(Marc M. Friedland) – Clark County School District Trustee Brenda Zamora is asking District D voters for a second term.
The district she wants to keep leading is in real trouble.
CCSD entered this school year with more than 10,400 fewer students than the year before.
The district said that decline alone would cost it more than $100 million in state funding and force a $51.6 million fall budget cut.
Governor Lombardo has since signed an emergency order letting CCSD draw funding based on last session’s higher projected enrollment rather than this year’s actual, lower count.
That averted immediate layoffs.
It did not answer the harder question underneath it: why are families leaving, and what should a trustee do about it?
Zamora and her Republican challenger, David Gomez, answer that question very differently.
Zamora’s Philosophy
Zamora was elected in November 2022 and took office in January 2023.
In her 2022 Opportunity 180 candidate questionnaire, she described a trustee’s job as creating “policies to further children’s education, create safe working environments, and create community relationships.”
Asked what public education is for, she said it should “provide equitable education for all families in Southern Nevada no matter their background and their socioeconomic status.”
To her credit, her record isn’t reflexive.
In that same questionnaire, she criticized her own board for rehiring Superintendent Jesus Jara after firing him, saying the district was “not holding him accountable.”
That’s a real instance of independence worth noting.
The Vote That Matters
Zamora wasn’t on the board in 2018, when CCSD adopted Policy 5138, its gender-identity accommodations policy, on a 4-3 vote.
She wasn’t on the board in 2021, when the current language of Regulation 6150, governing instructional materials, was first adopted.
But on December 12, 2024, the board took up an amendment to Regulation 6150 — Reference 2.32, described on that night’s written agenda exactly as “Amendment of Clark County School District Regulation 6150, Instructional Materials.”
It passed as part of the consent agenda, 6-0.
Zamora was one of the six trustees who voted yes.
That’s confirmed by the district’s own minutes, roll call, and video.
Two Moms for Liberty-aligned trustees, Lydia Dominguez and Lorena Biassotti, had already been elected that November but weren’t sworn in until January 6, 2025 — three weeks after this vote.
Yadusha Jones, chair of the Clark County Moms for Liberty chapter, told The Nevada Independent the timing amounted to “a way to silence the new trustees and push out a last hooray.”
Now Facing Declining Enrollment
Zamora acknowledges families are leaving for charter schools and homeschooling.
Nevada Current reports her proposed responses include more bilingual educators, greater special-education funding, expanded pre-K, stronger school safety, open enrollment, and potentially school consolidation or K-8 models.
She also points to increased trustee community engagement and school visits during her first term.
Those proposals share something in common.
Each asks how CCSD can better support, fund, or restructure the system it already has.
Gomez’s Different Starting Point
Gomez doesn’t present himself as an opponent of public education.
“I do believe in public schools,” he says in a campaign video. “I do believe that we can do better.”
But he’s just as direct about what “better” requires.
According to his Opportunity 180 questionnaire, reported by The Nevada Independent, Gomez says CCSD should align staffing, facilities and programs with actual student needs, invest in what works, and “phase out what doesn’t.”
That philosophy shows up in his public record, too.
In April 2025, as CCSD considered pausing new school construction because of rising costs, Gomez — then serving on the district’s Facilities Master Plan committee — argued against leaving older schools with overdue repairs behind while other projects moved forward.
He has emphasized Career and Technical Education, dual-credit programs, apprenticeships and industry certifications as paths for students the traditional college track doesn’t serve.
His own background includes 12 years as CCSD District D’s Zoning Commissioner, a current appointment as CCSD Bridge Commissioner, and service on the district’s Facilities Master Plan committee — all according to his campaign site.
District D itself covers downtown Las Vegas and the northeast valley.
Follow the Money
Zamora’s financial disclosure lists Tides Advocacy as her income source, consistently across four annual filings.
Make It Work Nevada is a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Advocacy, according to Make It Work Nevada’s own website.
Nevada legislative records identify Zamora as the organization’s deputy director.
We have found no vote tying that employment to any specific board action.
The public record shows that Zamora worked with Make It Work Nevada before joining the board and remains its deputy director while serving as a trustee.
As of June 30, 2026, the most recent reporting period on file, her campaign had raised $28,188.
Approximately 78 percent of that total — $22,000 — came from education-sector unions: the Education Support Employees Association, the Nevada State Education Association, the Nevada Association of School Administrators, and SMART Local 88.
Her single largest contribution, $2,000, came from Buckskin Mountain PAC — the political committee controlled by Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom.
Another $5,000 came from Way to Lead Nevada, the state affiliate of a national PAC built to fund “down-ballot progressive champions.”
Contributions of $100 or less accounted for less than 4 percent of the reported total.
The contribution records provide another piece of information for voters evaluating the network of organized interests supporting her campaign.
Two Questions, Not One
Neither candidate’s philosophy proves which approach works.
But they point CCSD in genuinely different directions.
Zamora’s answer to a shrinking district is to fund, staff and restructure the system already in place — while, on a documented vote concerning inherited instructional-materials policy, she voted to approve the amendment before the newly elected trustees took office.
Gomez’s answer is to ask which programs are working, keep those, and eliminate what isn’t.
District D voters don’t have to guess at either philosophy.
The record, in both candidates’ own words and Zamora’s own vote, already lays it out.
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