LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Commissioner Tick Segerbloom and Clark County School District trustees hosted a listening session to gather feedback from East Las Vegas School Organizational Teams on Saturday.

State legislation from 2015 created SOTs, groups made up of parents, school staff and community members to collaborate and facilitate change. While they have power in theory, these members encounter barriers to wield it. 

“At one of my kids schools we’re going on months without bathrooms in the cafeteria, which is a huge problem,” Dirks Garcia, a parent and administrator for a popular Facebook group, CCSD Parents explained. “We aren’t getting anywhere on the work order list with the district and aren’t able to contract outside the district, even though the law says we are supposed to be able to.”

As Commissioner Tick Segerbloom pointed out: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

“For example, they were talking about no bathrooms in a certain area of schools. That’s unacceptable so I don’t know what the problem is, but that is something where the whole community needs to step up and say, ‘We have to change.’ Things like that where bureaucracy has basically said, ‘Oh we can’t do this’ for whatever reason and we say ‘Wait, common sense: let’s do it,’” Segerbloom said.