Mercedes McKinley is an educator, mom, CCSD alumni and a community organizer. Her family arrived to Las Vegas in 1987 and have called it home ever since. She has lived the CCSD experience as a student who initially spoke no English and graduated from Eldorado High School in East Las Vegas in 1997. She moved to Illinois and completed her college education at SIUC. In 2017 she returned to her home state of Nevada and began working in higher and public education. . Mercedes taught environmental science at CSN Henderson and elementary education at CCSD schools from 2018-2021. In the last year, she worked as a community organizer for a national environmental non-profit: Mom's Clean Air Force. An organization that fights for clean air policy as it relates to children's health. She is the mother of a toddler who is going to be school-ready soon.
“I’m not running for Trustee as a career move, I’m running to fight for our students and families” Mercedes McKinley