Nevada Journal referring detailed 10-part report to state, federal law and education agencies
This report documents in detail the flagrant falsification of student grades at one Clark County School District school — Harriett Treem Elementary during the 2018-2019 school year.
That, however, is only the beginning. It also reveals that the grade-forging practice is:
- widely recognized within CCSD, the fifth-largest school district in the United States, and
- that it has been perpetrated for years — if not decades,
- that its purpose is to deceive parents and the public about the often-abysmal level of CCSD classroom learning,
- that principals and vice principals can successfully “game” Nevada’s School-Performance Framework “star” system through this practice, garnering promotions and higher compensation,
- that the current district superintendent and top administrators are well aware of the practice,
- that this superintendent in 2019 promised a whistleblower — who’d brought relevant forensic evidence to the district leadership’s attention — a full, but “secret,” district-wide investigation and housecleaning beginning immediately,
- that the whistle-blowing teacher who brought the matter to the superintendent’s attention and was promised the “secret” investigation, was, instead, deceived and soon deprived of his district teaching position.
On the basis of these findings, Nevada Journal Managing Editor Steven Miller says that authorities at both state and federal should now conduct the comprehensive investigation of CCSD grade and report-card falsification that the district’s superintendent, Jesus F. Jara, promised before witnesses but failed to conduct.
Miller noted that second-graders at Treem were deprived of critically important, foundational reading and math learning at an important developmental stage, which could well handicap them for the rest of their lives.
“This practice has been an open secret throughout the Clark County School District for years,” he said, “breeding corruption and leaving widespread demoralization in its wake.
“It is time it — and the cover-up cancer afflicting CCSD — is faced directly.”
Parents of students whose grades were falsely reported during the 2018-19 school year by administrators at Harriett Treem Elementary School second-grade class in question can receive from Nevada Journal keys to the codes that mask their children’s names in the report, noted Miller.