North Las Vegas schools have the most teacher vacancies this year

LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — Students are back in the classroom this week, but depending on which school they attend they may not have a permanent teacher in front of them.

Data obtained by 8 News Now through a public records request shows the majority of the schools in the Clark County School District with the highest number of vacancies are located in North Las Vegas.

Here’s a list of the schools with the most openings:

• Cheyenne High School – 20
• Swainston Middle School – 16
• Tartan Elementary School – 15
• Harney Middle School – 14
• Watson Elementary School – 13 (tied for fifth)
• Sedway Middle School – 13 (tied for fifth)

All but Harney Middle School are in North Las Vegas.

John Vellardita, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, sees a silver lining in the numbers.

“What we’re seeing is actually some improvement in lowering the vacancy numbers and in some cases maybe eliminating them altogether,” Vellardita said.

Openings have come down at Clark County schools. Data shows Cheyenne High, for instance, had 30 openings in August of last year compared to 20 this year.

“The elephant in the room is that there’s great disparity between these urban core schools and the suburban ring schools, where we have higher vacancies in the urban core,” Vellardita said. “We got to do something, we got to fix it.”

A fix was negotiated in the recent teacher contract between CCSD and CCEA. It included a $5,000 bonus for teachers who accept jobs at Title 1 Schools, which are schools with the most economically disadvantaged students. Most schools with high vacancies are considered Title 1.

Vellardita said the bonus is working.

“We think it’s having the intended consequences that we speculated,” Vellardita said. “We’re starting to see that.”

Special education teachers also received a $5,000 bonus in the recently negotiated contract.

The Clark County School District responded to the issues at North Las Vegas with this statement:

As part of our ongoing commitment to teacher recruitment and retention, the District has made significant strides, highlighted by our recent “We are Vegas. We Are CCSD” campaign launched in April. This initiative is designed to attract new educators to our schools. By partnering with principals, we actively hire educators throughout the year and are pleased to report substantial progress in this area.

From April through July 2024, we increased our hiring of classroom teachers by 19% as compared to 2023 and 43% compared to 2022. Additionally, we reduced day-one classroom vacancies by 12.5% from 2023 and 24% from 2022. Despite these improvements, we acknowledge that challenges remain, particularly in schools experiencing high vacancy rates. We are dedicated to addressing these issues and recognize that this is a broader challenge many districts nationwide face.

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