LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The Clark County School District is closer to hiring a superintendent after more than a year without one.
The top finalists for the job took part on Monday in a community forum at Rancho High School. Candidates for CCSD’s superintendent job took questions for three hours from students, parents, staff, and other members of the public. The setting allowed the candidates to shake hands and talk to people one-on-one.
Jhone Ebert, Ben Shuldiner, and Jesse Welsh are the three finalists hoping to lead the nation’s fifth-largest school district.
CCSD has almost 300,000 students and 348 school buildings. Finding a new superintendent has stretched into a year. The previous boss, Dr. Jesus Jara was forced to resign last year in February.
Ebert is the current state superintendent of public instruction. She previously worked at CCSD and was promoted to a leadership role before taking a job in New York. Ebert then moved back to Nevada to serve as state superintendent of schools and has worked under both democratic and republican leadership.
“In the Clark County School District, our fourth-grade students are half a year behind in reading,” Ebert said Monday. “We need to extend the school day. We need to extend the school year. We also need to make sure we’re very intentional with the resources that we have.”
Shuldiner is the only one of the three candidates without any connections to CCSD. Shuldiner is the superintendent of the Lansing School District in Michigan and has been credited for turning that school system around. He previously served on the New York City Public School Board, which is the nation’s largest school district.
“I think the question that the community should always ask is how can you get the best person to be the superintendent who is going to support children, support staff, and support the community?” Shuldiner said Monday.
Welsh is currently the chief executive officer of Nevada State High School. He worked at CCSD for several years and was an assistant superintendent before he left to Arizona, where he was the superintendent of the Paradise Valley Unified School District.
“I’m constantly talking to people who are afraid to speak up about some of the things that have been going on, and I think it’s been very hard the last couple of years in the Clark County School District. And I think that starts at the top,” Welsh said.
The three candidates will go before the Clark County School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday for a Q-and-A with the 11 trustees. Each of the applicants will get questioned for 45 minutes.
The school board is scheduled to vote Thursday on a new superintendent.
