John Vellardita (Clark County Education Association) oral history interview conducted by Magdalena Martinez: transcript

An Interview with John Vellardita
Perspectives from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leadership and Learning in Nevada
Produced by:
The University of Nevada Las Vegas
The Lincy Institute
2024
Principal Researchers:
Magdalena Martinez, Ph.D. and Kelliann Beavers, Ph.D.
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The following interview was a part of the “Perspectives from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leadership and
Learning in Nevada” research project. The recorded interview and transcript were made possible
through the generosity of The Lincy Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The goal of the
project was to understand and document how Nevada organizations and leaders responded to the myriad
challenges that the pandemic engendered. The interviewees thank The Lincy Institute and their
supporters for the opportunity to reflect on their roles throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The
researchers also acknowledge the following individuals who contributed to the conceptualization, data
collection, and analysis of the project: Dr. John Hudak, Dr. Makada Henry-Nickie, Elia Del Carmen
Solano-Patricio, Taylor Cummings, Peter Grema, Kristian Thymianos, Saha Salahi, Madison Frazee,
and Katie Lim.
Each interviewee had the opportunity to review their transcript. All measures have been taken to
preserve the style and language of the interviewee. This interview features John Vellardita, Executive
Director for Clark County Education Association, and was conducted on 4/12/22 by Magdalena
Martinez. This interview covers topics including reflections on leadership, organizational challenges,
and opportunities for collaboration.
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Interview with John Vellardita
Tue, 4/12/22 11:00AM • 42:29
SPEAKERS
John Vellardita, Magdalena Martinez
Magdalena Martinez 00:02
So just to confirm that you have consented to being recorded and to have a conversation with me now
that I've got you on the recording.
John Vellardita 00:09
Great.
Magdalena Martinez 00:10
All right, thanks so much, John. So, to start off if you could just talk about your role in your
organization.
John Vellardita 00:18
Well, I'm the Executive Director, I mean, first off, our organization is the collective bargaining agent for
over 18,000 licensed professionals in the Clark County School District. And I'm the executive director
of that organization in that capacity. I think we do about three key functions, one, we represent and I
lead on this in terms of my responsibility, we represent the working conditions, the salary and benefit
compensation for those licensed professionals. So, we engage in collective bargaining with the school
district around that. The second is that we run a fairly robust professional development and training
programs for our licensed professionals to improve their practice. And then the third area that we engage
in is legislation at the state level, in particular, to advance the cause of public education. And then in
particular, the needs of Clark County School District and educators down there. So I think within those
three things I'm primarily the person responsible, I mean, there's other things, but I would characterize it
that way.
Magdalena Martinez 01:40
Very helpful. And, John, how long have you served in this capacity? And what did you do before?
John Vellardita 01:46
Yeah, about 11 years. Now, I've been in the labor movement, probably for about 45 years. Prior to this, I
represented healthcare workers and public sector workers in California. And prior to that, I spent
probably well over 20 years in the Midwest and South representing industrial workers. And so I've
primarily been in the labor movement in a capacity of leadership, whether it's been elected, or whether
it's been hired in some kind of executive management position, which I'm currently holding.
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Magdalena Martinez 02:29
Okay, very helpful. Now, in terms of the pandemic, how did you see the role of your organization during
this time?
John Vellardita 02:37
That's interesting, I think. So let me start with, we took a more global approach, because the pandemic
had this kind of manufactured shutdown of the economy. And a couple of things flowed from that one
was, the 95% of all costs in the school system is human capital, and most of the source of revenue to pay
for that comes from the state. And so there were issues that the state was facing around its budget, where
they'd had to call a special session to make cuts to balance its budget, because with the economy down,
its principal source of revenue was essentially compromised in a significant way. So, one of the primary
roles that we played on the onset of the pandemic was to try to preserve as much as possible, education
program at the school district by engaging in that special session with lawmakers and the governor's
office that if there is reduction or cuts that have to be made here's where we think the priorities are. So
that was one. The other areas and these were equally important, I might say neither one was a priority
over the others, they were fairly integrated. The other area was twofold. One, when the pandemic hit,
and the transmission rate was escalating, public safety became a high priority. And a classroom is a
confined space. And a confined space is the worst place for this kind of virus to be, right. And so, the
issue as to whether or not it was safe for educators and students became an issue. So, then the burning
question of the day, if you will, was how do we maintain education? Do we keep the schools open? Or
do we shut them down for public safety reasons and the decision was made to shut them down. And so
coupled with that, though, was almost immediately a discussion and a concern. Well, if we can't have in
place learning, can there be another mode of learning for these kids, right? And so, then we transitioned
into this remote learning model of education, lots of challenges, never been done before on the scale that
we needed it to happen. So, the model was never tested. So, they had a lot of hiccups. Right?
