-The Clark County School District has an ambitious plan for the next five years, but how realistic is it, given the obstacles the district faces?

CCSD Superintendent Jhone Ebert joins us in studio to answer that question and more this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hearnstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

On August 10th, the new school year gets underway in the Clark County School District.

With more than 280,000 students, CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the country.

And while it's long struggled academically, researchers recently identified CCSD as one of just seven school districts nationwide that's on the rise in math.

Now District leaders look to build on that momentum, using a new five-year strategic plan to guide them.

And here to explain what's in that plan and how it will be implemented when school starts is Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert.

Superintendent, welcome back to Nevada Week.

-Thank you for having me, Amber.

I'm so excited to be here today.

-That momentum that I mentioned--it has many successes within it, including an improved graduation rate, record staffing levels just to name a couple.

Within the year and a few months that you have been on the job, what are one or two things you can point to and say, I did that, and it has had significant impact?

(Jhone Ebert) I'm really excited.

Oh, my gosh, the list is long.

-Good.

-Truly.

But the strategic plan itself, as you just mentioned, also to the efficiency study.

The team worked very hard with board approval.

We were able to hire a group to come in and look at the funding that we do receive.

Are we using it efficiently, effectively, and driving the resources to the classroom?

They found a few things where we can actually do better, and so--and there are projects where there's $10 million or more--and so we are going to implement those.

So within the next five years, we expect that we'll have a cost savings of $70 million.

And those dollars then can be driven right to the classroom to improve student achievement.

So the efficiency study: We're doing our Building Brighter Futures.

We started back our Bright Futures walks, so actually door knocking all of our areas where we have high chronic absenteeism rate.

You know, I got my tennis shoes on and went out and talked to families about, We need your child.

Your child can learn at school.

They are at home with you.

What do you need to make sure that your child gets to school every day?

-Oh, my gosh.

I can't imagine having the superintendent of the school district showing up at my door and my child is not at school.

And what did you hear from parents that stood out to you?

-There were so many different reasons, and a lot of them have to do with the family context--their older siblings taking care of younger siblings while the family went to work.

And there are resources that we can--city, right?

--within the city, within the county that we can support the family with.

Some, quite frankly because of the pandemic, haven't gotten the mindset yet that, you know-- because in the pandemic, they were at home, and-- They were at home.

I'll just pause right there.

Not necessarily doing the best learning at home.

But I think that mindset is still with some families that, I can learn from home; I don't need to be in the classroom.

And we really want all of the children to be in our classroom.

Those are just a few things that I would mention.

-I wonder if they believe that because so many assignments are online and you can track progress of what's been completed, for example, as a parent?

I don't know.

-Yeah.

You know, so I started distance learning here in the Clark County School District.

So-- Excuse me, the online part.

Distance learning in the Clark County School District has been here for 60, 70 years almost.

But having it be online, I 100% believe in it; however, it is not for every single child.

And so we need to match the learning modality of every child and make sure that we're meeting them where they're at.

And quite frankly for some children, being online is phenomenal.

They can learn.

They know how to interact with others.

And other children, it is not the place where we want them to do their learning.

-I mentioned obstacles at the top of the show, and you've already talked about a couple of them.

But these are obstacles that the school district has acknowledged in its own report, that five-year strategic plan: Low school funding in Nevada, chronic absenteeism, one of the shortest instructional days in the nation, declining enrollment, and systems that can be confusing and hard to navigate.

Of those, which poses the biggest threat to you accomplishing the numerous goals you've put forth in this strategic plan?

-What we can actually affect within the Clark County School District are the components of children choosing Clark County School District.

When I first came back home and I'd meet a family in the grocery store, Where do your kids go to school?

I always ask, Where do your kids go to school?

And they might not mention a CCSD school.

They might mention another school.

I'm like, Okay, great.

Being state superintendent, I know a lot of the schools in the state.

We have great schools.

And so I'd say, Okay, well, what is your zoned school?

-This was prior to you becoming superintendent of the school district?

-This is while I've been superintendent.

-Okay.

Because prior, you were overseeing the entire-- -Correct - --state?

-Yes.

Yes, for six years as state superintendent.

But being in this job for this last year, asking families where do your children go to school.

And then I'd follow up and say, Well, what's your zoned school?

And they wouldn't know.

And so that right there, like they have opted out of CCSD without even understanding they may have the best robotic school right there in their neighborhood.

But they did not investigate first; they opted out without investigation.

And so we're working very hard to make sure that families are aware of all of the amazing things that are transpiring within our school buildings.

And then choice.

Parents do have choice.

I agree with parent choice.

But an informed choice is even better for parents on, you know, what are your child's interests?

What is the school that's zoned for you?

And now we have open enrollments within the Clark County School District, so you don't even have to choose your zoned school.

