Congressional candidate and state Sen. Carrie Buck violated federal tax regulations when she campaigned at a Henderson charter school in August with Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, says a parent who alleges the school was used for partisan political activity, a violation of its nonprofit status.

Pinecrest Academy Sloan Canyon, the school Buck and Johnson visited, like all charter schools in the state, is designated a 501(c)(3) nonprofit under the tax code. As such, it is “absolutely prohibited” from engaging in political activity, according to the IRS. The prohibition is also stated in the school’s by-laws. 

“While I question the very legality of this event, I also question Pinecrest’s judgment in having a blatant partisan visit at an elementary/high school, within the very classrooms of our students, without any choice for students or parents to participate,” Adelei Kaplan wrote in a complaint filed with the State Public Charter School Authority. 

Buck, a Republican who is challenging Democrat Rep. Dina Titus in Nevada’s Congressional District 1, previously served as principal and executive director of the school. 

Her campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment. 

While at the school, Johnson spoke of why he supports low taxes and small government, and hailed President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which he said cut taxes, according to media reports. He exalted Buck and her “extraordinary track record” as a principal and education reformer. 

“That sounds like campaigning to me,” Kaplan wrote in her complaint to the state.  

Pinecrest officials maintain Buck and Johnson, who were accompanied by a camera crew from the National Republican Congressional Committee, were not campaigning. 

“I don’t believe our student’s (sic) are ideal audiences for campaigns seeing the majority are not of voting age,” Coby Sherlock, who serves as Pinecrest’s treasurer, said via email. 

According to news reports, however, Buck and Johnson visited with high school seniors who will soon be old enough to vote, if they are not already. 

“The fact that the photo was taken by the NRCC (the political arm of House Republicans) is evidence that this was a political event,” Kaplan wrote to the Charter School Authority. She noted she had spoken to “fellow Pinecrest parents. Sadly, most of them are too afraid to formally speak up in the current political environment…”  

Kaplan, whose children attend Pinecrest’s adjacent sister campus, asked the agency to investigate. In a response this week, the state asked Kaplan if she had reached out to the school’s board of directors. She subsequently filed another complaint with that board. 

“The parents should have the right to expect that if they’re sending their child to school or church, you shouldn’t have somebody telling you how to vote,:” attorney Bradley Schrager, who specializes in nonprofit law, told the Current. “It’s Trump’s IRS. In this country right now, nobody’s going to do a damn thing about it. They should, but they won’t.” 

Titus, in a statement to the Current, alleged that “Buck, like Donald Trump,  believes she is above the law. She exploited schoolchildren for political gain. She owes Pinecrest parents and their children an apology and should be held accountable if she broke federal law.”

Charter schools are publicly funded but are not subject to local school district regulations, which in Clark County, prohibit campaigning, except for organized events in which all candidates are represented. 

Sherlock, Pinecrest’s treasurer, says parents of affected students were notified and given the opportunity to opt out. 

However, a student who posted a video on social media noting “most Sloan Canyon Students aren’t MAGA,” told the Current that parents were not notified until after the event. 

After visiting classrooms, Buck and Johnson “held a media availability focused on Trump’s new Education Freedom Tax Credit and Buck’s three-decade career in Nevada education,” the Nevada Globe reported.

The school “regularly welcomes elected officials from both parties to campus because we want our students to see firsthand how our government works, not just read about it in a textbook,” Sherlock told the Current.

He declined to provide the names of other elected officials who have visited the campus. 

Note: This story was updated with comment from Titus.