Magdalena Martinez 05:35
Right.
John Vellardita 05:36
But one of the things that we experienced was the incredible disparity among the student population;
between working class kids or the underserved student population and those more affluent. The fact that
these students had no access to the internet, they had no devices, to be able to get online when we went
to remote learning. And so, their education and their experience with the remote model was severely
compromised. But it did expose the disparity in education right at that time on display never seen before.
So, there was a whole period of trying to mobilize the community and other stakeholders to try to get
devices and access to online for the kids. But frankly a lot of time was lost, a lot of education. So, the
second area was this shutdown, and then reopen, but not reopen, traditionally, but a remote and then the
challenges with that remote. And then the third area, I would say that we had to deal with and we
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experienced was isolation. And what that meant, not just for our frontline educators, I think society as a
whole experienced that and all the behavioral changes and the mental health challenges that came with
that. That posed another set of circumstances that one the system was never equipped to deal with. And
as an organization representing and advocating for educators and students we were propelled on the
front line to, to be to try to figure out the solutions. And what we found was, rather than we didn't have
the opportunity to take a more well-planned strategic approach, we wound up reacting and triaging, if
you will, how to handle it. So those are like the, you asked me, how did we deal with a pandemic, those
are like the three buckets, funding from the state, the shutdown the on again, and the remote, the
education delivery model. And then of course, the challenge of the mental health. Now, with that, I do
not want you to walk away thinking that just the public safety piece, people getting sick, people dying,
and all that was not also a challenge as well. It goes without saying.
Magdalena Martinez 08:22
Oh, let me pause you, John, because I think I might have temporarily lost your connection. Give me just
a moment. Okay, let's see here. I can't hear you yet. It'll be just a second probably. Okay. Okay, there we
go. I can hear you now.
John Vellardita 08:37
Okay. So go on. Where did I? Where did you stop hearing me?
Magdalena Martinez 08:43
The safety and people dying, that that was not a concern? I see that as part of the second bucket, right.
Under the safety delivery model. It's all interconnected one way or another? Yes. Yes. So that was, oh,
go ahead. Sorry.
John Vellardita 08:58
That's fine.
Magdalena Martinez 08:59
I was going to say that's the onset of the pandemic. Do you see those three buckets continuing to be the
priority in terms of how your organization is responding to the pandemic today?
John Vellardita 09:13
Yeah, it's almost a continuum in this sense, right? The funding issue is ongoing. So even though there
was significant money invested by the federal government, to the states and local government, and
particular education agencies, how that utilized and how you try to recover lost education has been still a
challenge. Right? I think we're still seeing the effects of that. So, there's that challenge, moving forward,
around how can we accelerate learning, let alone try to recapture some lost time with kids. So, that's a
big piece. And then the other thing that we're experiencing is just incredible shortage, labor shortage.
Significant number of vacant positions in the school district. And that that compromises a child's
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education. But it also puts an undue burden on these licensed professionals. And so, there's the challenge
with that.
Magdalena Martinez 10:18
All right. Now, I think you started to address this question. From where you sit, which groups do you
believe were hardest hit by the COVID? Recession?
John Vellardita 10:29
I mean, and when you say groups, are you talking? I mean, in our world our...
Magdalena Martinez 10:35
Yes.
