Storytime: Diary of a New School Board Trustee

Storytime: Diary of a New School Board Trustee Transcipt

Hello, I’m Danielle Ford, former trustee of the Clark County School District. In this episode of Unraveling Education, I will be telling you my personal experience of going from concerned citizen to school board candidate to new school board trustee. 

I have chosen to do some episodes in a linear storytelling way for a few reasons. First is to protect myself legally. I will be sharing conversations that took place behind the scenes. I will be naming people. I will be offering my viewpoints, my opinions, my deductions about why certain things occurred, who’s responsible, etc. so I’m trying to avoid any lawsuits for slander or libel. Legit lawsuits. I mean, people can sue anybody for any reason. Somebody could try to sue me because I have a brown hair, but that does not mean that it will hold up in court.

Claims of slander and libel only hold up if that information is false. So let me be very clear that all content on unraveling education, and especially these storytime type episodes, are all based on my personal experience and my personal investigations.

I’m going to share with you what I know to be the truth. But there’s always a chance I’m wrong. I might have perceived something incorrectly. I might have gotten the wrong information from someone else. I might have missed important details that would have otherwise changed the course of action, I don’t know, and I still have a lot of questions and missing information that I am working on unraveling myself. So there’s my disclaimer. Now let’s get on with it.

In this episode, I’m going to give you a glimpse of my background leading up to my decision to run for the school board and what it was like as one of ten candidates in the primary election. The difference between the primary election and the general election, when it came down to two of us for the November election. What happened in the seven weeks between winning the general election and swearing in, and the absolutely mind boggling events that took place over the course of my first six months on the board.

This is a very robust episode, but everything is relevant. The personal details I share about myself, the seemingly innocent conversations that were had, the people who entered into the school board’s orbits. These will all be important to understand as we connect dots through future episodes. So as you listen, even if you already know where these stories are headed try your best to put yourself in my shoes. Or just pretend like you’re hearing this for the first time. Doing that will ensure that these threads connect effortlessly for you. 

Quick and important plug: Unraveling Education relies on donations and sponsorships to exist. Every little bit helps. So if you would like to help support unraveling education going forward, you can visit UnravelingEducation.com/Sponsor. Thank you.

I was born and raised here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had a very chaotic childhood going to eight different schools while growing up, often being the new kid in school. I struggled in school, not because I wasn’t smart, but because I was always joining school in the middle of the year, often had already done certain work and didn’t want to do anymore. On top of that, I was undiagnosed ADHD.

I ended up dropping out of high school my junior year and immediately going to beauty school, graduating beauty school the same month that my friends got their high school diploma. Started a career young. I became a young mother, got married, had another kid. Got divorced. Opened a skincare studio when I was 22. I learned how to market that, and in growing that, I learned that I loved marketing. I closed down my studio and began doing online marketing. I started an organization for young mothers to learn life skills. I became noticed by the business community, won several awards, gave a Ted talk on the topic. Was spotlighted in magazines.

As my kids got older, I wanted to be involved in their education. I got involved in Cub Scouts and PTO and in learning that and learning about schools and their budgets, I had a lot of questions. For instance, I started a snack shack at the school and had these ideas about bringing in local vendors and mom and pop kitchens and going to Whole Foods and, you know, doing all these different things.

However, I found out that we can’t do any of that because the school can only choose vendors that were contracted based on nutritional guidelines. And, you know, a bag of Cheetos was okay, but an apple had too much sugar. So I had a lot of questions and I thought, “Who knows the answers to these questions? And who decides these things?” And it was the school board.

I started looking into what a trustee does. I thought, “Yeah, I can do that”. I found the date that election started. I put it in my calendar and I planned to run for trustee of my district.

I had no idea how the school board operated. I didn’t really know how government worked. I was not connected to any political groups. I had no idea who else might be running in my race. Would the current trustee be running again? Would five people be running against me? 50? I did not even know how many trustees were on the school board. 

So no, I did not have any political or education experience. But what I did have was experience as a child whom the school district failed in many ways, a deep understanding of the diverse communities in Las Vegas, experience as a parent of school aged children, insight into school budgets, I had a large network of parents, teachers and business leaders, and I also had the skills to run a campaign and win an election. And most importantly, I had faith in my ability to quickly learn the job once elected. 

The school board at the time was very dysfunctional and it was known for being a split board, meaning that votes are often split into two groups, with the side of four winning and the side of three losing. Now, ideally, all seven board members would be in agreement with votes. If that happened, that would make for a very strong and functional school board. In a functional board, everybody would be on the same team, and everybody would be able to clearly articulate all of the board’s decisions to the community. But this would only happen if the school board communicated well, if they were always given the same information, always voted in a non-partisan way, and did not vote because of promises or special interests. 

Most elected positions in Nevada are considered partisan. They run as a representative of their party. They are expected to act and vote in certain ways that support the agendas of their party. But school board members are nonpartisan, so they may be part of a political party, but they’re supposed to be voting and acting in a nonpartisan way.

They are supposed to always do what’s right for the community at large, and they should be ready to make decisions that are in the best interests of the school district, regardless of what their preferred party thinks about it or which side that vote would lean on. So most of the time when a board is split, which happens often, it’s usually split by partisanship. And that is how the Clark County School Board was split for a long time before I joined it. There is a whole episode coming up about school boards, so look out for that. 

The person that I was running to replace, her name was is Carolyn Edwards, and she had been the trustee for 12 years before I was elected. She was now “termed out”, meaning that she could not run again. And it was an open election where everybody would be new and nobody would be running against the current trustee. Carolyn was on the majority side of the split board for years. She had the support of three other trustees, and for a long time she essentially ran the board. Most of what she brought forward got approved. And I did not know at the time, but she had someone in mind to take her seat. And she had been, for a long time, planning and promoting this person to all of the important political groups. 

The date in my calendar arrives and I show up to sign up early Monday morning to run for school board. I didn’t realize that you could actually sign up for two weeks. There was a two week time period, but I was the first one to enter my race. And sidebar, if you are thinking about running for school board and you’re thinking that that’s probably something that is out of reach for you, it takes a valid ID in about 30 bucks. So I’m not saying it’s easy, but it is something that is available to almost everybody. At the end of the two weeks, there were ten people in my race.

The June primary election would bring that down to two. And those two people would go to November for the November 2018 general election. So to prepare for endorsement interviews and to, you know, figure out what I was even running for, I researched the role of the board deeply. And in my signing up to run for the school board, I learned that the general population doesn’t really understand what the school board does so I printed that all in my campaign materials. 

The main roles of the school board are to set the vision for the district, oversee the budget and the spending of taxpayer dollars, and most importantly, to hire a superintendent who’s going to ensure that the operations of the district and the spending is in align with the vision and the budget that the trustees came up with.

During the primary election, the current superintendent then announced retirement and a very controversial search for a new superintendent for the Clark County School District ensued. I did not follow this any closer than the general public did at the time. I was focused on the campaign, but the behind the scenes stuff that the general public and I missed was that there were some really good internal prospects in CCSD who the community supported. But Carolyn Edwards, who I was running to replace and who ran the board, convinced the other trustees that she had influence over to hire a um, national professional search firm to ensure that we got really good applicants for superintendent.

That firm, that search firm brought back a few contenders for the board to consider, one of which was Jesus Jara, a deputy superintendent from Orange County, Florida. In what was a very confusing and accidental vote, Jesus Jara was hired to run the fifth largest district in the country.

