARA: Well, I don't know what the return was.
Former Trustee Ford took issue with that response.
"It's his responsibility to know, and it's his responsibility to report it to the board, and it's the board's responsibility to determine if that is the best way to use the taxpayer funds that they were elected to protect," Ford said. "So, at the end of the day, it falls on the Board of Trustees."
DARCY SPEARS: And if that had come before you as a trustee?
DANIELLE FORD: I would've been pissed!
We tried asking the current CCSD trustees about the trips, but none of them responded.
In September 2021, the trustees voted to muzzle themselves, adopting a policy for all board public communications. The policy states:
"Trustees shall refrain from speaking individually to the media..." instead deferring "without comment to the superintendent or their designee..."
The policy does allow the board president to speak on behalf of the trustees. But President Evelyn Garcia Morales did not respond to us, either.
"We were elected to be a voice for the people and to be good stewards of public funds," said Ford, "so that's what I kept doing, and they tried to silence me with this policy, but I ignored it the remainder of the couple years I was on the board."
DARCY SPEARS: Why would a publicly elected board vote on a policy to silence themselves from speaking to the media and the public who elected them into office?
DANIELLE FORD: That's the question I'm trying to figure out. I have no idea why you would even run for this position if you don't intend to get answers and hold people accountable.
We did get one more answer from Jara about why staff took two recruiting trips to Hawaii in February and September of last year.
"The educators in Hawaii are living under poverty, so why not bring them here, where they can be successful?" Jara said.
Jara then took off his microphone to conclude the interview.
13 Investigates previously reported that the February Hawaii trip involved two employees and cost about $4,600 tax dollars.
We're still waiting on the cost of the September trip. But we do know, like Miami, that was a district-created event where at least eight employees stayed at a beachfront hotel. The district says 100 candidates showed up at the event. Two resumes were collected, and three were recommended for hire.
"That's not a thing that we need to do," said Ford. "There's social media marketing that we could be doing to reach people in Hawaii. We could be doing digital conferences. There are so many other things and ways that we could be recruiting people than sending district staff on recruitment trips."
There were other trips to about 16 cities between September and November of 2023, but we still don't know where and at what cost.
So far, the district has delayed providing us that and other information four times.
The latest email we got from CCSD said the information we've been asking for is in the queue for administrative approval. They promised a further response by Jan. 30. We will update this story accordingly.