John Vellardita 10:36
Students and educators? Right. So that's a tough question, right? Because there's this symbiotic
relationship between an educator and a student, right. And so, let's just start with students, I think,
clearly the hardest hit were kids and their parents, right, because particularly for these working-class
parents, they not only had the challenge of maybe being out of work, and trying to make ends meet. But
if they were not at work, or they were able to work, they may have to make a sacrifice of continuing to
work because they had their kids at home, and they didn't have the opportunity to have any kind of
daycare or anything. So that was an incredible challenge. And it was not some inconsequential number,
it was pretty significant, right?
Magdalena Martinez 11:48
Oh, I'm so sorry, John, I think it's on my side of the connection here.
John Vellardita 11:54
Okay, I can hear you.
Magdalena Martinez 11:55
Okay, now I can hear you again. Sorry, I am not in Nevada right now. I'm actually in California. So I do
apologize, go on.
John Vellardita 12:06
But on the educator's side, they had the dual burden, in many cases, trying to be effective in this new
model of remote learning, right? And then also, the burden of they had their own family and their kids.
So, they had to do both at the same time. Now that the pandemic is over, and kids have been back in
school, on the student side, we've seen the effects of that lost education. And on the side of the educator,
there's just a lot of mental health issues because of the stress that they as an educator went through.
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Magdalena Martinez 12:47
Right. Now, in thinking about some of these challenges. You've talked about funding delivery
modalities, and things like mental health. Were there any collaborative efforts on the part of
non-governmental agencies and coming together to try to address some of these issues? Along with your
organization?
John Vellardita 13:09
Yes, I think there was on the front end, in particular, have very good community effort of a number of
organizations, right, to assist as much as possible to find a niche of assistance, primarily with the school
district, because they're the employer of record, they're the education agency. And so, I think that
without that, we would have been in a probably a more compromised spot. But and, so I think that that
was helpful, it's hard to measure how successful that help was. Because I think we're still dealing with
the aftermath of that whole experience. So...
Magdalena Martinez 13:56
Can you give me an example of one particular initiative or nongovernmental agencies that came together
with your group with your organization to address some of these challenges?
John Vellardita 14:09
Well, I'll go back to I think, the most important initiative that was started and was successful,
unfortunately, over a longer period of time than what we wanted, was to get access to the internet and
devices in the hands of well over 100,000 students. And that was monumental, that effort. I mean, that's
not just a resource issue, right? That's an issue of trying to identify and locate the need of the student, the
family, etc. And then putting together an implementation plan, that if you did have these devices, if you
have the resources, it's then about execution. No small tax, (inaudible) task. Clark County is a,
geographically a very large County. So, I think that that is probably the one that made the greatest
impact because it recognized a huge deficiency. And we could not continue this remote model without
addressing it. But the school district alone could not do it, if not for that community effort. Now, we
didn't lead on that, it was led by others, but the umbrella of other organizations and stakeholders that
participated in that was pretty impressive.
Magdalena Martinez 15:37
And so now you're referring, for instance, to Cox communication, private philanthropists, giving
resources to secure equipment and things like this. Yeah. Government funding, federal funding.
John Vellardita 15:53
I think on the front end, I don't know how much federal funding spearheaded it. But yeah, it did come.
Cox was a principal player, the Public Ed Foundation helped lead kind of like coordinate a lot of that
stuff. And then there were others, of course.
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Magdalena Martinez 16:06
Okay, now thinking about the different levels of government. And from your perspective, what do you
wish would have been done? Or could be done differently during the initial onset of the COVID
recession?
John Vellardita 16:21
To ensure the education of students or, how do you give me some context on that?
Magdalena Martinez 16:26
Right, right, to minimize some of these challenges that you have described in terms of the three buckets?
What could the different levels of government have done differently?