If you see that there's a school across town that you would like to attend, you're able to do that if there are seats available.

So that's the caveat there.

I know people are-- But, yeah, we have quite-- We have five-- Fertitta Middle School is a five-star school.

There are seats available today as we're sitting here.

-How has the participation been so far in open enrollment?

-Oh, it's been phenomenal.

We have, this last year, over 17,000 families participating in open enrollment.

-Okay.

And then you are offering an incentive for kids who may not be able to afford their own transportation to another school?

-We're very excited.

We were awarded this last year a grant from the state.

So thank you to the legislature and the governor for signing the bill.

They provided-- Well, it was competitive grant, but we were awarded $6.6 million to be able to provide funding for parents that have been transporting their children from a one- or two-star school to a three-, four-, or five-star school.

The caveat there is that they cannot be chronically absent.

So after the semester is over, we'll make sure that they're not chronically absent.

And then the first $500 will be disbursed.

And then throughout the school year, the end of the school year, they'll have another $500.

So $1,000 for gasoline.

I don't know about you.

I filled my car up yesterday.

It was $5 a gallon.

So I think this will be very helpful for those families that would like to make that choice.

-What happens to these one- and two-star schools that children are leaving for three-, four-, and five-star schools?

-Yes.

I'm so glad you asked that question.

Because there is a stigma with someone saying, Well, you're a one-star school.

If you have been in some of our one-star schools and our two-star schools, absolutely, we want them to be a five-star school.

And we want every child within a five-star school to be a five-star student, right?

100%.

And so there are some of our schools that we have a lot of-- we have thousands of newcomers, right, that English is not their first language.

So they're being assigned these metrics through assessments that they have not yet learned.

Not that they won't, but they have not yet learned or mastered the English language.

They're still working on their mathematical skills.

So those, all of those components, what I say to parents, there is Tate Elementary School is an example that I love to use.

There are so many resources there.

Parents cannot get their children into pre-K because they know how wonderful that pre-K program is at Tate.

But it is something that we want, and we're working strategically with our one- and two-star schools to make sure they become three-, four-, and five-star schools.

-How big of a role do the English language learners play in the literacy rates that we see reported each year?

-Yes.

So our English language learners, one of the things that came out in our efficiency study was making sure that we have a updated master plan with our English language learners and that we work to integrate and not isolate our learners; that they are learning alongside their classmates who have full control of the English language.

Children love learning from other children.

So in that area working with our kids, making sure that they have the resources to take the assessments they take.

We love acronyms in education, but they take the WIDA assessment.

But they actually gain in their speaking skills, the written language, and that they can exit out with English language learners, because it does take time, right?

You're learning two languages at once, and English is not your native language.

But the students that actually participate in our ELL programs, when they exit, they exit and attain a higher graduation rate than our non-English language learners because they've had different struggles and achieved.

So it's an exciting area to work on.

We have a wonderful, amazing assistant superintendent Erick Casallas, who oversees our English language learners.

-We had him on the show, yeah.

-There you go.

-Okay.

So for K-3 literacy, your goal by 2031 is to increase that by 60%.

Right now, it's 34.5%.

How would you characterize that increase?

That sounds huge to me.

-It is.

It is.

We actually had business partners come in and look at our plan, and they're like, Okay, if any business in Southern Nevada said they were going to increase by 60% within five years, yea!

-Yeah.

-And the the component there is that it's, it is doable.

All of it.

They are ambitious goals, but they all are so attainable.

-And what makes you think that for this one in particular?

-I'm going to go back to the efficiency study.

Our teachers are working extremely hard.

We purchase as a district Tier 1 instructional materials, right?

So everyone has the materials.

They didn't prior to, I think, four years ago.

So they've had those materials.

We've seen gains.

Research shows if you have high-quality instructional materials and you use them properly, students thrive.

Because they're aligned to the test, right?

They're all aligned.

So with that, our educators have been using the Tier 1 instructional materials.

Great!

Our educators now need to make sure that they're letting the students carry the cognitive load, carry the learning.

In some of our classrooms, we have more of an environment where the teacher is the one that's doing all the work, and the children are sitting there listening and not struggling with the material.

We want our children to be engaged with the material, to struggle it, to develop that cognitive load, and be able to articulate with their-- with their-- You know, talk about fractions.

I love mathematics.

Turn to your neighbor.

Talk about fractions.

What do you see?

Is one-half the same as three-sixths?

There are different numbers there, but they are equivalent.

So you know, talk to your neighbor.

Let's do that.

Our teachers, again, are carrying that load right now.

And so we want to shift from the teachers working very hard to let's let our students work a little harder.

So those are things that they don't-- there's not a cost to it, right?

We don't have to buy additional materials.

We have to think differently as adults of what is transpiring in our classrooms and how our children are working towards success.

-And you don't have to fund any additional training for teachers to implement that model?