About two and a half years after this vote, around the first time that he tried to blackmail and sue the board of trustees, but already several months into my investigating him, I would then pivot my attention to this exact time frame, Review all the public meetings about it, go into the trustee offices and listen to hours of the tapes of the discussion from the closed sessions of the trustees had about hiring him, and request all the emails related to his hiring. But it’s still 2018 right now, and I don’t know any of these details except that the board just hired some new superintendent, some guy out of Florida. 

Now the campaign kicks off. The political groups would not give me the time of day. I went to dozens of endorsement interviews. Everybody was basically like, okay, thanks for coming. I was ignored by all the fancy people. So at the time, I figured, I guess they’re just not fans of my casual approach, like my Pedro inspired merchandise.

But what I did not know at the time is that one of my opponents had been pre-selected to fill the seat, and everybody expected her to win and had already committed to giving her all the money and the people power that they had. So I did not know that, but I still knew that I was going to win. And I did win coming in first out of ten, with the pre-selected candidate coming in second. 

Then we were down to the top two and off to the general election. There were three out of seven board seats available, so this is when I learned why everyone ignored me during the primary, and I learned that my seat had been promised to someone else long before voters even knew either of us existed. Several groups literally told me during the interviews, now that they thought that I had a chance of winning, they were kind of rethinking their decision. A few of them said, “Oh, we would love to support you, but we promised Carolyn that we would support her chosen candidate.” A couple of them even argued with each other right in front of me, but I still did not get their endorsements or large campaign donations. It all went to my opponent. 

I start thinking, “You know, maybe I should get to know somebody on the board.” There was one person on the board that seemed like we would get along. She was new. Our visions, our ideals seemed to align. She was techy. Her name is Lola Brooks. I did not know at the time, but she was friends with my opponent. So I asked her to meet, and she says yes.

In the first meeting, I can just immediately tell that she does not like me, but that’s okay. I was a new kid in school my whole life, and I have a very impressive track record of winning over girls that did not like me when they met me, so I wasn’t worried about it. I was like, “I’m going to make Lola my best board friend”. Okay, well, everybody is wrong sometimes because that did not happen. In fact, the opposite happened. 

Next the campaign is going on and boudoir photos of me start getting passed around on social media. First of all, they were there the entire campaign, so I don’t know why all of a sudden it was like this big deal. Second, they were professional and tasteful photos, which I had posted myself in my albums, and they were not a secret. Third of all, they are smoking hot. Like, “Oh, no, don’t share these super cute pictures that I’m really proud of!” It was strange. I didn’t care that that was the narrative, but it was it was really strange. It was like all of a sudden the entire community is just so concerned about my ability to do the job because, you know, boobs.

Even on a panel for the Las Vegas Review-Journal voter guide, a parent representative chose to ask me- of all the things that she could have asked me- she asked, “If my 13 year old son googles his school board trustee he’s going to see photos that are, in my opinion, very inappropriate. So what am I supposed to tell him?” I’m like, “Well, I think a grown woman wearing lingerie is appropriate. Also we should be teaching boys not to devalue women and that they are more than their bodies.”

It turns out this woman was good friends with my opponent. There was even an actual investigatory news report into whether or not I was “Too Sexy for the School Board”. That was real. Darcy Spears, who did the interview, was like, “I’m sorry, my editor wants the story.” But, why? Why did the editor care? I didn’t know then, but I do know now.

I did have one secret at the time, though. A few months before the general election, I became pregnant. I decided to keep it a secret until after the general election so that it could not be used against me. Plus, I wanted to focus on the campaign, and my 12 week checkup happened to be the morning after the election. So I was like, “Whatever the results are with the election, I will be looking forward to finally telling people and finally being able to celebrate it and be actually excited and give this pregnancy the attention that it deserves”.

Results came in around midnight. I won. Congrats, messages and phone calls came in but I went to bed. I was exhausted. I went to my 8 a.m. ultrasound the next day and there was no heartbeat.

I had miscarried. So the belief that I landed on with this was that her little soul was waiting to see what happened with the election, and then she was like, oh, my mom now has 320,000 kids to take care of, so I’m just going to dip. So that is what I choose to believe. 

Sidebar: a couple of things they do not tell you about miscarriages. First, if your body does not go through the steps that it’s supposed to do, you will end up carrying around a dead fetus for a week. And then if your body won’t expel the fetus, then you have to get a D&C and you will bleed profusely for the following six weeks.

Right after the election, people and groups who did not support me during the campaign, start coming out of the woodworks and calling and asking for meetings. They want to chat about how they can help me. They want to tell me about their organization or their company. So now I know, you know, after experiencing several campaign season since then, that that’s the time they contact new Electeds to get their ear, make promises, make friends, make deals, and whatnot. But I did not connect with anybody. I basically just ignored everybody. Or I just said, “Let’s connect after I swear in.” 

One of the first people that reached out to congratulate me and request a meeting was Superintendent Jara, and I said yes to him because he was my soon to be employee after all. And it was my intent to have a good working relationship with him. So I’ve had a little bit of time to process my loss. I’m in an okay headspace, but I am carrying around a dead fetus, so I’m not like, super in the mood for any bullshit.

Superintendent Jara and I meet at Starbucks, we shake hands, we exchanged pleasantries. He congrats me on winning the election. And I’m like, “Well, I mean, you did tweet your support for my opponent from your professional Twitter page, which is, you know, inappropriate at best and unethical at worst”. Okay, okay, but I only thought that in my head. I did not say it out loud, so like, I’m already killing this meeting,

I ask him how he’s liking CCSD so far, and he tells me, you know, he just hit his six-month mark. He’s been doing a listening tour to really understand the needs of our community. He says that he hasn’t taken any actions yet. But there are a lot of things that need to change. He’s found lots of problems to fix, but he wanted to wait until the new trustees join the board to make all these positive changes. So now that that’s happened, it’s time to get to work. 

I’m nodding like it’s all sounding good so far. Changes are good. You know, God knows the school district is a hot mess. Teamwork is good. I love a good teamwork exercise, especially if there’s a way I can win. I’m kidding. No I’m not. So anyway, I ask a few more questions about him. He tells me things that I already knew. He’s from Florida. He was a science teacher and then a coach and then a superintendent in Monroe County for a short time, then a deputy superintendent in Orange County, Florida. I’m nodding. He seems pleased with the conversation so far.

We sit there in silence for a minute. He doesn’t ask me anything about myself. He doesn’t ask what my goals are. Doesn’t ask what my favorite color is, nothing. So then I ask, like, “So what can I do as a trustee to best support you and ensure that your ideas and solutions for the district are successful?” And then that question perked him right up. And then, as if he’s on cue, he responds, “Glad you asked!” And then he breaks out into a story, and the whole time he’s telling it, I’m like, this has to be scripted. Just word for word.

He goes, “When I was a deputy superintendent in Florida, one of the board members was the former superintendent. And one day I asked him, I asked, ‘I’m curious, why would a retired superintendent run for a seat on the school board?’ And he told me ‘Jesus, the reason why I ran for the board of trustees after being superintendent is because I know that in order for a superintendent to be successful, the board members must get out of the way and let the superintendent do the work. The only times I had problems as superintendent was when the board members would intervene. And that’s why I ran for the board of trustees after being the superintendent. It was so that I could be on the board and say to the board, no trustees, let’s let the superintendent do his work.’

