My name is Diego Sosa as a Christian, and we are proud to be able to interview a school board trustee.

How are you doing today, Ms.

Trustee?

great.

Thank you for having me.

Can I get your name before we start?

I'm Trustee Garcia morales.

You can call me Evelyn Miss Evelyn.

We're here to ask you a couple questions today.

We're going to start off here at Mojave.

You were a former Mojave student here.

I was a student here over 20 years ago.

at the time, my family situation was very it was a very challenging time for my family.

When I attended Mojave High School.

I remember my mom.

She was a single mother at the time, and she worked the graveyard shift for me.

So she goes in late at night and comes out early in the morning.

She'd come out just in time for me to pick me up and take me to school.

Right.

And at the time, school started at 7:00, just like it does now.

Right.

And my family, my mom would sometimes be so exhausted from working the night before that she'd fall asleep at stoplights, like she'd put the car park so that she could take a micro nap and make sure that no matter what, I always had a right to school because school was really important for my mom and for me, and she wanted me to make sure that I graduated fr and she made sure you got your work done.

She did?

Yeah.

She.

She didn't always know what homework assignments I had.

We didn't have Infinite Campus back then to monitor grades, and we didn't have, like, the summative and formative type of language that we have now.

But when it comes to grades, but I knew that I had to graduate from high school.

She didn't get a chance to graduate from high school.

She's I'm the first generation in my family to graduate from high school, go to college, graduate from college and earn a master's degree.

that's very interesting.

thanks.

Yeah.

I'm really grateful to my mom, who worked really hard to make sure that we had a quality education.

And and I got that at Mojave.

Thank you for sharing that.

absolutely.

Okay.

So what inspired you to become a trustee?

A lot of things.

Many things.

My experiences as a student here at Mojave, I remember my first day at you and I'll be looking around for my peers who attended Mojave.

There was only a handful of us who from the senior class attended UNLV.

And I always wondered, like, why there wasn't more students.

So that curiosity kind of carried me after I graduated from college and made me wonder, like, what other opportunities exist out there that many of us are not having, right?

And by us I mean students who have really unique circumstances, who are absolutely brilliant, just like you and your peers, but may just not have that exposure.

And I at the time didn't have any I didn't know that there was a world really outside of North Las Vegas for me.

So I challenged myself in college and after college, when I graduated, I moved to Washington, D.C., and I spent 11 years there.

My goal there was to learn as much as I possibly could so that I could eventually bring it back to Las Vegas.

And I did about six years ago.

And when I came back, I started working for an organization that helps young people get ready for college while in high school.

So that's the work that I get to do.

But I felt so lucky that I've had all these experiences and opportunities.

Like I want other students to have these opportunities do and to see themselves as a future elected officials see themselves as principals, see themselves as leaders in our community.

Because you're our voices are important.

You're your voice is important.

And for me, really, when it comes down to the one of the main reasons why I chose to run for office is because I, specifically the school board of trustees, because I saw the inequities that exist for students in my community and other communities in Las Vegas that typically they may have more resources or may have different academic outcomes.

I just wondered why is that and why don't my kids in North Las Vegas also deserve the best education possible?

Like, how do we make sure that that continues and stays the course?

All right.

Yeah.

Thanks.

I'm really grateful.

It's motivated by my early story and my education.

Right.

Like my my, my mom who's like, hey, yeah.

And I have two kids, too.

I have a 13 year old who is brilliant and I want his quality of education to also be the same as all of our students.

And in Clark County, as as your role as trustee, what do you think is the hardest part of your job?

you can probably tell us a couple of things.

You know, in the state of Nevada, we've come a long way over the last several years to fund education appropriately.

The way that education is funded, used to be funded, had had not changed for many, many years.

And until recently those the way that the state funds education um, has improved and I'm really grateful for that.

But that means that we're still underfunded as a state.

And so when we, you know, when you have I know what it's like to live on a limited income, I know what that's like.

So when you think about a system like 60, for example, and they have you only have a certain amount of resources that you have to work with and how do you make sure that you maximize all those resources.

So I'm really grateful that we have um, this year we received more funding from the state to make, to help make some decisions that will impact the quality of our students education.

And ultimately it's like decisions, hard decisions need to be made all the time to make sure that our kids, that we stay focused on the quality of our students and the outcomes of our students.

That's really ultimately the goal.

And we one of the hardest thing is staying focused on that.

But it's possible now, what steps are being taken to improve academic progress for like the community?

Oh yeah.

You know, earlier I shared that there's a lot of players at hand when it comes to education.

You know, the state decides the budget every year that we have a state, um, state Board of Education that helps with various components to ensure that there's quality education in across our state and holds districts accountable.

Um, 60 specifically in what we have done.

I'm really grateful for our superintendent who has stayed focused on improving academic outcomes for all of our students.

He, he and his team have ensure that there's curriculum that's standard across the district.

So no matter if you're in senior L.A. English for senior junior English.

So if you, for whatever reason have to change to another school in the different part of the district, right to a different community or a different high school, you will be in a similar track of curriculum that you you were here, right?

Um, in the past, every many schools had their own curriculum, their own content.

And yes, there will always be a different way that students receive that information.

Teachers have their own way of like sharing that information, which is wonderful.

And that's sort of the personalization, but the content will be the same.

So I mean, that's really important.

If we're trying to measure success, we have to make sure that we're all starting on the same baseline.

I when it comes to other academic initiatives, is that we in addition to the academic elevations, we know that students have other needs that exist, right?

That that impact quality education, making sure that there are we have partners who help us make sure that there are food, food, access to food, medical care, um, and things of that nature that again, impact a student's life and experience.

And I'm really grateful that we, we have those type of things.

And I would like to ask you for my last question.

as trustee, what role do you play in our teacher contracts with our situation going on?

Do you have anything to tell the community?

I do.

What I can tell you is that 60 wants to compensate its educators.

That's licensed professionals.

I think it's important to note that when we say teachers, the teachers union, it is really licensed educators, individuals who are represented by this union, um, are advocating for, you know, ensure that the educators are licensed.

Yes, the licensed professionals are compensated.

And uh, it really requires in negotiations there, it requires two parties, 60 and then whoever the bargaining unit is to come to an agreement on the terms.

Right.

It's a negotiation right now.

We're currently past where it's still in active negotiation.

So I can't really talk a lot about what is being discussed at the table.

But what I can tell you is that 60 is committed to compensating as educators, and we have to go through the legal process that is that currently exist.

And I can tell you that there are other bargaining units or other unions who have already settled their contracts.

It takes partnership to do that.

We're stand ready to make sure that we support our educators and that they have the resources they need that they they've earned to ensure that we compensate our our staff.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Thank you.

And thank you for your time.

back to the studio