Meet the candidates who want to bring change to the Clark County schools
Regardless of the outcomes of the general election, the Clark County School Board will look markedly different next year — there will be at least three new trustees joining the 11-member board after three of the four elected incumbents decided not to run again.
That includes former Trustee Katie Williams, who resigned in September after law enforcement officials found she had moved to Nebraska and was no longer eligible to serve.
The winners of the race could establish a new majority on the school board and will have a hand in hiring the new leader of the Clark County School District (CCSD) after the board voted to push the superintendent search to next year because of the seat left vacant by Williams’ resignation.
Two of the most heated school board races, for seats representing Districts B and E, are overshadowed by culture war issues as two former members of Moms for Liberty — a controversial, conservative parents’ group that has pushed for book bans and opposed policies related to LGBTQ+ students — face two former teachers who are against what that group stands for.
The District C race features the only trustee running for re-election, Board President Evelyn Garcia Morales, whose tenure as the board’s leader has been rocked by scandals such as the resignation of former Superintendent Jesus Jara — a decision she played a role in — as well as the recent resignation of Williams, which led the board to push back its superintendent search, and the district’s $10.9 million budget deficit.
The District A race features a mother and credit union leader versus a CCSD graduate and local nonprofit leader.
The high stakes in these races led three sitting trustees to make a rare endorsement of three of the candidates they wanted to see join them as they push for a reform on certain board policies such as ones on the power dynamics between the board and district leadership.
“When I say power, I'm not talking about control,” said Trustee Linda Cavazos. “I'm just talking about having the information given to us that enables us to fiscally do our job, to be able to oversee the superintendent. That's our job.”
Cavazos and Trustee Ramona Esparza-Stoffregan announced during an Oct. 7 press conference that they are backing Eileen Eady in the District B race, Tameka Henry in the District C race, and Kamilah Bywaters in the District E race.
“We need leaders who will lead with accountability” and be accessible to “the community members who are simply asking for answers from our education leaders,” Cavazos said.
Trustee Brenda Zamora later sent a written statement affirming her support for these candidates.
Click below to read about a specific race.
District A
With Trustee Lisa Guzman opting not to run again in District A, which includes parts of Henderson as well as Boulder City, Searchlight and Laughlin, Karl Catarata and Emily Stevens are vying for the seat.
Catarata is the Nevada state director for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy group. He’s also the chairman of Nevada’s Commission on Mentoring, and sits on the Discovery Children’s Museum’s diversity, equity and inclusion council.
The son of a teacher aide who works with students with special needs and a graduate of Valley High School, Catarata said his campaign is focused on increasing student achievement results, resources for teachers and college and career readiness.
Catarata is currently a board member for a new Las Vegas charter school, Vegas Vista Academy, but plans to resign from that board if elected to the CCSD school board. He also hopes to focus on public safety.
“[What] I hear from my public safety partners in this work is that there's not enough resource officers or police officers to each neighborhood or to each school,” he said. “So I think that appropriately allocating those resources solves many of my biggest campaign issues like making sure that our educators and students feel safe in the classroom.”
Stevens is the vice president of business development for SCE Credit Union, chair of Clark High School’s Academy of Finance board and mother of district students. She also sits on UNLV’s financial literacy committee, and on the advisory committee for Communities in Schools of Southern Nevada, a dropout prevention organization.
If elected, Stevens said she wants to bring her expertise on budget development to the board to support the district during its budget challenges.
“We need people who understand or have business acumen and can look at a budget, understand it, and know what questions to ask, because the community deserves transparency and accountability on that board, and it's just not there,” Stevens said.
Stevens is backed by both major teachers unions in the state — the Clark County Education Association (CCEA), the official bargaining unit for CCSD teachers, and the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA). She is also endorsed by the A Better Choice (ABC) political action committee, which is made up of former school board members and other education advocates.
Catarata has endorsements from Assemblyman Reuben D’Silva (D-North Las Vegas) and Guzman.
Since January, Catarata has raised about $43,000, while Stevens has raised about $37,000, according to their campaign finance reports filed Oct. 15.
District B
Former Moms for Liberty Clark County chapter member Lydia Dominguez and Eady, a former educator turned political campaign consultant, are vying for the District B seat, which was recently left vacant after Williams’ resignation.
District B includes parts of the northwestern Las Vegas Valley, Indian Springs, Bunkerville and the Moapa area.
