EDITORIAL: How charters helped CCSD solve its teacher shortage

Sometimes bad news obscures the fact that a long-term problem has finally been resolved.

The Clark County School District recently announced a reduction in force affecting around 60 employees, including teachers. The district is also trying to find spots for around 100 support personnel and administrators. After summer retirements, it is likely many of these employees will go back to work for the district.

While no one celebrates job losses, having too many teachers would have been almost unimaginable a few years ago. In 2022, the district needed to hire more than 1,300 teachers and other licensed personnel. It projected that almost 10 percent of classrooms wouldn’t start that school year with a licensed teacher. Around the end of the school year in 2023, the district again had more than 1,300 job openings. In April 2024, the district had more than 1,600 openings. On the first day of school in August 2024, the district had whittled that number down to more than 1,100 openings for teachers and other licensed personnel.

“CCSD has not been fully staffed since 1994,” former Superintendent Jesus Jara said at a 2022 news conference.

But now it has too many teachers. It’s worth considering why. Some may claim it’s the result of higher teacher pay. And teacher pay has increased significantly. Total average teacher compensation was just under $106,000 in the 2023-24 school year. “CCSD teachers now earn an average of $84,768, plus $44,582 in benefits, for a total average compensation of $129,350,” the district wrote in a document on its 2026-27 school budgets. This is a significant amount of money even if most teachers would prefer more take-home pay and less spent on PERS and union-connected health insurance.

But teachers received a significant raise in early 2024. Vacancies didn’t decline that school year.

The major factor is declining enrollment. Next year, the district estimates it will serve around 5,000 fewer students. Since the 2018-19 school year, enrollment has fallen by more than 43,000 kids.

Those students aren’t missing. Many are now going to charter schools. Statewide, charter school enrollment now tops 70,000. It was around 42,000 in 2018.

Fewer district students mean the district needs fewer teachers and support staff. The Review-Journal’s Spencer Levering reported in April that the district projected it will reduce its number of classroom teachers by more than 1,000 for the next school year.

Charter schools helped the district solve a major problem that had been plaguing it for decades. District officials should send them a thank you card.