So I’m listening to this and I’m like, “Hmm, hmm. Okay.” And I’m trying to think of how to respond. I’m searching every corner of my mind for something to say. I land on. “Oh, I think I know what you’re saying. You know, that reminds me of Korean Airlines. Are you familiar?” He’s like, “ummm”, I go “For decades, airlines in Korea had like the lowest safety records. They had far more crashes than anybody else until 2000 and something when an outside consultant came in and reformed everything.

He determined that the problem stemmed from Korea’s culture, their authoritarian culture. The way they did it was the pilot flew the planes, and the co-pilot and the flight crew were always uncomfortable speaking up if there was a problem, even in instances when they knew the plane was going to crash, they did not speak up. The co-pilot might hint at an action that the pilot should take, but they wouldn’t dare step out of line. They didn’t dare step out of line to the extent that they instead went down with the planes.

So they changed everything. They made it the norm for crew members to speak up, um, without vagueness, without politeness, when they knew that something was going wrong. And what they did is they had the co-pilots begin flying the plane so that if something happened, the pilot who was in charge would not have an issue taking the action required to save the plane and save the passengers.”

I continued, “You know, I feel like that is what you’re saying, Superintendent Jara, is that the board- The pilot, should sit back and oversee the superintendent, who is the co-pilot as they operate the school district, the plane with the goal being to have a nice, safe flight for everybody with the co-pilot flying. But with the knowledge that the board, the pilot, could step in at any time when need be, like, I think that’s what you’re saying, Superintendent Jara?”

He did not answer that. He just goes, “Well, when I was deputy superintendent in Florida, one of the board members was the former superintendent…” And then he tells the whole story again in the exact same way! I listened to the whole thing again. I let him finish and I was like, “Okay, well, I better get going.” Um, I say goodbye, etc. I leave.

I leave and I’m thinking like, I am not even a little impressed with this guy. I don’t dislike him or anything, but I really, really am having trouble seeing how anybody like, met this person, interviewed this person and was like, “That is him. That’s the guy. That is the guy that should be running the fifth largest district in the country”. But I am only one of seven board members and he was hired for three years. It is now my job to get along with him, work with him, and do whatever I can to make sure that both of us are successful. 

I ended up needing to have a D&C, which for anyone who does not know is basically an abortion. It is an abortion after miscarrying. I had previously registered for a three day training which I then attended while hemorrhaging. It was a NASB conference.

NASB stands for the Nevada Association of School Boards. Now they are supposed to be- and notice I said supposed to be- That is called foreshadowing- the Nevada branch of the NSBA. I know this is confusing.

The NSBA is the National School Boards Association, which was one of the main resources that I use when I was researching the role of the school board. And NSBA is the backbone for school boards. It would be safe to assume that NASB would be providing trustees with governance training stemming from headquarters around things like our fiduciary duties, constitutional rights, nationwide educational issues, or anything that is a threat to school boards at large.

The other role of NASB is to provide the school board with training that is relevant to Nevada law. So I’m not saying that NASB was not at this time or in the past providing good training to the school board trustees, I do not know. But I do know that the exact same time I joined the board that the Executive Executive director, like long-time executive director of NASB, retired. Her farewell ceremony happened the same time I was at that three day conference. I was like, “I don’t know you. Goodbye”.

Soon after that, NASB began the search for a new executive director to lead the organization and, we assume, provide governance training to all Nevada school boards that is NSBA approved and pro-school board trustees.

After that training was more training with CCSD.

I met with all of the department leaders. They went through huge binders of info.

Next with our board attorney who basically goes through all the ways I could get in trouble.

Lastly I met with the CFO, Jason Goudie, who explained the financials and the buckets of money and how he reports to the board. He kept on saying that trustees approve the budget, like, “…and then I’ll present it and you’ll approve it.” I corrected him once. I said, “You mean we oversee the budget, right? Like determine what to budget for.” And he’s just like, “Well, we we can’t do anything without the board approving it”. So I just dropped it, but I thought that was weird.

I went to work on reading the CCSD-based governance policies, and they were not making any sense to me, but I just figured like it would all click later. 

Now the new school board consisted of three members who had been on for ten years and only had two years left: Linda Young, Chris Garvey and Deanna Wright. There were two members who had been elected about two years before and were still considered new, Lola Brooks and Linda Cavazos. And there were two brand new trustees, myself and Irene Cepeda.

Carolyn Edwards, the trustee I replaced, calls to congratulate me, and she invites me to meet in the trustee offices. I’m like, “Yeah, I totally knew that we had trustee offices, and I know where they are. Could you just remind me where they are?” So I get to the building and I go through security and take the elevator to the top level and find her office. I’m like, “Damn, we get big offices”. She tells me that they’re not all that big but she has seniority and that Lola plans on moving into her office, and me or Irene will get Lola’s current office.

Then she pulls out some binders and says that she wants to help me understand everything. She walked me through board meeting agendas, she explained what each section meant. She showed me how to navigate board docs online, the difference between confidential information that is shown to us when we’re logged in, versus what the public can see when they’re logged in.

Carolyn explains that we have board appointed committees who meet and make recommendations to us: school zoning, financial audit, and bond oversight. The people that she appointed still have months or years left on their term, and she wants to know if I would consider leaving them. I’m like, “I don’t see why not. Seems like you know what you’re doing. They probably do good work. I’ll, I’ll consider it.” You know, I’m not trying to come in and just, like, disrupt things for no reason.

She tells me what to expect in the near future. There will be a swearing in ceremony on the first Monday. Two days later, there will be a work session where new board officers are chosen. She explains the nomination and voting process.

She asks if I’ve given thought to who I support for board president. I’m like, “Not really, wouldn’t it go by seniority or by whoever has not had a chance to be president? I’m not sure.” She’s like, “Not always.” I ask who she thinks would be a good president. She says, “Hmmm. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with Lola Brooks”. I’m like, “That surprises me. She’s really new, right? What about Garvey or Young”? She goes, “Oh, young has been president a bunch and I don’t think Garvey wants it”. I’m like, “Hmm, okay. I will think about it”.

First thing January 2019 was our swearing in ceremony. I gave a speech from the dais about hope and leading the district with love. I gave news interviews about giving a voice to parents and bringing critical thinking and logic to the district. And I look back at that time now and I’m like, “Oh, Danielle, what a naive little flower you were”.

Now we’re we’re rocking and rolling, like, it is happening. I’m overseeing the fifth largest district in the country.

I attend my first biweekly meeting with the superintendent. He has meetings one on one with trustees to update us on the happenings of the district. He updates me on what’s coming down the road.

Jara tells me that while he was doing his listening tour, he brought in a group to inspect the operations of the district. They spent months looking through every department in the district with a fine-toothed comb. And they have created a report for us with their findings and their recommendations to change for the Clark County School District. Oh, and they did it for free. I’m like, “That’s a lot of work. Why did they do it for free?” He goes, “Oh, you know, we’re a member of their organization. So it’s just a service they provide”.

The organization is the Council for Great City Schools. That organization consists of superintendents of large urban school districts.

Then Jara tells me that Mike Casserly, the executive director of the Council for Great City Schools, is mentoring him. And when Jared tells me this, he lights up like a little kid, okay? He lights up and he gets up and he grabs a notebook and he’s like, “Yeah, Mike Casserly is mentoring me. And he we talk on the phone and I write in my notebook.”

I swear, this is true. Like why would I… if I was going to like make something up, I would make something way better up. Um, I remember this because it reminded me of, if you’ve seen, Meet the Robinsons, the bowler hat guy, and he has his, like, notebook and it has a unicorn on it, and he’s like twirling his mustache. That is what I remember when Jara was telling me about this.