Dominguez is an Air Force veteran and mother of one current CCSD student and one graduate. She was appointed in 2022 to the district’s Attendance Zoning Advisory Committee by Williams. Dominguez was a speaker at a recent rally for former President Donald Trump, where she shared her story about immigrating with her family from Mexico as a baby and becoming a U.S. citizen.
During a recent interview with The Nevada Independent, Dominguez said she is no longer part of the Moms for Liberty Clark County Chapter due to personal differences between her and the chapter’s former chair, Christiane Mersch, but shares the organization’s belief in parental rights — the idea that parents, not schools, have the ultimate say on their child’s education, medical care, morality and religion.
After publication, Dominguez clarified that her issue was with overall internal problems with the chapter’s board which includes the chapter chair, vice chair, secretary and treasurer.
Dominguez said she was motivated to run because her children experienced bullying in school, something she attributes to restorative justice policies that she believes are leading to schools not holding students accountable for their actions. If elected, Dominguez said she wants to focus on improving school safety by ensuring the district has resources to place enough school police officers on school campuses.
“Kids need to feel like they're safe enough to learn and also we need to make sure our teachers are protected,” she said.
Prior to moving to Nevada 11 years ago, Eady worked as a teacher for 15 years at schools in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland. Eady now works as a campaign consultant and helps female candidates get elected. She’s also a mother of a CCSD graduate and two current students.
In 2018, Eady ran for the board’s District F seat but lost in the primary. She said she decided to run again because she wants to help the district move forward from Williams’ resignation and budget issues.
If elected, she said she wants to improve communication between the board, the district and the community. She said the top complaint she hears from voters is that they don’t know what’s going on with the district or can’t find the information they were looking for.
“It astonishes me,” she said. “I really expected to hear a lot of other things.”
Dominguez has applied to be appointed to the empty District B seat for the remainder of Williams’ term through the end of the year. Eady has said she’s not interested in applying, and would rather be elected into the seat.
Since January, Dominguez has raised about $13,000, including $4,000 from the Police Officers Association of CCSD, according to her campaign finance report filed Oct. 15. Meanwhile, Eady has raised $30,000, including $2,000 from NSEA and $1,500 from the Vegas Chamber, according to her Oct. 15 report.
District C
The District C is a rematch between incumbent Garcia Morales and Henry, a local nonprofit leader. District C includes parts of central Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.
Garcia Morales, a first generation Mexican American, is a graduate of Mohave High School, the former executive director of the Fulfillment Fund Las Vegas, a nonprofit that helps first-generation students access post-secondary education, and a mother of a current student. She joined the board in 2021 and is in her second, and last, term as the board president.
During the past three years, she’s faced backlash on numerous occasions, including for her support of Jara. CCEA has called for Garcia Morales’ resignation multiple times, most recently after investigators confirmed Williams was living out of state. The union also blamed her in part for the district’s budget mishaps.
Garcia Morales said she decided to run for re-election because although her opponents are loud, she thinks they’re not representative of the entire community. If re-elected, she said she’s committed to increasing student achievement and reducing discipline and student absenteeism rates.
“I have a deep desire and commitment to see our community celebrate the successes of our school district, and ultimately, its students, and I'd love to be able to continue to serve in this capacity that allows me to do just that,” she said.
During a recent interview with The Indy, Garcia Morales said she had no prior knowledge that Williams was living out of state or reason to suspect Williams wasn’t living in her district.
Garcia Morales declined to answer on whether votes taken by Williams after she had moved would be vacated.
On the district’s budget issues, Garcia Morales said while there’s been appetite from trustees, state leaders and the community to learn more about what led to budget deficits districtwide, “there’s nothing nefarious” going on. The district gave the board an update on the budget deficit at a Oct. 10 meeting, and is scheduled to give another update at its Oct. 24 meeting.
Henry is a Las Vegas native, CCSD graduate and mother of four students who have gone through CCSD. Henry is the executive director of The Obodo Collective, an anti-poverty nonprofit that connects families to child care options and provides support to community members facing eviction. She’s a member of Northwest Career and Technical Academy’s school organization team, and also leads or is involved in other education advocacy groups such as Rise Up Nevada.
Henry said if elected, her top priority would be to improve teacher retention by ensuring educators feel heard and are supported and appropriately compensated. The district started this school year with 1,100 teacher vacancies.
“We will never have increased outcomes for students without having quality staff members within our schools,” Henry said.
Sheila Moulton, chairwoman of the A Better Choice political action committee, said her group is endorsing Garcia Morales because it has been impressed with her leadership as board president.
