State Senate District 5
Two longtime educators are squaring off in state Senate District 5 for the right to help steer state education policy from Carson City.
Republican challenger and charter school director Carrie Buck said Democratic incumbent Joyce Woodhouse is part of the “status quo,” whose years of leadership have failed to improve Nevada’s flagging schools.
“If anything, we’ve sunk lower and lower and lower under her watch,” she said.
Buck moved to the valley and began teaching elementary school in 1996. A decade later, she was named principal at C.T. Sewell Elementary in Henderson.
Sewell was an at-risk school when she took over, Buck said, but it reached high-achieving status before she left in 2012 to work for a valley charter school.
Buck serves as executive director of Pinecrest Academy, which has expanded from one campus to four. 
Buck said she decided to run for Senate because she wants to apply what she has learned to improve all Nevada schools. She said it is time for some new ideas in education policy, noting that Woodhouse hasn’t worked as a teacher in a classroom since the 1980s.
Woodhouse did not respond to phone and email interview requests for this story.
In an interview before the June 14 primary and an online questionnaire for the Review-Journal, she said she wanted to build on the positive education reforms enacted in 2015, find additional money for early childhood programs, continue revamping the K-12 funding formula, and work on ways to recruit and retain more highly qualified teachers.
Woodhouse spent 40 years as a Clark County teacher and administrator, then lobbied on behalf of the State Education Association. She was elected to the Senate in 2006, then lost the District 5 seat in 2010 only to win it back in 2012 after redistricting.
Rounding out the race is Libertarian and perennial candidate Timothy Hagan, who has run unsuccessfully for a host of state and county offices, including the District 5 seat. He’s running this time to “give voters another choice,” he said.
If elected, Hagan said he would work to expand school choice, trim red tape for rooftop solar customers, and reduce taxes, including the newly implemented commerce tax.
Democrats hold a 3,600-voter edge over Republicans in District 5, where Hagan is one of about 500 registered Libertarians.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.
