Mercedes McKinley

Mercedes McKinley is an educator, mom, CCSD alumni and a community organizer. Her family arrived to Las Vegas in 1987 and have called it home ever since. She has lived the CCSD experience as a student who initially spoke no English and graduated from Eldorado High School in East Las Vegas in 1997. She moved to Illinois and completed her college education at SIUC. In 2017 she returned to her home state of Nevada and began working in higher and public education. ​Mercedes taught environmental science at CSN Henderson and elementary education at CCSD schools from 2018-2021.

​In the last year, she worked as a community organizer for a national environmental non-profit: Mom's Clean Air Force. An organization that fights for clean air policy as it relates to children's health. She is the mother of a toddler who is going to be school-ready soon. She believes we desperately need change in our educational system from the top down and is dedicated to leading our district in a better direction. She understands both teachers AND students from personal experience. It's time that we put students and staff FIRST!

• The most important issue that the district faces right now is our teacher shortage. There are currently over 1,500 open teaching positions in our district. This means that teachers have more students in their rooms. As a result, the students have larger classes where issues with behavior go unaddressed and the staff are overworked and overwhelmed. One way I would address this issue is by recruiting former licensed teachers who have left the profession. The process between the Nevada Department of Ed and CCSD Human Resources needs much improvement and processes should be streamlined in order to resolve this crucial teacher shortage.
• If elected, another main goal would be to advocate for more funding from the state and federal grants to help fund our schools. I would reach out to philanthropists as well. More funding means better schools, more teachers and support staff. Many of our communities are still recovering from the impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic and funding to mental health care has been lost. Many family structures have changed as people died and the cost of living increase has worsened the challenges that many of our community members are faced with. Advocating for more funding with transparency is my main goal.
• One of my goals as trustee is to prioritize access to mental health and social services. As a former teacher in CCSD schools, I have seen the impact that these services can have to help address behavior issues and violence problems that plague our schools. Our students need more coping skills, they are just as important as academics. Teaching our young people how to self regulate their emotions and understand trauma responses is an incredible step towards academic success.

I am extremely passionate education, during my time as a student at CCSD I was not supported in all the ways necessary for me to flourish as an academic. I realized this after going back to college at age 29 and completing a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Geography and Environmental Resources. My dedication to this comes form my own experiences and a desire to ensure that the next generation doesn't have to struggle in all the ways I did in order to achieve a high level of education. I am also passionate about labor rights and unions as well as women's health.

Katie Porter, I would follow her examples because she makes complex concepts easy to understand and digest.

The movie "Miracle" (Kurt Russell) about the 1980 USA Olympic Skating team who won the gold and beat the Russians. They took a group of unexperienced kids, put them up against the best hockey players in the world and they won. This movie displays dedication, perseverance, hope and a belief that our kids can accomplish ANYTHING if we teach them to believe in themselves.

I believe integrity, honesty, discipline and compassion are important characteristics for an elected official.

I believe that the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office are transparency, bipartisan collaboration and always making the students and staff a priority.

I remember the 1992 presidential election, I was 12 years old. I was excited for the idea that we were going to do something about climate change, but most importantly that our new president played the saxophone. My 12 year old self had recently picked up the saxophone because of Lisa Simpson, so having a horn playing president was exciting for me as a kid.

I was a radio operator for KKVV 1060 AM Christian Talk Radio. I had the job for about a year and only worked on Sundays, but I got to introduce the next shows that were coming up on the air. It was fun.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, it reminds of the magic of life.

I lost my father to covid 3 days before my only daughter was born, I miss him.

The primary job of a school board member is to oversee the budget, superintendent and be a liaison between the local government and the community.

My constituents are students, parents and community members of Henderson, Boulder City, Searchlight and Laughlin who are part of district A.

I will support the diverse needs of our district’s students, faculty, staff, and community by making sure that our schools are a safe place for all.

I have spent the last year working as a community organizer focused on air pollution and children's health. I will work closely with parent groups, teacher unions and host town hall meetings so ensure that all channels of communication are open for my district.

Good teaching is based on our ability to create life long learners, good teaching gets students engaged and excited, it makes them hungry for more. In terms of measuring this, that's a tough question, the most direct is student progress.

I believe that we have a lot to learn from other countries whose students have higher levels of math and science competency. I support continuing education for teachers and believe that the district should fund that education for its teachers so they can stay current in the profession.

I would like to see expansion of labor law in curriculum. I spent most of my life working as a misclassified worker with no benefits, because of my lack of understanding of my rights as a worker. I think our students deserve to be educated on what rights they have as employees in the US.

I would advocate for more funding from the state and federal grants to help fund our schools. I would reach out to philanthropists as well including the gaming industry. More funding means better schools, more teachers and support staff. Many of our communities are still recovering from the impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic and funding to mental health care has been lost. Many family structures have changed as people died and the cost of living increase has worsened the challenges that many of our community members are faced with. Advocating for more funding with transparency is my main goal.

Fully staffed schools with support staff, licensed educators, school counselors, social workers and robust special education programs provide a safer environment for all. That's why funding our schools and fully staffing them is so critical to district wide improvement.

One of my goals as trustee is to prioritize access to mental health and social services. As a former teacher in CCSD schools, I have seen the impact that these services can have to help address behavior issues and violence problems that plague our schools. Our students need more coping skills, they are just as important as academics. Teaching our young people how to self regulate their emotions and understand trauma responses is an incredible step towards academic success.
I would also work to insure that teachers and staff have access to mental healthcare by providing funding to a comprehensive health plan.

I would remove the current policy that makes social workers at schools "optional", all of our schools need this service.

Local IATSE 720, Southern Nevada Labor, Teamsters Local 631, Silver State Equality , The United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 1977 Council and Las Vegas Weekly.

First things first, we need buildings with functioning A/C and heat, running water. While these things seem quite basic, many of our campuses are lacking in these things. After addressing infrastructure I think that the biggest thing is small class sizes with a robust special education programs, Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs, extracurricular activities and access to mental healthcare. Having all of these things in place creates the ideal learning environment for students in my opinion.

I think they did the best they could given the circumstances.

I would love for the district to create an app, similar to what the City of Las Vegas has. The app would connect you to specific departments within the district for easy access. Give you direct contact information for your trustees as well as a place for you to find site specific information on your child's school, this would be especially helpful for those whose kids attend multiple schools. I would also set up an option where parents and students can report issues with the school infrastructure or issues with a specific school site. As it stands now, parents don't have a streamlined way to reach administration that goes beyond their school principal. I believe that the creation of an app like this would help the community at large feel more connected to the district, this is the first step in creating a symbiotic relationship.

I would start by getting in contact with anyone who was a teacher at CCSD previously and offer them a better package to come back. These people would require less training and have some experience. I also think that our support staff and special education teams need to be fully funded and have all the things they need to do their jobs. We have some great people in our district already, let's work to keep those who show up for us every day. Let's become the type of district that attracts teachers, not scares them away.

I believe that the public should be made aware of the decisions being made on their behalf and should get a voice in those decisions. Often times we find out about situations after the fact. Government accountability should consist of correcting the wrongs and putting systems in place so that the same mistakes aren't being made over and over.