The largest school district in Nevada is seeking legal action over teacher absences that have led to several school closures in the Las Vegas area since the new term began on September 1.

In response, District Judge Crystal Eller granted a preliminary injunction on September 13, preventing teachers from calling in sick and threatening the teachers’ union with fines of up to $50,000 each day and up to $1,000 each day for its union officers.

Clark County School District (CCSD) serves almost 300,000 students and employs over 15,000 teachers. However, there has been a rocky start to the new school year amid ongoing labor disputes.

Efforts to reach an agreement on contract terms between CCSD and the Clark County Education Association (CCEA), a union representing about 18,000 educators, have been underway since late March.

On September 12, CCSD released a statement saying that negotiations had reached a stalemate. Talks stalled after CCEA refused a 9% salary increase for teachers in their first year, which CCSD had offered in lieu of the 18% across-the-board bumps the union demanded.

“CCEA’s leadership team has rejected every offer,” the statement read, according to Fox 5 Vegas.

“CCEA’s latest proposal only deepened the deficit they would impose on the District and continues to divide our hard-working teachers. By increasing the financial burden it hopes to place on the District, CCEA continues moving farther away from any agreement,” the statement continued.

In response, CCEA claimed in a statement that its proposals were “in alignment with the priorities passed in the 2023 Legislative Session and the governor’s budget.”

It also noted there are over 2,000 teacher vacancies across the district and claimed that little had been done to remedy this.

While CCEA stated that it had not “encouraged, engaged in or coordinated any concerted sick-outs in the past and will not do so in the future,” staffing shortages caused by teachers calling in sick reportedly led to eight CCSD campus closures, with each lasting one day, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LARJ).

As Judge Eller noted in her ruling, Nevada law prohibits public school teachers from striking. She claimed the call-outs were “very clearly a strike.”

“The idea that this can be ignored, that these are sick call-outs, and that they are actually due to someone being sick is preposterous,” Eller said, according to AP News.

“Obviously, we want our students to have good teachers. We want our teachers and our office staff to be fully and completely compensated, to have the benefits that they deserve,” Eller added, urging both CCEA and CCSD to continue their negotiations.

To CCEA in particular she noted, “You guys are out on the front lines. … The way you address your concerns is at the bargaining table,” according to the LARJ.

After the hearing, John Vellardita, CCEA’s executive director, shared his plans to appeal against the judge’s order at the state Supreme Court level.

Public school districts across Texas have also struggled with teacher recruitment and retention, with some taking measures such as pay increases and four-day school weeks, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.