John Vellardita 16:39
Yeah, it's easy in retrospect, to make a comment, but for an experience that was unprecedented not just
in this state, or in Southern Nevada, but worldwide. Right? It's, it's easy to maybe make a comment that
they could have been quicker than money could have been there, plans could have been made, , the up
and down changes on some of that stuff didn't need to take place. But I'm not going to go there. Because
if there was anything that could have been done better, it may have been a much more coordinated effort
at the state level, okay, with local government, private and public sector partnerships, to help triage,
going to remote model learning. I mean, I think we saw primarily that approach when it came to public
safety, right? Around having decrees from the state, mitigation strategies, protective equipment, access
the masks, and then later vaccines, all that and that was done. But that wasn't done for education, in a
very coordinated way, with some government agency on point, it was deferred to the local education
agency. And if I was to do it all over, and if I had that authority, I would not just simply have it at the
local education agency, I'd have a coordinated, similar to the public safety approach, coordinated at the
state level.
Magdalena Martinez 18:24
Okay, that's really helpful in thinking about what a lesson, a takeaway, right, from that experience, and
what we could do differently in the future. If you can just give me a second so that the connection can
buffer back to me. So I think I'm missing some of your audio.
John Vellardita 18:53
Okay...
Magdalena Martinez 18:54
there we go. We got it back now. Yeah, sorry about that.
John Vellardita 18:57
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I just wanted to add, what we saw was there 17 school districts. And Clark stands out not just by size,
but the urban nature of its school district. Closest, comparable is Washoe School District- the rest are
more rural. But there was not much of a coordinated effort at the state to ensure a more smooth delivery
of covid related measures statewide to all 17 school districts. Each one of these local education agencies
had a similar approach to COVID. But then a number had a slightly deviated approach to COVID based
on whatever drove that policy decision at the local agency, oftentimes it was politics. And sometimes it
was logistics.
Magdalena Martinez 19:45
Okay.
John Vellardita 19:46
What we saw was different standards, if that makes sense.
Magdalena Martinez 19:51
Can you give me an example of that?
John Vellardita 19:52
Do you wear masks or you don't wear masks?
Magdalena Martinez 19:55
Okay.
John Vellardita 19:56
Do you have contact tracing in the schools, on these buses? Or you don't. Right? When the vaccines got
rolled out, was there an approach that said, okay, are the vaccines a mandate or not a mandate? And if
they're not a mandate how is it implemented, where there's consistency statewide? And also, in all 17
school districts in Nevada were the same measures taken? Not necessarily.
Magdalena Martinez 20:27
Do you think district size matters in that regard?
John Vellardita 20:34
District size? Yes, I just, there's no way you can ignore that.
Magdalena Martinez 20:40
Right? It's just more difficult to coordinate a district that's over 200,000 region that has over 2 million
people versus 2000. Yeah, clearly. Or half a million Washoe being the second largest, right. In terms of
the various funding sources that flowed down to states, which do you think were most helpful? And
what were some of the lessons learned from that regard? I know that some of the resources are still
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flowing, but initially and up until now, how are those federal funding, state funding helpful? And what
are some of the takeaways from your perspective? You can't hear me. Okay, let's give it a second to
buffer you. Let me know. Oh, there you go. Okay. Okay. So, I had asked in terms of the federal and state
funding resources, primarily federal, how were those resources helpful? And in looking back, how might
those resources help differently? , what are some of the, what are some of the takeaways in terms of how
it was helpful? What are some of the takeaways in terms of lessons learned from those different buckets
of resources?
John Vellardita 22:01
Clearly, they were helpful, there's no doubt about it. Clearly, they were helpful. The question then was,
were they best used? Right?
Magdalena Martinez 22:10
Okay.
John Vellardita 22:11
So, I think this is where politics may have trumped policy. So let me explain. And I want to be careful,
because I don't want people to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. I think it's very important to get
community--
Magdalena Martinez 22:18
Okay, community input, I think, is what you were about to say, if you could just hold on, John till you
come back. My internet is buffering, if you could just keep talking till I hear you. Let's see here. Okay. I
think I know your back. Sorry. Can you say something?
John Vellardita 22:46
Now, I can hear you.
Magdalena Martinez 22:47
Yes. Great. Thank you. Okay. So, you said I think it's important in terms of community.