The following week is my first ever board meeting. We get an hours long presentation of the review of CCSD operations that the Council of Great City Schools did. I listened to the report, which paints a very gloom picture of the school district and how it’s operating. But it makes sense to me because the school district pretty much sucks, which is why I ran. At least that is what my thought process was at this point.

The proposed changes look good as far as I can tell. I don’t know who this Mike Casserly guy is, but he seems like an okay dude. Seems like a good choice for Jara to be mentored by. I’m like, “Cool. Thanks. Thanks for the work. Good luck. Thanks for doing this work”.

A week after that, we have a full day board retreat, which sounds like trust falls and massages, but it is absolutely not that. It’s basically a very long board meeting that nobody sees. And there’s no record of it. So this was January 18th, 2019. The agenda exists online, but there is no video or audio of it. I’m not sure if there is a record in the trustee offices. I have no idea. Anyway, so, president Lola Brooks opens the meeting. I did support her as president, by the way. It is the one vote I regret the most in my whole life.

President Lola Brooks opens the meeting. “Ttrustees, today we have Mike Casserly here. You remember him from the meeting last week? He’s here to train us in governing properly. And he’s going to help us finish the five year strategic plan that most of the board has been working on and which will guide the superintendents work. And it’ll be what we base his evaluation on.”

I raise my hand, I’m like,”No offense. I hope this doesn’t come out wrong, but, like, why are you here? Like, why are you the person training us?” Then a couple other trustees, they like gasp. They’re like “Trustee Ford, you’re so rude. Um my goodness we apologize, Mr. Casserly”. I’m like, “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude. I just don’t understand why you would be involved in the board and how the board governs and evaluates the superintendent.

…We just heard a several hour presentation from you last week about how you’re advising the superintendent on all of the operations in the district, and then our role is to oversee the superintendent and hold him accountable.

…So now you’re helping us to write our rules, the rules that determine how much power or authority we can give the superintendent and how we measure his effectiveness while he does the things. And he makes the changes, and he purchases the things that you advise him to do and change and purchase. So like, am I understanding this right?”

Then before he can answer, of course, several trustees are in the queue. “Mr. Casserly, Trustee Ford does not speak for all of us. I, for one, am so happy you’re here”. “I agree, Mr. Casserly. Thank you for being so generous with your time. We’re so honored to have you.”

Then Trustee Linda Young speaks and she says, “Mr. Casserly. Mike, like I call you. Thank you so much for all the work you’re doing. You know, you and I have worked together a long, long time and you have been a champion for education and equity and inclusion. And I thank you for that. I thank you for that. But I have to agree with Trustee Ford.” I’m like “Oh, okay.”

She goes, “You work with superintendents, you advise our superintendent. We should be working with advisors of school boards. That line should not be crossed. And there is a clear conflict of interest with you having your hands in both pots!”

I’m like, “What she said. What she said- that’s what I just said.” Long story short, the majority of the board supported being trained and advised by Mike Casserly, the executive director of the Council for Great City Schools. So we just continued on.

When reading our board policies, I learned that a new trustee can, within their first three months, bring back an agenda item that did not pass in the six months before.

My predecessor, Carolyn Edwards, was very pro sex ed. That is the thing I knew about her, and that’s why I liked her. She had tried basically her entire term to get a new sex ed curriculum, an updated curriculum, agendized and voted through. But she had been unsuccessful the entire time.

Mostly because these far-right anti sex-ed groups would rally and make the meetings a nightmare for everybody, and then everyone would be like, “Nevermind”. She gave it one last shot though, and added a sex ed item at the end of her term, but it did not pass.

I planned to pull my new trustee card and revive it. 

School board trustees are mandated to get six continuing education credits a year, which are provided by NASB. Okay. I had recently attended that three day conference, but the credits didn’t count because I hadn’t sworn in yet. So that’s how I ended up flying to Reno in the winter. So I spent the whole day in Reno in sessions about Nevada law and learning about how school boards operate. But the real lesson about how the Clark County School Board operates came on the flight home.

So Trustees Irene Cepeda, Lola Brooks and I were on the same flight back to Vegas.

I asked Lola if I could sit by her, on the plane and ask her a few questions. Lola took the window seat. I took the aisle seat and Irene is right next to me across the walkway within earshot. I told Lola my intent to revive the sex ed item. She’s pro sex ed and pro Carolyn Edwards, so she was into it. She’s like, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do”. She’s like, ‘You’re going to make your request. As president. I’ll put it on the agenda”. And then Irene’s leaning over, “She’s like, I’m in”.

Lola says, “Now three of us know about this. So that means that nobody, none of us can talk to any other trustees or anyone else. Because if there were four trustees that know about it, that’s a violation of open meeting law”. She’s right. I learned that in the conference. So she continues on, She’s like “Some of the trustees will be furious”. I kind of picked up a hint of joy when she said that. She’s like, “…but it won’t matter because I know that we will have the votes for this to pass”. So that’s what we did. It started the ball rolling.

And over the next few months, two committees were formed. They researched and recommended and updated and inclusive sex ed curriculum. We approved it and the quality of sex education in CCSD improved exponentially. 

This was the first and also the last time that I was able to get something put on the agenda, voted on and approved by a majority of the board. Over the next four years, more than 30 of my requests would be refused and or voted down. The only other two times that I was ever able to successfully get an item brought to the board, I had to force them by finding loopholes and by evoking Nevada law. But we will get to that. 

Now it’s early February, and out of nowhere, a flood of messages come in from principals of schools in my district. Jara had sent them a memo that he was changing the allocation method of title one funding. I’m not going to get into all of this, but basically he sent to principals, “Hello. Good afternoon. I will be taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from each of your school budgets immediately. Keep up the great work.”

This was going to affect my schools the most. Most of my schools will have to lose some teachers. This was happening in the middle of the school year, for no reason other than the superintendent decided to cut their budgets without any rhyme or reason.

I talked to Jara. He tells me it won’t impact schools because they all have extra money in their savings accounts. So I go back and talk to principals and they’re like, “The fuck we do”, okay so I go back and I talk to Jara again. He tells me it doesn’t matter anyway because the board doesn’t have a say in the allocation of title one dollars. I go look at previous years and I find numerous examples of the board voting on the spending of title one dollars. So now he’s lying to me and I don’t appreciate it. 

Now, per our policies, when we have a problem, we should first address it with the superintendent. Okay, I tried that. Next is to bring it up to the board president, I do that. I go to Lola Brooks and I tell her what’s going on, okay? She gives me a long, patronizing speech, essentially saying that I have no power as an individual trustee, that I don’t understand how the board operates.

She tells me that when she joined the board, she went six whole months, six whole months before she even spoke at a meeting, except to second other trustees motions. She wanted to appear professional and informed, and she chose to observe first, so she suggested I do the same. I’m like, “yeah, I will not be doing that. But, um, no”.

Then Lola offers to personally mentor me. I say “Thank you, but no thank you”. I tell her, “What I need from you instead of your mentorship is for you to tell the superintendent that he cannot take $5 million from my schools in the middle of the year without any notice or discussion with principals first”. She advises me to learn my role before I cause problems for both of us. She doesn’t want to have to invoke the board’s progressive discipline policy, but she will if she must. 

So I talk to our board attorney who is supposed to- There’s that “supposed to”  again. She’s supposed to represent the board, act in the board’s best interest, and ensure that the board is fulfilling their federal duties by being good stewards of public funds.

