Statewide Safe Schools Reopening Survey: Clark County School District
The Clark County School District, like districts across the nation, is creating a school reopening plan for
the fall. However, these plans make two (often unrecognized) assumptions. The first assumption is that
teachers and school-based staff will be comfortable returning to the schools given the current COVID-19
public health crisis. The second assumption is that these groups of professionals will agree on the
measures required to realize a safe reopening. To explore these assumptions, the Guinn Center, Nevada
Action for School Options, and Nevada Succeeds partnered to administer an independent survey to
school-based licensed and support staff, as well as school administrators.
The purpose of the survey is to understand the comfort level of these professionals in returning to
classrooms given the current preparation underway by districts. The survey also asks respondents to
consider the importance of specific actions schools and districts could enact to attempt to prevent the
spread of COVID-19. The survey, which was administered between June 15th to June 24th, was anonymous
and included 11 questions. Overall, we received 9,220 responses statewide. Of these, 6,932 (75.1
percent) were CCSD employees, which included 5,407 licensed educators, 1,346 support staff, and 179
school administrators. The data presented below include only responses from CCSD employees. While
this summary represents initial discoveries, a more complete report with additional findings will be
forthcoming.
Comfortability Returning to Schools The survey included two questions about the respondents’ comfort
levels returning to their school and/or classroom. The first question asked individuals to provide their
comfort level given the current school/district policies, while the second asked about their comfort level
given all the public health precautions they felt necessary to adopt (except the availability of a vaccine).
As displayed in the figure below, a greater percentage of CCSD school employees felt uncomfortable
returning to schools given the current policies than those that were comfortable or expressed neutral
feelings (52 percent to 48 percent). If additional precautions are taken, a larger percentage of employees
would be comfortable returning to school in the fall, but a sizable group of employees — 32 percent of
the respondents — will remain uncomfortable returning to school in the fall. This challenges one of the
assumptions of school-reopenings during the pandemic — that all school employees will be comfortable
returning to schools in the fall.

June 25, 2020

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 Student-Centered Focus of Respondents The survey also offered respondents the opportunity to provide
comments regarding the actions that the district and Nevada Department of Education could undertake
to increase their confidence in reopening schools safely. Specifically, the open-ended question asked,
“What actions — if taken by school leadership, districts, and/or the Nevada Department of Education —
would increase your confidence that schools are ready to reopen in the fall?” Individuals provided
opinions ranging from reopening schools without any changes necessary to moving to 100 percent virtual
instruction until a vaccine is available. However, despite the differing opinions provided, students and
learning were the primary foci of respondents’ concerns – as evidenced by the word cloud below that
was created with the open-ended responses from this survey question.

Even though school building professionals may have different ideas about the best set of actions or
strategies district and state leaders should pursue to enhance safety, the ideas are informed largely by
concern for the students, both their safety and learning environment.
Options for Reopening The survey asked respondents how strongly they agreed or disagreed with various
actions schools and districts could undertake as a reaction to COVID-19. These results are presented in
the Appendix. Respondent groups held similar views on the importance of various actions — with the
percentage of respondents agreeing with the statements in remarkably similar patterns. However,
interesting differences did emerge (challenging the second assumption that differing groups of
professionals will agree on the best course to reopen schools). Significant findings included:
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Overall, licensed educators, support staff, and school administrators provided remarkably positive
responses to nearly all proposed actions the district could take to support schools to combat
COVID-19 related issues.
While respondents note they want more disinfecting supplies in the classrooms, actions that
engage families in the process of keeping the students, teachers, and the school safe also elicited
high levels of support.
Licensed and support staff more strongly support mandatory temperature checks for everyone
entering the school building than were school administrators.
Licensed and support staff more strongly support more flexible sick leave policies for all schoolbased personnel than were school administrators.
The full, statewide report and analysis will be published in early July.

June 25, 2020

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 Appendix – Options for Reopening Reponses by Respondent Category

Question
Provide cleaning and disinfecting supplies in every
classroom
Educate families on when they should make the decision
Update contact information for all families
Develop a communication plan to notify staff, parents,
and community officials in the event that a student or
staff member tests positive for COVID-19
Educate students and families on proper handwashing,
personal hygiene, and sanitation practices related to
COVID-19
Establish strict policies instructing teachers and staff
when they cannot come to work based on symptoms and
indications of possible exposure
Develop the guidelines for when the school should close
due to an outbreak and move to an online learning
More flexible sick-day policies for all school-based
personnel and encourage utilizing with even minor
Establish a protocol for isolating any individual
exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms in designated rooms
Prioritize training students and families to use online
platforms such as Google classroom
Train staff to recognize signs that a student is ill and
how to properly care for them
Focus on relationship building with students and
families, including establishing clear methods of twoway families and schools communication at the outset of
Give teachers time to collaboratively plan and realign
curriculum to account for lost learning time
Develop social distancing guidelines and protocols for
students, school staff, guests, and visitors
Mandatory temperature check for everyone entering
school buildings
Institute plans to ensure students can access physical
and mental health/wellness supports
Install protective panels for frontline office and food
service team members
Hire or contract for additional school nursing services
Training to identify and report indications of child abuse
or other safety issues in a virtual learning environment
For teachers who reference a reason for feeling
uncomfortable being present in-person at the school,
allow them to provide distance-learning instruction only
Place each student desk 6 feet apart to ensure proper
social distancing in the classroom (acknowledging that
this may limit class sizes)
Incorporate more intentional methods of social emotional
learning for students
Maintain social distancing on school buses
(acknowledging this might require additional bus routes
and changes to the school start times to accommodate)
Hire or contract for additional counseling to provide
social-emotional wellness support
No mandatory in-person student attendance at school
until an approved vaccine is widely available
Elimination of all in-person extracurricular activities
outside of normal school hours

June 25, 2020

Percentage of Agree and Strongly Agree Responses
Licensed
Support
Educator
n()
Staff
n()
Administrator

n()

95.7%
93.3%
91.4%

5,375
5,383
5,357

94.9%
94.0%
91.3%

1,322
1,326
1,316

95.5%
91.6%
88.1%

179
178
177

89.6%

5,369

89.9%

1,322

86.5%

178

89.4%

5,374

92.9%

1,323

88.1%

177

88.3%

5,371

90.5%

1,323

82.0%

178

87.5%

5,367

85.1%

1,323

83.1%

177

87.3%

5,368

87.2%

1,321

67.0%

179

85.6%

5,367

88.0%

1,320

79.8%

178

83.8%

5,374

79.9%

1,315

83.7%

178

81.2%

5,367

88.7%

1,319

87.0%

177

80.4%

5,359

81.2%

1,318

80.4%

179

78.5%

5,375

78.6%

1,316

87.6%

178

76.3%

5,367

74.5%

1,320

74.0%

177

73.9%

5,376

72.5%

1,323

57.3%

178

72.7%

5,362

78.1%

1,317

71.2%

177

72.6%
69.0%

5,368
5,362

73.1%
68.2%

1,316
1,312

68.0%
59.6%

178
178

68.7%

5,364

79.0%

1,316

61.2%

178

66.9%

5,363

64.8%

1,313

46.1%

178

66.4%

5,370

65.2%

1,322

55.4%

177

65.0%

5,357

69.4%

1,312

62.7%

177

63.6%

5,358

66.6%

1,323

54.0%

176

56.9%

5,361

57.4%

1,317

66.9%

178

48.0%

5,376

46.2%

1,314

47.5%

179

42.2%

5,359

47.4%

1,310

38.8%

178

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