John Vellardita 22:52
Yeah, what I'm trying to explain is politics over policy. And what I don't want people to walk away is a
misunderstanding about what I'm trying to say. I think it's important to get input from the community,
especially when there's been this massive effort to bring resources from the federal government in this
case down to the state and from the state to the local during a pandemic that we experienced, I think it's
very important to get input from the public as to how and what they think they need these resources to
go to. So, I think that's absolutely critical. However, it shouldn't be at the expense of having sound
policy decisions made in terms of where those resources could be best used, even if those sound policy
decisions don't square with some of the public input that you got. So, the example I would give, the
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greatest missed opportunity, I think with these federal dollars, is the lost instructional time. There was
never a strategic discussion on how we can try to recover lost education and equally important accelerate
education by understanding how we can improve or increase the instructional time once the schools
reopened. This was even more of a missed opportunity once we had these resources available to address
this issue. And I want to give you an example if I may? So, we, one of the three buckets we're
responsible for is politics, legislation. In the 2021 legislative session we were instrumental in moving
new additional revenue into K through 12. That was a mining tax that was passed. We also, in that
legislation, argued for a specific, very prescriptive use of federal dollars that the state was getting that
could be used to address lost instruction. That would require a very prescriptive use on the part of the
locals, if they wanted to access some of those state dollars. More specifically, in the AB 495 legislation
that got passed on the mining tax, we had written in there that the state would make available to local
education agencies, up to $200 million of these fed dollars, if they use them for instruction. There was
more specificity to that, but in general, it was geared towards instruction. If the local school district used
those additional federal dollars then for every dollar the district put into that, they would get a $1 match
from the state. Okay, so if Clark, for example, wanted to invest $100 million of its money that it was
getting directly from the feds, they could draw down another $100 from the state, which would then
have 200 million now- but it had to be used for instruction purposes.
Magdalena Martinez 26:53
I'm here, yes, each state would have up to $200 million.
John Vellardita 26:58
Okay...
Magdalena Martinez 26:59
So, is it a one-to-one match?
John Vellardita 27:00
One-to-one match and the example I was going to use, so, if Clark was going to invest $200 million in
instructional purposes, they can access up to 200 million of state dollars, that's $400 million. Okay, that
money is still sitting there, hasn't been used.
Magdalena Martinez 27:21
Why do you think?
John Vellardita 27:23
So, the context, though, behind it was, and this is where there was some really good policy discussion
that we led on, to get this in legislation is programs like Read By Three were eliminated, right? And I
say Read By Three, because that was clearly instruction related legislation At the formative years of a
child's a student's education that program made a significant difference in a student’s education. So, the
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idea was, if we can get the school district to use their federal dollars for this, we'll give them $1 on dollar
match, right. And the idea was to improve instruction. So, we were arguing, for example, the
instructional time in Clark County is six hours and 11 minutes. And we said, well, what would it cost? If
we were to increase it to 49 minutes? And we weren't arbitrary about the 49 minutes- there's been
studies that have shown that X amount of time of instruction, particularly in the formative years, and in
the elementary schools, will have a return on a student's education. So, we said, well, what would it
cost? And don't quote me exactly, but I think it was on an annual basis like $140 million more for the
district. The resources are there for this. Half of it could be at the local level, and half of it could be
drawn down from the state. But it didn't happen. So that was to me, and I'm going to come back to your
question of why it didn't happen. My point is that the State and school districts had the resources to
address loss instruction as a result of the pandemic. I think the money could have been used better. And
in the argument I'm making with you now, targeting the lost instruction- how do we tackle that issue?
Can we tackle that issue? And, and so, to your question, now, why didn't it happen? I think anything that
deals with legislation. It's about political will. It's about leadership. It's about leadership, in this case, at
the local level, the governing body of the school district, and leadership at the state level, saying we
have this money, let's invest it in these children's education. And so as we speak today, that money still
sits there, at the state level. As we speak today, we're going to end this school year. And there was no
effort to improve the instructional time, particularly in the primary schools for these kids. And so to me,
I think it's a lost opportunity. And it doesn't mean we can't revisit it next school year, we can, but we're
running out of time, because these fed dollars have to be used up by a certain time, and I think we have
maybe a year plus left.