I tell her I want to talk to either Trustee Garvey or Trustee Young and get their opinion. They have historical knowledge of how this works, and they don’t even know that this happened. The memo wasn’t even sent to the full board. It was sent only to the principals of the schools that it would affect. She’s like, “As your attorney, I advise you not to talk to any trustees about it. You can address it to the full board at the meeting if you choose”.

I’m like, “So it’s better to blindside everybody at the meeting and publicly tell everybody that Jara is lying to me and making decisions that he shouldn’t without the board’s approval, instead of trying to handle it behind closed doors’. And then she’s like, “I don’t know, it’s the law. I don’t make the law”.

I ask her if I can tell my constituents that it’s happening and if other trustees happen to hear that it’s happening, then it’s not a violation of an open meeting law. So she says that’s fine as long as I don’t say what I intend to say at the meeting or how I plan to vote on anything. So I post a list of schools and the amounts that will be cut. And understandably, people are pissed.

During the meeting, I pull out my webcam and my microphone and I live stream it to my Facebook page saying that Superintendent Jara has been lying to me, and I’m asking him to prove that these decisions make sense

The next day I pass our board attorney in the hall and she peeks out of a conference room and she’s like, “Can you come in here really quick?” I walk in and there’s Lola Brooks waiting for me, and she does not have a smiling face. Ah, I was tricked!

If I’d known better at the time, what I would have done was. I would have said, “If you would like a meeting with me, you can request one via email and list the topics that you would like to discuss. And that meeting will be recorded and stored with the board’s records”. But alas, I did not know better at the time. So I sat down and I said, “Alright, let’s get this over with”.

…My behavior is unacceptable, they say. I broke several policies that clearly say that you cannot embarrass a superintendent. Lola doesn’t even know what to do with me. She is furious. Furious she says! She’s trying to govern this board, and she’s trying to repair the dysfunctional image this board has had in the past. And how is she supposed to do that if I refuse to follow the rules and I refuse to accept the help that she offered me.

I say, “I don’t know what to tell you. Jara was trying to take millions from my schools and lying to me about it. I tried to find better ways to address it. Neither of you were any help. I did what I believe to be the best course of action at the time. And if I don’t have all the answers that I requested at the meeting, I will do it again at the next one.”

Then they both erupt and they start talking over each other. “You will be in violation of several laws and you’re going against your board counsel’s advice. You could cause a lawsuit for the district. You could be personally financially responsible. You’re abusing your power!”

I’m like, “How am I abusing my power?” “You’re behaving in ways that are off limits to the general public. You’re live streaming from the dais, for instance. The public can’t do that. They have to stay behind a certain line.” I’m like, “So next time I should sit in the audience?” She’s like, “Danielle, you’re using taxpayer resources to further your agenda”.

“What personal agenda, and what taxpayer resources?” She goes, “You clearly have a grievance with the superintendent, and you can’t use anything that the district paid for to help you.” I’m like, “What did I use? I used my own equipment. Do you mean the Wi-Fi that I used? Um. Should I use my own hot spot? Do you mean the chair that I’m sitting in? Should I stand? What about the floor? Like where does the line end?”

She goes, “I don’t know, Danielle, I don’t know. The law is complicated, but I have seen people go to prison for less.” So then I’m like, “Hmm. Okay, well, I don’t think that any of what you said is true. And now it seems like I need to talk to some lawyers. So this meeting is over. Goodbye.”

I called my secretary, and I requested for all of the furniture and the technology in my office to be taken out. I went to Ikea, I got new furniture. I got a couch, this couch. I got new curtains, ordered items from Amazon. I crafted some artwork. And then I premiered my new Wonder Woman office, where I could work on my personal agendas without using district resources.

Around the same time, Jara calls me to tell me that his staff did the work I requested at the board meeting, and then he tells me that he decided to give 50% of it back to my schools, and he says it like it’s a gift. Like they’re getting 2.5 million. Instead of that he took 5 million. I think that he actually expected a thank you from me. I’m like, “Well, that is better than nothing”. He did not tell the other trustees it happened. And I only know that because some were surprised much later when I mentioned it. 

I’m telling you this, and it is important because, this is the first of many times, at least over a dozen times, that I know about, where superintendent Jara would pick and choose to give important information to trustees of his choosing.

The next week, Lola sends an email saying that we will begin the work of updating our board governance policies based on the training that we received with Mike Casserly. And we will be working on creating a new social media policy. 

A quick but important note about the policy stuff. We covered that there are federal responsibilities. There are statewide parameters of how all Nevada boards must govern within the scope of the law from their school boards can make whatever rules, policies, or procedures for themselves that they want to. If it’s voted by a majority of the board, the entire board is supposed to follow it. So school boards either come up with their own methodology of governing, or they purchase a packaged set of policies from somebody else.

If you think of it like a business, a business could either be a mom and pop shop and have autonomy, or they could be a franchisee of another business whose system of operating they must follow.

If you wanted to open a hamburger shop and you wanted someone else to tell you how to operate it, you could become a McDonald’s. But if you wanted to open a hamburger shop and you also wanted to sell pizza or test new recipes, then you could not be a McDonald’s. It would not be a McDonald’s if you did that, and you could get in trouble for advertising it as McDonald’s.

Weird analogy, but this is going to be very important to understand later. 

The adopted method of governance that the board had selected and approved was called Balanced Governance. Every page of policy is trademarked: Balanced Governance. Every time I had an issue with a policy, Lola would respond, “Well, that’s Balanced Governance. It’s what the board approved. Then I’d be like, ‘Well, Balanced Governance sucks.” So Lola Brooks asks everybody to look over all the policies and submit their suggested revisions, and that we would discuss that at the next work session.

I reached out to policy experts at UNLV, and we worked together to rewrite all 40ish policies. Most trustees submitted a page or so of suggestions. I submitted the entirety of the policies back fully edited, like “Here you go. I fixed it for you”. My intent was to give the board more authority over the superintendent’s decisions, give all staff a voice in district operations, involve the community and governance through a lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. 

Then I get a call from CCSD, then communications chief. She tells me that they are adding an item to the meeting that is a few days away. Usually it takes weeks to get an item placed. She tells me that it’s an agreement between the Clark County School District and the Clark County Commission to make the outdoor space of schools available for community use on nights, weekends, and breaks- anytime the school is not in session.

This would be the community accessing the playgrounds, the football fields, the bleachers, every part of the school besides the actual school building. Then she tells me that this is something that the commissioners have wanted for a long time. Going back to when then-Governor Steve Sisolak was on the county commission. She tells me, “Just so you know, Sisolak told us- meaning her and the government team- He told us ‘You better make this happen or do not ask for a penny this legislative session’.”

The legislative session was about to start. I said, “Well, I don’t work for Steve Sisolak, so I will read the agreement and base my vote on my own conclusions. So that is what happened. That’s how that went down. But I actually don’t know how true that was. I know that Sisolak definitely wanted this agreement to pass, but I’m unsure of the threat that was given to me to withhold education funding from the district part.

Maybe Sisolak actually said that, but also based on experiences down the road with the communications director, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was like orchestrated to ensure my vote by having her call me instead of Jara, and then using like a passive tone, and then adding in a threat that’s like not coming from her, I don’t know. So also, I never had another experience with Sisolak that would make me think that he definitely said that. I’m only telling you this because of the whole like walking in my shoes mindset part, right? 

Here I am, less than two months on the board and I’ve already lost trust in the superintendent, the board president, our board attorney, and now the governor is threatening to withhold billions of dollars if I don’t vote a certain way. So, I’m like starting to look over my shoulder. I’m like, keeping my blinds closed. I’m like, trust nobody. 

