CCSD trustees, administrators discuss student safety report
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – The number of students who said they felt safe on Clark County School District campuses is improving however, the numbers remain high, especially at Las Vegas area middle schools.
Last year, Cheyenne High School, Legacy High School, Basic High School, and Chaparral High School reported that nearly half of the student body had safety concerns. Weeks ago CCSD trustees were presented with data that showed those schools reported safety concerns.
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On Thursday evening, CCSD’s board of trustees discussed the student safety report with administrators. To improve administrators rolled out new safety measures to help ease concerns.
When the 2024-2025 school year begins in August students will see some changes which include new metal detectors at some school events, cell phone signal-blocking pouches, and more random searches for weapons.
“There was an intentional focus on high school safety improvements that focused on single-point entry. Camera upgrades, staffing, and random searches from school police,” CCSD Associate Superintendent Kevin Mcpartlin said.
During the public comment period, two teachers took the trustees to task over safety declaring that the enhanced security measures are not enough.
“They’re not taking it seriously, they’re not locking the doors. They’re putting magnets in them. They’re even leaving the outside doors open,” CCSD Teacher Autumn Tampa said.
Another teacher spoke on the incident at Eldorado High School in 2022. Jonathan Garcia Martinez was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison for sexually assaulting his teacher back in April of 2022. He was 16 years old at the time and attacked his teacher for nearly an hour and a half.
“I do feel that after the Eldorado incident, we kind of started moving in the right direction, However, there are still pockets of scary out there,” CCSD Teacher Dr. Tiffanie Bemoll expressed.
During the current 2023-2024 school year suspensions and expulsions are trending upwards at middle schools across the Las Vegas area. Since August Clark County School District Police Department seized more than 40 guns and at least one student was killed by his classmates near Rancho High School.
The Clark County School District said it will release the results of its Student Safety Survey to the public on Friday.
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