On Friday morning, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was joined by the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority chief of police, airport leadership, and local advocates from The Children’s Cabinet, to discuss the airport's work to help trafficking victims.
Passed in May, the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization supports Nevada’s air infrastructure and strengthens safety standards.
Cortez Masto’s Reduce Human Trafficking through Transportation Act was included in the bill to provide grant funding to combat human trafficking at airports.
“We were able to work together with John Cornyn to put legislation into that authorization that actually focuses grant funding and dollars to our airports, to our transportation hubs so they can invest in that educational awareness material to work with our victims,” Cortez Masto said.
Nevada airports have already taken steps to assist trafficking victims, including the installation of a human trafficking hotline number on the door of bathroom stalls.
Later Friday, Cortez Masto met with teachers and students to discuss her legislative efforts to address the shortage of English Learner (ELL) teachers in Nevada and across the country.
She highlighted a bipartisan legislation she's pushing to fund job training programs to better prepare the next generation of EL educators.
The Reaching English Learners Act would create a competitive grant program to fund partnerships between institutions of higher education and school districts.
“To ensure that we have the teachers that we need that are English learning teachers that are certified with EL to come into the schools to teach our students to be proficient with English,” Cortez Masto said.
Mt. Rose K-8 is one of two dual immersion immersion schools in the area, principal Krissy Brown said.
“We feel like being bilingual is a 21st century scale and it just gives them more opportunities in the world and in society,” Brown said.