Magdalena Martinez 30:37
Now, it occurs to me that there hasn't really been a public dialogue around that either in terms of tapping
into those resources, or am I mistaken? Has there, has there been for instance, advocacy on the side of
community members, right? Like school districts tap into this, this resource, we want our children to
have more instruction time.
John Vellardita 31:07
Yeah, on that issue, yes, you are correct. Now, that doesn't mean there hasn't been an outcry, or a public
comment by the public or the community or stakeholders about, hey, let's use these federal dollars.
They're sitting there, how are we using them? Or why aren't we using them? I think that's there around
other issues. Right.
Magdalena Martinez 31:28
Okay.
John Vellardita 31:28
I'm talking, you asked me, do I think the question was how these funds were used, if there was any kind
of missed opportunity, and I'm giving you my opinion, I represent front line educators, they're at the hub
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of delivery, I can tell you firsthand, the amount of time lost on instruction, based on what these
educators went through, they will tell you firsthand. And once you lose it, you don't get it back, if you're
a student, unless you have the opportunity to make a plan to try to do some kind of remediation,
recovery, etc. And in this case, it wasn't an issue of resources, where in the past, it always was. So that's
where the missed opportunity, in my opinion.
Magdalena Martinez 32:21
Very helpful. Now, in terms of the organization that you represent, in looking back, what are you most
proud of that, that your organization led in during the onset of the pandemic, and even now,
John Vellardita 32:41
Keeping the schools open, reopening the schools, trying to make the hybrid model of remote and maybe
in the classroom work? Trying to advocate in the middle of all of this, more money invested in a new
funding plan for the state's K through 12 system, particularly at a time when there was lots of Fed
dollars. And people were saying, well, why do we need to have more new revenue when we got these
dollars? I think it was a combination of all those things, we did not take a backseat, I can just tell you we
were proactive, and in some cases lead on some of the stuff. I mean, if you look at the experience in this
big urban locals, this school district, fifth largest school district in the country, and you compare it with
the challenges in New York City, number one, challenges in LA Unified number two, Chicago, number
three, and then look at the two Florida models there were differences. You did not have the same up and
down (shut down, re-open, shut down, etc.) here in Clark, as you had in some of those big urban
schools. We were big advocates of how can we maintain education right now, that didn't mean at the
expense of safety. I don't want you to walk away thinking that we are cavalier about it. There's a fine
line, a balance, if you will, that we had to play in terms of representing the public safety component in
these confined spaces i.e. these classrooms, these buses, these campuses, but at the same time, we were
faced with the challenge of how are these kids going to continue their education?
Magdalena Martinez 34:23
Right. Very helpful. See here, anything else that you can think of that you think would be helpful for us
to know from your perspective, in terms of how your organization is leading the way around COVID
related type of issues and the economic recession? Right. Teachers are?
John Vellardita 34:47
Yeah, let me let me say this. I think this has given us a tremendous opportunity to make an argument to
look at the needs of the education delivery system in a different context. And what do I mean by that?
So, beyond the pandemic, having the public safety component to it and the shutdown of the economy
brought back memories in Nevada. It exposed once again, what Nevada experienced in 2008. And that's
an economy dependent on a very narrow industry base, two industries in particular. And so, in my
experience, in my 11 years here, in advocating for additional funding in K through 12, one of the
arguments I always get is, well, how do we know that money is being used right? Are they're getting
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enough now? Or what's the return on that investment? What this pandemic and the shutdown of this
economy and the fact that we're so dependent on these two industries has done once again, has
essentially presented to the public: do we really need to keep going through this? Do we need to be
dependent on this? Can we diversify our economy? The answer is obvious: we need to diversify our
economy. The same conversation occurred in 2008, when the economic crash occurred in the state.