This item goes public and once again, principals freak out. There’s not even any time for them to try to talk to us behind closed doors and resolve it. Individual principals and the admin union send public emails to us asking us to please postpone voting on this. I ask our board attorney about it.

She’s like, “Well, the commissioners have wanted this for a long time.” I’m like, “How do you know that?” She says, “Oh, I’m their board attorney, too.” Wait, what? So she’s representing and advising both boards in not only this agreement, but many other things down the line. And oh my God, my trust issues continue to be confirmed!

I’m going to derail for just a minute. I just want to say something. Many people have asked me. If there was anything I would have done differently during my term, right. I made a lot of mistakes I did. I’ve put a lot of thought into it. I would not change any of my mistakes. I honestly wouldn’t change a thing. Um, except for one thing. Like I have thought through this so much.

I’ve just thought so many times like “What might have been the turning point to prevent all of the terrible things that occurred, that happened to the school district that I witnessed?” And my answer is that if I could go back in time, I would go back to this time frame, early 2019, and I would do literally anything, literally anything necessary to hire a third party, conflict free, private counsel for the school board. It would have made all the difference. And it still bothers me so much because in my mind I can see two completely different timelines, branching from this time frame. Two branches of how things would have gone down with the district and the humans in it. And that is what I would do different.

So anyway, principals show up to this meeting begging us, begging us not to approve this, which says a lot, considering that the superintendent is their boss. So they’re coming at their boss’s boss to say, “Please stop my boss”. They’re like. “Or at a minimum, give us some assurances. Something like, who’s going to open and close the gates at sunrise and midnight? Um, will that fall on me as a principal? I don’t have the budget for security. The unhoused will absolutely seek shelter at our schools.

…How do I handle that? In the morning, where will people use the bathroom? Where will they get water? What if someone leaves a weapon to access later. What about dog feces left on the fields and playgrounds? What if somebody leaves a dirty needle? You’re telling us to just open the gates to our schools, to anyone in the community who wants to use the grounds in any way? Please help us out here.” They’re asking us, the board.

When it was my turn to speak, I echoed the things the principals were saying. I’m like, “I love the idea in theory, right, of our schools being used for the community after hours. But how will that work? How will… what are the answers to these principals questions?” I’m like, “Doing it this way is careless and reckless. Is there a budget for damages and vandalism? Who’s liable if somebody gets hurt on the playground in the evening? Is it the school district? Is it the commission? Just give us some answers. Are there any answers?”

Do you think anybody was like “Those are good questions worth considering”? No. The other board members apologize to the commissioners for my rudeness and then criticize me for fearmongering. I was the only one that voted against that. 

We’ll talk more about this agreement later as it progresses. But I wanted to explain this part in detail, because right around the corner lurked a pandemic. And the reactions, the thinking and the planning that came from the superintendent and the school board during Covid just paralleled this.

For example, no communication or input from principals, educators or school staff. Orders coming from the top down. There was no forward thinking, and anybody who questioned anything was shot down. The only difference is that later on, I was no longer the only trustee voting against the superintendent’s careless and reckless actions. But I wasn’t on the majority side of the vote either. 

Shortly after this, I get an email from Mike Casserly connecting me with a writer from Urban Educator, the magazine that’s published by the Council of the Great City Schools. She’s like, “We’re reaching out because we think your story is so interesting and inspiring, and Mike is so impressed with how outspoken and strong willed you are. We’d like to feature you in our upcoming publication”. I’m like, “All right, that’s cool”.

I didn’t know, but it turns out this is like a pretty big magazine in the, you know, educational leader niche. Even the ten plus years, board members were like, “Really? They’re doing a feature on you?” 

In the next work session in March, Lola brought the changes to our policies about trustee social media use, which got quickly voted through. Then Lola went through some of the trustees suggestions and opened voting on them. Lola went line by line through my policy changes to tell me why each one wouldn’t work by gaslighting me the entire time with things like “And you think that this is appropriate to do this? You think that the community wants this? What makes you think that? Blah blah blah”.

Here are some examples of the revisions that I submitted that remember I worked on with UNLV policy experts. I recognized that I was not an expert in this, and that neither were the other board members. So I took it upon myself to edit all the policies. The wording in black were the policies at the time and my edits are in red.

I added into the board’s pollicies:

– any individual trustee member could contact the president of the board regarding a pattern of superintendent miscommunication or nonproductive communication and appropriate discussion of their performance shall be triggered, which shall include the correction action plan.

– there may be disagreements as to interpretations of board policies and that the board and the board president and the offending board member shall bring in a third party neutrals or experts as necessary to have what may be honest disagreements.

– we should be exercising responsible oversight and supervision of a district’s financial capacity, financial reporting and audit processes, and ensure the district has proper diversity, cultural, racial inclusion practices and professional training so all members of the community feel respected and not discriminated against. Adequately supervising and providing feedback to the superintendent in a timely fashion so that he or she can better serve the kids of the community.

-t he board should seek independent legal counsel to ensure the board and CCSD are in full compliance of the law privacy statutes, and independent financial advisors to ensure the healthy financial condition of the district that there’s a budget prepared for it.

– a bunch of more language about implicit bias, systemic racism, sexism, civil rights protections, increasing diversity of leadership, teacher personnel, and support staff. So most of those changes were about the superintendent board’s authority and also seeing to issues of systemic racism and diversity, equity, inclusion and whatnot.

The board approved some suggestions from the other trustees. And after about six hours literally of debating Lola about my policies, she said, “Well, we’re obviously not going to agree. So, you know, we’ll just put Trustee Ford’s policy change suggestions on the agenda for the board retreat in April so that we have time to go through everything, and then we’ll have help from our trainer.”

I’m not going to share too much about what happened in early April. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s getting its own episode soon. Okay, so before anyone sends me any hate mail, just please wait for that episode. Long story short, I had an unfortunate mixing up of words during a very packed board meeting which was full of news cameras, and I ended up going viral for being a racist. That happened.

It was very late when that happened. And the next morning, the board had the board retreat. My misspeak aired on every new station, okay? Every new station. Before the meeting had even ended, it was airing, and I was just flooded with emails and calls and mean, threatening voicemails.

Messages started coming in from advocacy groups across the country demanding my resignation.

And messages from friends and family, you know, they saw the news. They want to know if I’m okay. At this point I was like, “You know what? There is nothing I can do about this tonight, so I’m just going to go to bed”. 

The next morning, I walk in to the board retreat with my coffee, and a bounce in my step. I’m like, “Good morning! Who is ready to work on our policies?” The other board members in the superintendent just all stared at me. They’re like, “We didn’t think you would come”. I’m like, “Why not? They go, “Did you get any sleep at all? I’m like, “Yeah, I slept like a baby.” None of them had slept. They told me they’ve been in crisis mode all night long. They didn’t sleep. They could barely get out of bed. I’m like, “Damn, that sucks”.

I see Mike Casserly from the Council of Great City Schools. He’s back again to continue our governance policy work. Before the meeting, we chit chat. He brings up the article that had come out in the Council’s “Urban Educator”. He tells me that he’s received a lot of positive feedback about it. People are taking notice. He tells me that I’m one to watch- real leadership material. I’m like, “Wow, I really appreciate that. It’s so nice of you to say. Thank you for telling me that.” So we start the meeting and again, I’m like, “Mike Casserly should not be training us.”

