Vote Nevada Supporters,

Some very important legislative hearings related to education policy happened over the last week.  The topics covered, school policing and restorative justice, are very serious, and because the topics are politically sensitive, a lot of misinformation is already circulating.  As a historian, my strategy for determining the truth from partisan spin is to examine primary sources, so, here are the hearing links.

Background: In the 2019 legislative session Assembly Bill 168 proposed to replace progressive discipline with restorative justice practices. That bill passed and was meant to provide wraparound services for students and their families when students acted out.  You can watch the AB168 hearings below if you would like to hear exactly what was said and intended: 

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/80th2019/Bill/6255/Overview

Everyone now agrees that the wraparound services were not and have not been funded, but there are divergent views on what we should do to address the post-pandemic rise in school violence.

Here is a presentation from last week in the Assembly Education Committee on a bill that proposes changes to AB168 by removing the restorative justice requirement.  You can read the bill, AB285, and watch the hearing here: 

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Meeting/11871?p=1011871

Today the Governor submitted a bill to address the debate over restorative justice with AB330, which also repeals restorative justice.  You can read the bill and watch the hearing here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/10198/Meetings

A third hearing related to school violence happened yesterday at a joint meeting of the Senate Committee on Education and the Senate Judiciary Committee.  This was a special hearing with CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara and Captain of CCSD Policy Henry Blackeye. 

While the committee did show the video of the incident that recently happened at Durango High School, the majority of the hearing is a discussion of CCSD policing policies and administrative processes for dealing with complaints of excessive use of force.  You can watch the hearing here: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Meeting/11865?p=1011865

If we hope to solve these very serious issues, we all should view the evidence.  While we may disagree about interpretations of the evidence, we all need to understand the same facts free from partisan spin.

Also, the Represent Women Democracy Solution Summit from two weeks ago now has recordings available you can watch by scrolling to the middle of this page: https://www.representwomen.org/democracy_solutions_summit

Lastly, please RSVP to join Vote Nevada for a screening of The Young Vote with special guest Diane Robinson, the film’s producer, on April 1^st, from 3 to 5 pm, via Zoom.  You can RSVP here: t.ly/sbCJ

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

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