Going back to my point, this has given us an opportunity to put the dialogue of educational needs in a
different context, we're making an argument that the educational delivery system is an integral part of
the economy in two ways, not only does it produce the workforce, for the economy, but it also is a huge
daycare delivery system for the workforce of the economy. Our argument today is, if you if you want to
diversify the economy, attract different businesses, you have to have a different workforce then you
currently have. So how do you improve that workforce? Well, beyond taking note of what the needs of
tomorrow will be, for the economy, you have to improve the K through 12 education delivery system.
You have to look at it differently than what you have now. And going back to the role of state
government agencies being bifurcated i.e. all of these are in silos and not integrated or modernized for
today’s economy. And this takes a much more strategic approach of how do you integrate the delivery
system of education, with workforce needs, and align that with tomorrow's economy? If that makes
sense, it gives us the opportunity to put educational needs in a different context.
Magdalena Martinez 37:52
Can you think of an example of a region or state that is doing that? Well, that we could look to and say,
perhaps Nevada could learn something from x?
John Vellardita 38:04
Ask me that question in two months, because we've actually contracted with Columbia University and
UNR to do an asset map analysis of the workforce for the state, as well as look at some comparables
elsewhere, where they did exactly what I'm talking about. And there's been some results. But at this
point, I'm a little gun shy on saying it, because what I don't want is to highlight, for example what
happened in Northern Nevada, after the 2008 crash. This time they weathered the pandemic better than
here in Southern Nevada because they have had some diversification. They've had other industries. But
that was more driven by state government. And it was basically tax abatement giveaways to make it a
more business friendly environment to attract new industries. And there was no strategic approach to it
short of business coming in and saying “you got lithium here; I want to mine that.” And that's how you
add the Tesla deal, for example.
Magdalena Martinez 39:13
Now this Columbia UNR study, I think that's been in the works for a bit. Are they finalizing their
recommendations?
John Vellardita 39:21
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There's three phases, I was just on a call with them the other day. I think the first phase is to do an asset
map of the workforce and a gap analysis within that workforce. There will also be work related to
aligning the K-20 education delivery system to workforce needs. Then there is a final phase outlining a
strategic approach to diversify the economy. The project should be done by, I think, its November, we
want to be able to have it well in advance of the next Legislative Session. I know that's not the kind of
answer you're looking for. But I don't know the specifics as to what's coming out on phase one just yet.
Magdalena Martinez 39:56
And this is a study that was commissioned by your organization as a collective of organizations.
John Vellardita 40:02
It was commissioned primarily by us. But we, before we launched it, we had, I think, some fairly
extensive discussions with key stakeholders, starting with the business community, and then
stakeholders in the education community. So, people have been extremely, or I should say, people in
organizations have been extremely helpful. Have we, had they interviewed you?
Magdalena Martinez 40:26
No. Mhmmm.
John Vellardita 40:29
Do you mind if I put you on that list?
Magdalena Martinez 40:31
No, not at all. Oh, John, one final question. Are there any policy position papers that perhaps are
publicly available from your organization that could help us get a greater perspective in terms of specific
policies related to delivery? Teaching and meeting the educational needs of students? Anything at all
that could just kind of help inform further the conversation that we've been having today?
John Vellardita 41:08
Yeah, the last couple of years, we've been really focused on this, the economy and workforce. For
example, we had another report commissioned by the Anderson group, out of Chicago, right in the
middle of the pandemic, going into the 2021 Legislative Session that did an analysis of industry clusters
that had growth opportunities to diversify the economy. What, and I can send you this if you'd like, what
kind of emergent industry clusters should we target? And what would be their workforce needs? Right?
That was a pretty extensive piece. We introduced that to all legislators, we use that as part of our
discussion moving forward. That's why this work that's been done by Colombia and UNR is kind of like
part two to that. I can send you that. I mean, prior to that we did, we've done research on class size
reduction.
Magdalena Martinez 42:12
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That'd be great. That Anderson group report, that'd be really helpful. Sure. All right. Well, I'm going to
stop recording. Thank you so much, John, but I did want to kind of touch base with you on a couple of
other issues. So, we'll just stop recording right now. Really appreciate your time.
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