Washoe County schools Superintendent Traci Davis is facing even more criticism this week.
A petition by a group called “Reno Watch Party” is asking for Davis to resign.
“Traci Davis has demonstrated her blatant disregard for … citizens,” the petition on Change.org said. “She has ignored repeated requests for transparency and availability from local broadcasters and citizens.”
More than 1,000 people have signed the petition.
The school district has been under fire for months for numerous controversies.
Those include the illegal firing of an administrator, trying to deny legally entitled unemployment benefits for that administrator, denying public records requests — despite a court order in one case — low morale at the district among teachers, dodging the news media, fighting with the state over funding, approving “digital snow days” despite the state forwarning the district that they were not legal, and poorly rolling out digital days on social media.
The school board of trustees appears to stand by Davis and has refused to openly address personnel and legal issues, deferring both back to the district’s administration, where many said the issues originate from.
When asked for comment about the petition, Davis, in a written comment, encouraged citizens to recognize all of the positive things the school district does.
Her complete statement:
“I’ve always believed in the people’s right to petition and this instance is no different. I encourage petitioners to come to our open board meetings to learn more about the amazing work being done to educate our 64,000 students.
I welcome input and suggestions from our community and I value dialogue with all of our students, staff and families. I meet frequently with families, teachers, parents, legislators and community groups through forums, school visits, community events and more, working collaboratively to continuously improve our District and our policies.
We have much to be proud of in our District. During my tenure, our District was recently rated by the New York Times as being in the top 18 percent of Districts nationwide based on student performance; we have an 84+% graduation rate, which is the highest in history; and our students perform better on average on standardized assessments than students in Nevada, California, Oregon
and other states.Our students also take and pass Advanced Placement tests at a higher rate than the US average, and almost half of our students received Advanced and honors degrees. These are the goals the Board has set for me and the District, and they are being achieved. We still have a long way to go, but we are on track to achieve a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020.”