It clicked for me much later that a fancy write up in a magazine was supposed to appease me, and make me forget about the conflict of interest with our governance training.

Oh, and then all of a sudden, Lola recognizes the existence of the policies that I wrote. She references the portions that I had submitted a month ago, that she fought me on for six hours. The ones about board implicit bias training and cultural sensitivity, all the anti-racism language that I had added to them. She suggests that we add that language because some board members need it. The board approves it.

Lola then puts out a statement which is sent to the whole district- that the board is deeply saddened by Trustee Ford’s use of racially charged language, but action was taken today to update our policies and ensure that the board be properly trained and blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, “Whatever, you know what? Some of the policies that I wrote got approved. I don’t love how that went down, but it’s a step forward.” Okay.

At this point I’m thinking like, “Okay, maybe I should cool it for a minute. Like, maybe I should take a chill pill, and like, fly under the radar for a short period of time. Like, maybe that’s a good idea”. Then I’m like, “Yeah, that is what I will do”. 

But then a teacher emails me in a complete panic asking me to call her. She says, “I’m calling for myself and eight other teachers. We’re all at the same school, and we’re all in our first year at CCSD, and we were all told by the principal that she’s not going to renew our contracts, but we’re all good teachers”. I say, “Look, I would help if I could, but that is way out of my hands.

I told her to contact CCEA, which is her teachers union. She said that they all contacted them. They went through the whole process, and were told by CCEA, like, “Sorry, there’s nothing that we can do”. Then they told her that the board ultimately says yes or no, which we do not. We do not say yes or no to hiring or firing of teachers. That’s like literally the teachers union’s job. Okay. We are not supposed to cross into union territory. I tell her that she’s like, “Can you just please meet with us and hear us out?”

So I meet with them at Starbucks, and I’m not going to share details because it’s personnel information. But what they told me and the documents that they showed me did not look right, you know? So I sat around with like eight teachers around and they’ve got binders and all these things, and it just was not adding up.

They were all first year teachers in their probationary period. Most had worked in other districts for years with great performance reviews. Some of them had even been administrators and other districts before moving here. I’m like, “Yeah, I can see this is not adding up. Let me see what I can do”.

I called Jara. I tell him I want someone to look into this. He tells me that it’s not my place. There’s a hierarchy for a reason, etc. blah blah blah. So I call his chief of staff, who I really liked. She only lasted a year working under him.

Anyway, I’m like, “Look, look, I’m not trying to cause problems. I’m just trying to, like, sit back for a minute, okay? I do not want to have to throw a fit or live stream at the board meeting, but these teachers are set to be terminated at that this next board meeting. Can you please just talk to one teacher for ten minutes, like ten minutes? Just listen. Just listen to her. And then if you tell me that those teachers should not be renewed, I will leave it alone. Like, please, please?” And she’s like, “I can’t, you know, there’s a chain of operations. And then there’s the associate superintendent, and the principal, and this and that, and the regional…” And I was like, “Please, please, please, I do not want to have to live stream. Please, please, please, I don’t want to have to throw a fit.” And then she’s like, “Okay, I will talk to the teacher”. So she does.

She calls me later and she goes, “Yeah, I spoke with her and we will be taking all of those teachers off of the non-renewal list, and we are putting the principal on probation”.

Now those teachers are sending me messages. They’re like, “Thank you so much. And what can they do to help me? How can they ever repay me? Yada yada.” I’m like, “I honestly do not even want the board or CCEA to know that I talked to you or did anything that could resemble meddling in union business. Like, I’m not even trying to go there. Okay.”

I say, “Hey, if you actually want to do something, it would be nice if the board members know what happened and the public knows what happens. So if you could give public comment about it, that would be great”. So they do come to a meeting and they speak about it. The board’s like, “Oh my God. Everyone’s like, wow, those teachers are so brave for speaking up”.

Imagine my surprise when at the next board meeting, reps from CCEA, the teachers union that did not help those teachers at all, show up and with a full on manifesto about how they fought for those teachers to keep their jobs. And you can bet that they’ll do it again. And that’s why they’re instituting “the Decker rule”. That was the school. They claimed that CCEA was responsible for the first ever principal to be put on probation, and the principals should watch their backs from now on. NO, they literally did the opposite of all of that.

They did not do anything. So while their little display at that time was very annoying, I really didn’t care because I was flying under the radar, right? But it made me start to think like, “What’s up with this teachers union? And if they’re making this up, then what else are they making up? And do the members who are reading this nonsense know that it’s nonsense?

Or was this nonsense just told to them by someone at the top of their organization, like perhaps their executive director, John Vellardita? Could this guy be a chronic spitter of nonsense? I don’t know”… yet. At this point, I just knew that something was sus. 

May confirmed my suspicions about CCEA being sus. We were in constant closed sessions about teacher contracts, getting updates from our legal team, and seeing what CCEA was asking for. And by CCEA I mean their executive director, John Vellardita, who has never been a teacher. I’m not talking about the actual teachers who make up the union.

I had no doubt at this point that the executive director of the teachers union did not give a shit about teachers. I cannot say more than that, because I actually could get in trouble for giving details that formed my opinion. But John Vellardita has given me a ton of material over the years to use for episodes, so you will have opportunities in the future to form your own opinion about him.

June arrives. I’m still trying to fly under the radar here. Superintendent Jara calls a closed meeting with the Board of Trustees 30 minutes before we start a public work session. And he tells us that he is cutting the entire position of deans in the entire district, effective immediately, basically. And he says it in a closed session so that we can’t talk about it until that information is made public. The whole board is shaken. We have no time to process, and then we’re sent out into a work session.

It’s right after he tells us that he’s cutting the position of deans, the position in middle and high schools that oversees discipline and turning all of those deans into classroom teachers, we roll right into our work session. It’s only 8 a.m. and I’m already not having a good day.

Dr Linda Young had been telling us for months that she wants to be on a committee that oversees athletics. She’s been saying that this committee needs diversity, and she’s saying that if Lola cared about diversity, she would appoint her. Lola could not appoint her the past six months because there were already two trustees serving on that committee. Well, now it’s June and one of the trustees’ term was ending, so there was going to be an open spot.

Lola could have easily appointed Dr Young to it, but did Lola do that? No, she did not. Instead, what she did is she waited for the one meeting that we all knew Dr Young would not be at, because she always goes on vacation the same time every year, and she gave us all a lot of forward notice. Lola chose this meeting to place an item that would change one line in our policies about committees.

The change was that if a trustee’s board term was going to end before their term would end on a committee they served on, then the president could not appoint them to that committee. Okay. Why? There’s no reason. People leave committees all the time for various reasons. They get replaced. Like, who cares about this? Lola cares. That is who. She could have just appointed her to a committee to show goodwill. Or she could have been straightforward and said, “Hey, look, Dr Young, I am not going to appoint you to this committee.”

But that is not how Lola Brooks operates. Lola Brooks likes to be clever. She wants to outsmart everybody. She always tries to leave a paper trail that makes it look like she’s doing things by the book, even though she’s absolutely not. So in this case, she wanted to be able to go, “Oh, Doctor Young, unfortunately, I can’t appoint you to this committee because our policies now say X, Y, and Z. It is just out of my hands”.

So I know this story right now probably sounds like drama and trustee infighting and insignificant, whatever. But it’s not. This is a big deal. This is a big deal that happened.

The reason is that this marks the moment in time that Lola Brooks began getting comfortable with making up rules, with editing board policies without the board asking her to do so, abusing her position as president, targeting trustees that she doesn’t like, and then rationalizing her actions in her own mind.

