EDITORIAL: School Board trustees must reveal issue with Skorkowsky

The Clark County School Board has a problem with new Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky. Elected trustees might want to hold Mr. Skorkowsky accountable for the problem, but they do not want the details of that problem made public.

That’s a problem.

If the country’s fifth-largest school district is ever going to lift student achievement and graduation rates and help this valley attract new industry and better jobs, if it’s ever going to build support for more funding and improve public confidence in its ability to educate children, its leaders must be open with taxpayers about its operations. Public trust cuts both ways: If trustees believe matters related to the superintendent’s judgment must be kept secret, taxpayers will not be inclined to invest their faith — or their money.

The problem is rooted in the superintendent’s power to promote and transfer administrators at will. As reported Sunday by the Review-Journal’s Trevon Milliard, Thursday’s School Board meeting produced a discussion and recommendation to limit that power. “Promotions, dismissals, anything dealing with employment should all come to the School Board for approval,” said Trustee Linda Young, a retired school district administrator.

Mr. Skorkowsky responded that he was willing to discuss his authority, but he asserted hiring is done at the superintendent’s discretion. For about a decade, the School Board has embraced a governance model that keeps trustees out of operational decisions and focused on system policies.

What triggered this urge to dial back Mr. Skorkowsky’s power, just eight months after trustees so believed in his abilities that they promoted him and aborted a national search for a new system leader? Trustees aren’t talking.

Stephen Augspurger, executive director of the administrators union, alleged that a high-ranking administrator improperly influenced a hire. But he wouldn’t identify the offending administrator or the hire.

So what’s going on here? Is someone in Mr. Skorkowsky’s administration out of control, picking favorites and punishing enemies? Did Mr. Skorkowsky sign off on a hire that, for whatever reason, isn’t working out? We don’t yet know — but we should. If trustees’ concerns are serious enough to warrant their intervention in every single hiring decision, that doesn’t reflect well on their confidence in the superintendent and his ability to move the school district forward.

Never mind the chutzpah of trustees for moving so quickly to consider punishing Mr. Skorkowsky. As noted in this space Monday, just last week, more trustees entered settlements with the Nevada Commission on Ethics for illegally using public resources to campaign for a property tax increase. Their punishment? Nothing. Nada. Zippo. And the agreements prevented a full inquiry and public hearings into their wrongdoing. This elected board can be trusted to make better decisions than Mr. Skorkowsky?

Now the public knows there’s a problem, that all is not well at Clark County School District headquarters. Trustees can’t make the problem go away by telling taxpayers, “Move along, nothing to see here.” This is not a “personnel matter” that can be swept into a confidential file. It’s starting to sound like a potential leadership crisis. At this point, the best disinfectants are sunshine and some brutal honesty.