Las Vegas: Advocates push for more safety for teachers/students in SPED

Aug 26, 2026, NBC 3, Las Vegas: Advocates push for more staffing, safety measures in special education classrooms

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Special education classrooms face unique challenges every day, and there's a renewed push to provide better safety for students and employees.

These classrooms have some of the most vulnerable students and, in some cases, behavioral challenges.

There's now a call for more staff and more training, all while staying focused on learning.

"Nobody deserves to be spit on, peed on, bit, kicked, anything, hair pulled, anything like that," said Misty Olmos, Nevada State Education Association Special Education Committee chair.

Olmos is advocating for the safety of support professionals in special education classrooms, as well as the students they serve every day.

"You should not have to be afraid to go into your classroom because a student is in crisis," said Olmos.

The support professionals she is talking about are called Specialized Programs Teacher Assistants, also known as SPTAs.

During a meeting of the Nevada Department of Education Statewide School Safety Committee, Olmos argued that each special education classroom in the state should have at least two SPTAs in addition to the licensed teacher, as well as a floating SPTA for each school.

"Our our STAR program, which is the typically the emotionally disturbed students, they get two SPTAs to one teacher, which is still hard because when you have to do a crisis plan and you have to evacuate, you're you're taking every resource you have to get the other kids that are typical not typically calm already out the door to take care of the the students," said Olmos. . . .

Binder and Olmos also advocated for more training for the licensed teachers in these classrooms.

"If one child is in absolute crisis, then that aid is being taken out of of the classroom, and or you have to divert other staff on campus to help with it with that student, and maybe those people aren't necessarily trained, you know, to to help," said Binder.

"Our SPTAs are taking mandatory four trainings, which consist of data collection, the basic skills of how to be an SPTA, which could be like toileting, bloodborne pathogen, little things like that, and then also crisis prevention. So they're doing that. But what's not happening is it's not a required for the teachers," said Olmos. . . .

They say another challenge is pay for these positions.

The advocates are pushing for incentive pay to help fill these vital vacancies.

The Statewide School Safety Committee will now consider the recommendations from Olmos, Binder and their group and can put together a proposal to send to lawmakers ahead of the upcoming legislative session.

CCSD says it currently has 95 open licensed positions in special education and 85 open support professional positions in special education. . . .

As far as training for employees in special education classrooms, the district said in a statement, "Professional learning opportunities are provided to staff who work with students with disabilities throughout the school year. Special education support professionals are also required to complete a four-day professional learning series. Additionally, all CCSD employees take part in annual training related to District policies and state laws, including reminders that aversive interventions are prohibited by law."