Moulton said Henry declined an interview opportunity with the PAC in order to get a chance to earn its endorsement.
CCEA is backing Henry just as the union did four years ago. Executive Director John Vellardita said in a May 17 interview that Henry is “the clearest choice” for the union and Garcia Morales shouldn’t be re-elected.
“We think her leadership has been very ineffective, and borderline just bad,” he said. “She was just a de facto puppet for the Jara administration.”
Garcia Morales has raised less than $5,000 since January, according to her Oct. 14 campaign finance report, including $4,000 from the Police Officers Association of CCSD. It’s a tenth of what Henry has raised, about $45,000, according to Henry’s Oct. 15 report. Henry’s recent donors include CCEA ($10,000).
District E
With Trustee Lola Brooks not seeking re-election in District E, which includes western parts of the Las Vegas Valley and Summerlin, former Moms for Liberty Clark local chapter member Lorena Biassotti (also known as Lorena Cardenas) is running against former CCSD special education teacher Kamilah Bywaters.
Biassotti first became politically active during the pandemic when she opposed the district’s mask mandate. The mother of four said that led her to homeschooling her children, two of whom now attend CCSD schools and two who attend private schools.
Like Dominguez, she said she left the Moms for Liberty chapter earlier this year due to an issue she had with its leadership. Biassotti is also the founder of another controversial, conservative group, My Children’s Advocate, dedicated to eradicating “the social justice infiltration of public schools” and focusing on “patriotic education.”
Biassotti has been critical of the district’s policies related to transgender students and accused the district of influencing students’ beliefs on gender and sexuality.
“I definitely don't want my 8- and 9-year-olds to go to school and be told that boys and girls can identify [as] different genders or they can choose their pronouns,” she said.
Biassotti and members of her group have publicly confronted LGBTQ+ rights supporters, including teachers and district leaders such as trustees during school board meetings and online, accusing them of being groomers. Biassotti counters this and said her opponents have previously called her a terrorist. Last year, Cavazos referred to the national organization and local chapter as “a cancer” in a social media post.
“I think [Cavazos] set the tone,” Biassotti said. “Behavior breeds behavior, and you can't expect respect when you've disrespected parents from the beginning.”
If elected, she said she wants to see the district review and eventually repeal or revise its restorative justice policies. These policies began as a part of a 2019 state law, parts of which have been rolled back through two pieces of legislation in 2023, including one bill by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“I, for one, think it's a completely failed approach to discipline so I would like you to see it repealed altogether,” Biassotti said. “I think we need to get back to the drawing board and see where it allows us to be tougher on discipline.”
Kamilah Bywaters attended District E schools as a student, and is a daughter of a CCSD food service worker and a special education teacher at Rancho High School. Bywaters worked for about three years as a special education teacher in the district, but resigned due to a toxic work environment, she said.
She’s the president of the Las Vegas Alliance of Black School Educators, a support group for Black teachers, support staff and teachers. Bywaters, who has a master’s in education and is working on a Ph.D. in special education, is also involved in community groups such as the National Action Network’s Las Vegas chapter.
“I bring critical thinking, I bring community engagement, I bring to the table compassion and kindness, which is what has been missing from my school board, and I bring a spirit of collaboration,” she said. “My opponent is totally opposite of everything that I just said.”
If elected, Bywaters said she wants to work on improving the district’s culture and climate and also wants to update board policies to ensure it has the mechanisms it needs to hold future superintendents accountable. Unlike her opponent, she said she supports restorative justice practices as well as consequences for negative behaviors.
“If we're saying that we shouldn't give children, young people, an opportunity to learn, then we're doing them a disservice,” she said.
In June, she received an endorsement from Democratic Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), the only time he’s ever endorsed a school board candidate (though Yeager did make a small donation to Catarata’s campaign in September).
Since January, Bywaters has raised about $57,000, according to her Oct. 15 campaign finance report. Her donors include the Police Officers Association of CCSD ($4,000) and the Arizona-based Way to Lead PAC ($5,000), which supports progressive candidates. Biassotti has raised about $9,000 since January, according to her Oct. 15 campaign finance report, including about $3,600 that she loaned herself.
This story was updated on 10/22/2024 at 5:30 p.m. to clarify Trustee Linda Cavazos’ comments regarding Moms for Liberty, and at 6:16 p.m. to include a clarification on Lydia Dominguez’s reasons for departure from the Moms for Liberty local chapter.