LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The court battle between the Clark County School District and the union representing its teachers continues with a new filing that calls on the district to provide documentation of the superintendent's social media accounts.
Specifically, the Clark County Education Association alleges Supt. Dr. Jesus Jara's account on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) was deactivated after a post alluding to an extra-marital affair between union president Marie Neisess and executive director John Vellardita.
In the amended court filing obtained by Channel 13 on Tuesday, CCEA also accuses Jara and CCSD's chief communications officer, Tod Story, of using social media to publicly criticize the union during ongoing contract negotiations.
Union lawyers are asking for an expedited court hearing to compel CCSD to release "all records and information relating to all X/Twitter accounts Dr. Jesus F. Jara used in the course and scope of his employment at the Clark County School District," the filing states.
At issue is a Nov. 6 X post referring to Neisess and "JV," presumably Vellardita.
Though the superintendent's account has since been deactivated, a screenshot of the post is included in the court filing, and Channel 13 was able to obtain a similar screenshot using the Internet Archive.
The post was written in response to an X user who re-posted an article documenting Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager's request to the CCSD Board of Trustees to terminate Jara's contract.
According to the court filing, the superintendent's account responded:
"What leadership? Corruption and bought by Crooked JV and his mistress Neisses? (sic)"
CCEA also alleges a burner account was used by district leadership to publicly criticize the union while it and the district were embroiled in months-long contract negotiations last year.
Union lawyers provided a sole screenshot documenting the existence of the alleged burner account, which they identified as @Luis54681428.
That user also referred to Vellardita as "JV" in one post that read "@cceanv and JV's friends are coming down..."
The alleged burner account has also been deactivated.
In the complaint, CCEA lawyers argue they made multiple requests to CCSD under the Nevada Public Records Act related to the accounts believed to be associated with Jara.
According to the union, CCSD did not fulfill those requests. Now, CCEA is asking a judge to compel them to do so.
With regard to the court filing, CCEA sent Channel 13 the following statement:
The lawsuit speaks for itself. If Superintendent Jara didn’t use a fake Twitter account to disparage CCEA’s President, who is also an employee of CCSD, then it is a claim that he can easily prove is untrue. What we have here is a Superintendent who proclaims to be an advocate of transparency but when it comes to himself, he is refusing to provide basic information.
CCSD declined to comment on the pending litigation when asked for comment by Channel 13.
