CCSD chooses Jhone Ebert as new superintendent

In a unanimous vote, the Clark County School District Board of Trustees selected Jhone Ebert as the new superintendent for the district during a Thursday evening meeting. 

Ebert is currently the State Superintendent, a role she was appointed to in 2019, and has overseen the academic success of nearly 500,000 students across Nevada’s 17 school districts. Ebert is a longtime Clark County resident and former CCSD educator.

Before voting, the school board members highlighted Ebert’s 30-year career in Nevada and CCSD, which they felt could give her a leg up in addressing certain issues and engaging the community, 

“When I think about the leadership profile that we got from the community, the most consistent thing that we saw was a need to have somebody who knows our community. And I think that that’s probably one of the most important things considering we want to see things move quickly,” said Trustee Emily Stevens before the vote. “And so to have somebody who knows our district, knows our state, knows our state laws, I think that’s going to make a big difference in how quickly we can move this thing forward.”

Trustees interviewed three other candidates of the more than 40 applicants in the nationwide search — John Anzalone, the superintendent for the Camas School District in Washington, who was eliminated from the running after the first round of interviews; Ben Shuldiner, the superintendent for the Lansing School District in Michigan; and Jesse Welsh, president of Nevada State High School, a tuition-free public charter school focused on college preparedness. 

The superintendent search process took more than a year. Former superintendent Jesus Jara resigned last February and interim superintendent Brenda Larsen Mitchell was appointed shortly after. The search for the new leader for the fifth largest school district in the country was meant to take place in the fall of last year, but was delayed until after the election, since four of the seven elected trustee seats were up for election. 

The board is made up of seven voting members and four non-voting members, who are appointed by and are meant to represent local governments — City of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, and unincorporated Clark County. The non-voting members can still share their input and add to conversations and decisions.  

“We have no idea what’s coming to us from the federal government. We have a possibility that things like that that we were sure of that were gonna be that we could count on — things like Social Security, Medicaid, the Department of Education helping us to feed our children — that right now are very much in doubt. We’re gonna need a leader who brings stability,” said Trustee Isaac Barron, who represents the North Las Vegas municipality on the school board. “We need a leader who can actually have a bipartisan relationship with our state leaders, with our governor, she has cultivated that. For the next couple of years, we’re gonna need stability.” 

CCSD and Ebert will now negotiate her contract. Once negotiations are complete, the contract will be presented to the Board for consideration.