Now, you’re probably wondering, “Why does Lola even care? Why would she target Dr Young? This is so dumb.” I had those same exact thoughts. I did not know if they had history or whatever, but it was obvious that Lola had it out for Dr Linda Young. I’m sitting there listening to this bullshit that Lola is proposing. And I’m just like, over it, I’m over it, I’m over everything.

So I say, “Look, there’s obviously something going on here between you two that I don’t fully understand. I don’t think that anybody doesn’t want diversity, but I do think that this is a dick measuring contest. She’s been a trustee for 11 years. Give her the respect that she deserves and let her serve on the committee. The item ended shortly after that without a vote, which is what I’d hoped would happen.

But then I’m on the news for talking about male genitalia, and that ended my era of flying under the radar.

Lola calls me later that day to tell me that legislators have been calling her, and they want to know how she’s going to discipline me. I’m like, “Why would they ask you that? You have zero authority over me”. She’s like, “They expect me to do something to get you under control”. I say, “Well, when you figure out what that is, let me know”. At this point, I recognize that I’m, like, starting to lose my shit, right? I am so frustrated and I do not even know what is happening.

I decided to bring my registered Emotional support dog with me to the next board meeting. She keeps my hands busy. She keeps my body calm. She puts me in a generally better mood, right? I consulted with my mental health provider before, and she wrote a letter explaining how my dog helps. She listed some simple accommodations that would help me succeed as a trustee. I emailed it to all board members, the superintendent, district general counsel and our board counsel. I did not have to send that letter. I was trying to do things amicably.

You would think that a school board president might see this as an opportunity to show that the board is inclusive and supportive of diverse thinkers and learners. You would also think that Superintendent Jara, in learning that my dog makes me a calmer and nicer human, would be like, “Well, does she need her own dog bed? What kind of treats does your dog like?” Right? Like you would think. Umm no, that is not how they responded.

They responded by CCSD’s general counsel emailing me a letter that ESAs are not allowed in CCSD buildings, only registered service animals, and they would not make an accommodation for me. So if you’ve followed the story so far and you think that I did not immediately call the service animal certifier and ask “What will it take to get my dog registered within ten days?” then you do not know me at all.

Rose was at the next board meeting with me as a registered service dog.

Throughout this whole time I am like noticing questionable contracts coming to us, and instead of just relying on the information that CCSD gives us and the superintendent gives us, I start researching them on my own.

I’m talking multi-million dollar contracts, going to testing companies, software and data companies, even alternative education companies. I’m also noticing that most of these companies operate out of Florida, where Superintendent Jara just happens to be from. We’ll talk much more about that later. 

By late June, the district is in complete chaos. The decision to cut the deans upset the entire community. Everybody is begging the board to reverse Jara’s decision.

Superintendent Jara and Lola Brooks are just out of control. Our board attorney is useless. I’m absolutely frustrated with our board governance.

I’m pissed because the changes that I tried to make to our policies in March would have prevented these things from happening, and allowed the board to handle business. The trustees, who are publicly elected to represent voters and protect the school district, are getting steamrolled. And our board attorney was not helping at all. 

I asked during a meeting, I’m like, “What happens if I say no to this guy”. Like, I am done. Our attorney answers. Lola interrupts her.

Excerpt from board meeting:

Danielle Ford: “My first question for our legal department is to please clarify exactly what will happen if the board decides to overturn this decision.”

Lola Brooks: “MaryAnne Miller, would you?”

Board Counsel: “If a vote is taken to achieve that, you will be in violation of your own governance policies in the Clark County School District”. 

Danielle Ford: “And then what will happen after that?”

Board Counsel: “I don’t know if you’re going to completely disregard your procedures. You’ll be in violation of your policies.”

Danielle Ford: “What is that policy?”

Lola Brooks: “So can I… Can I actually interject here? So the board policy states that the superintendent has the authority to do this. And the board actually switched, shifted from a different policy to policy governance and then Balanced Governance as a result of a lawsuit due to trustees micromanaging. So that’s actually how we got here. And we have had multiple trainings, and we have all agreed to the parameters under which we operate. So if you would like to change those parameters, the way that you would do that is you would bring that policy to a discussion and you would go through that process to change the policy.”

Danielle Ford: “Okay. It was mentioned earlier… somebody said that they feel like a school could operate without principals. I don’t think that schools can operate without principals or teachers or support staff or students. I do think that if we built a wall around the admin building and turned off all the Wi-Fi, all the schools could still operate. So I’m going to support overturning the decision. And if it ends up passing or if I’m just the only one, then you can please send that opinion to my lawyer. I’ll give you that email address. Thank you.”

Lola Brooks: “Thank you, Trustee Ford”.

So, I am so done. But I see, like, one last hope.

The board had received an invitation to attend an executive training hosted at Harvard. And this training was going to be organized by… Okay. Five points. Five points. If you can guess who is hosting this training. Okay, I have not thought this through yet, actually, but I will now be arbitrarily giving points during some of these episodes, and it’s your job to keep track of how many points you have and put them in the comments. Okay, but you will get five points now, if you guessed it right. The person organizing this training is… Did you guess it? The Council for Great City Schools! 

I was super excited for this. There were some sessions by some professors that I was looking forward to. Mostly though, I wanted to connect with other board members in different states and find out how they’re governing, how they’re holding the superintendent accountable, what they’re doing to evaluate their superintendent.

I was ready to learn, like, really ready to learn how to be a great trustee. And I was really hoping to get quality information to bring back to the district and start implementing. Well, without spoiling anything, I will say that that is not what happened at Harvard after returning home from the Executive Education seminar conference, whatever that was. 

I no longer smiled at at board meetings. I absolutely refused to respect the board’s self-created policies. My note taking shifted from trying to learn things to documenting what was happening right before my eyes. I no longer had any interest in appearing professional or being pleasant. None.

So far I have pissed off:

• the majority of the board
• the superintendent
• our board attorney
• the Governor
• the Clark County Commissioners
• the Executive Director of the Council for Great City Schools
• the anti sex-ed Republicans
• most Democrats
• and the entire black community

And we haven’t even scratched the surface yet!

If you stick with me, as I continue to recap my four years on the Clark County School Board, you will understand how the elected trustees of the country’s fifth largest school district lost their power, how one superintendent has been able to cause major destruction in a short amount of time. And you will know that it is possible to be fixed.

And in case you’re thinking it, I am not doing this podcast as part of some bigger political plan to launch a campaign. It’s not going to end with like, “So vote for me for school board!” or anything. I most likely will run for office in the future again. I don’t know when and I don’t know where. I only know that it will not be soon. But elections are around the corner, and four of the seats on the Clark County School Board will be available for the taking. So we will be talking a lot more about that.

Once again I’d like to remind you that the production, operation and growth of Unraveling Education is made possible by supporters and every bit makes a difference. If you found this episode to be valuable and you want to help with the continued unraveling, then please make a donation or sponsor an episode by visiting UnravelingEducation.com/sponsor

In the next storytime episode, you will hear all about the training that we received at Harvard, the cast of characters I met, why I returned less confused about the disruption I was witnessing, but much more angry than I’d ever been. And I will walk you through the early stages of my investigation into what the heck is happening to the Clark County School District and many other school districts across the US. 

Before you go, don’t forget to subscribe and share the episode. I would love to hear your thoughts in the YouTube comments. Thank you so much for joining me and have an unravely day!

Storytime: Diary of a New School Board Trustee