Dr. Tara Raines chairs the board of a Las Vegas charter school that just separated from its New York management network, and she is rebuilding it around the rule she keeps for herself: noses in, fingers out.
In this episode of The Stronger Podcast, Mike Montoya sits down with Tara, board chair of DPAC Nevada and Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health, to talk about giving a school back to the community that built it.
The campus sits in the historic Westside, Las Vegas's historically Black neighborhood. It opened in 2001 as Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, and people still light up at the name. Tara met a parent who chose the school because a taxi driver told her it was the best place in Las Vegas for Black children. A New York charter management organization took over operations in 2017, and Tara is direct about what the distance cost. Today the elementary school is performing badly enough that the state has raised closure, which she calls criminal for the school serving the highest proportion of Black children in Nevada.
She and Mike get into why she wanted an executive director who has run an organization rather than a school, and why the principals carry the instructional work. Tara also walks through her research on how schools route children into the justice system, and the new bachelor's level profession she is helping states license so kids get support before they hit a diagnostic threshold.
Tune in to hear why a schoolyard fight that ended in a three day suspension in 1987 can end in an arrest today, and what Tara says that costs a childhood.
Chapters:
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01:44 Meet Dr. Tara Raines: special education teacher turned school psychologist
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05:50 The taxi driver who still recommends this school on the historic Westside
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07:17 Local governance went away when a New York network took over
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09:10 An independent school built around what families actually want
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12:27 Noses in, fingers out: what a board member is actually for
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13:33 A leader who runs organizations, not one who has run schools
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17:28 The board chair wants a peer, not someone taking directives
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23:53 The campus becomes co owned by the community again
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28:51 Campfires in a candle factory: what happens when police work in schools
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30:46 Going upstream so kids do not have to hit a diagnostic threshold
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35:28 Get the adults healthy before asking them to show up for kids
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40:28 Do not show up to glorify the problem, bring solutions
Links:
Reach out to Dr. Tara Raines to talk about board governance through a school separation, or about the bachelor's level behavioral health credential she is helping states stand up.
Stay strong.
Episode 41