-There is some professional development, yes.

But I think a lot of teachers when they see that and have that conversation with their administrators, because we just talked with our administrators over the summer of this research that we had.

This is a third party coming in, right?

This isn't, Oh, this is what we-- I walked classrooms and I saw this, this last year.

What's nice is we had an outside company come in and also see it.

And so, you know, it's validated that we need to move in this new direction.

And I think our teachers will be happy and think about their classrooms a little bit differently to support our students.

-I think what you are describing may be an example of part of the plan that is shifting from traditional instruction to future-ready learning.

"100% of schools implement a future-ready learning model that embraces students, demonstrating what they know and can do."

I couldn't quite wrap my head around that.

Is that what you're referencing?

-When you think about society right now and how AI is changing and just the shift of how quickly things are changing globally--not just locally, but globally--we need to make sure that our students are prepared, that they're resilient, that they are literate.

All of our children, 100% literacy.

They can read, write, interpret all of those components, analyze.

But, too, that they also have a love of learning, because they are going to need to continue to adapt to the changing world much quicker than you and I. And we want to make sure that our students have those skill sets, have a durable set of skills, communicate.

They also have empathy.

Right now, we don't issue a mark specifically for communication skills.

On a high school student's graduation, it says English I, English II, English AP, English Literature.

It has those pieces, but it doesn't specifically call out empathy.

It doesn't specifically call out communication skills.

Those pieces are where we would like to go to make sure our students have those skills when they leave our classrooms, when they leave our school district.

And so those are just-- I encourage everybody to-- You can just, get on the computer, Nevada Portrait of a Learner and see all of those durable skills that we're talking about.

It starts with questions.

How will I thrive?

That's a question that all of us should be thinking about every day.

How will I thrive in my role as superintendent?

How does a teacher thrive?

How do, how do our second graders thrive?

If they own their learning and understand what they need to do to be successful, as I was talking earlier, they're carrying the cognitive load.

They understand who they are, where they excel, and where they need help and how to advocate for themselves for help as well.

Those are all skills we want our children to have.

-Durable skills was another question that I had, and that was in relation to the part of the strategic plan that every graduate leaves with a marketable asset: a college credit, an industry certification, a military pathway, a durable skills portfolio, or another credential that has value in the workforce.

So if a durable skill is communication and empathy, how do you test for that?

Who determines whether someone has that, and do you get a certificate?

What does that look like?

-Right.

That's what we're hoping to develop in the Clark County School District.

There are school districts across the nation that are looking at that.

We're very fortunate that we received a $6 million grant to do exactly that, that work that you're talking about or that we're talking about with a marketable asset.

Some of the work we already do.

We have students that have AP credits, right?

In some universities, that allows them to skip taking a course at the university, which can be $1,500 - $2,000.

They've earned that in high school; they don't need to repeat it in college.

They're successful.

The dual credit courses that we have, we were highest-- second highest in the nation for dual credit course earning this last year.

So that's another thing I'm very proud of with our school district.

Not only valuing college, because those two things, directly in college, we have students that are graduating our high schools with HVAC certification.

They're partnering with our carpenters union here locally.

We have students that are working on the A's Stadium right now, hands-on skills, workforce, today while they're in our classrooms.

We have students that work in our IT department as well with us.

And so making sure that while our students are in high school, that they see themselves in their next step in life.

Maybe college, great.

Maybe it's directly into the workforce.

We just hired one of our apprenti, if you will, here in Clark County.

Was in the HVAC program.

He is now a full-time employee with us because of the certification that he received in high school.

So that is a marketable asset.

They have a certification that says, yes, they're ready to go in there.

A portfolio is another way to demonstrate their skills.

When you applied for this job, I'm sure you had a portfolio.

So making sure that our students have a portfolio.

And then military.

You want to see a great event, you need to go to Centennial High School.

I went out there at the end of the year.

Students received-- it was $6.8 million, I believe, in scholarships to go to various, you know, whether it was West Point or the school in Maryland, you know, other schools in Maryland.

Our students are receiving scholarships.

They see a path through the military.

Every single student.

We have today, students graduating that aren't sure.

And so having a marketable asset, 100%, that statement of me sitting here, we have-- They earn their diploma, but they're not sure what their next step is.

-So this gives them some sort of a pathway to pursue as they figure it out?

-Correct.

-Okay.

You have been talking about some of the competitive grants that the school district has received that allows you to implement these big programs.

I bring that up, though, because I believe that is how the Read by Three program is funded?

And correct me if I'm wrong, because-- So as we talked about off camera ahead of this, Read by Three has a long history here.

It started with Governor Sandoval, and then Governor Sisolak changed it and then Governor Lombardo put back in the requirement that by third grade you have to be able to read or else you're held back.

Is that a correct interpretation?

-Yes.

-But that doesn't go into effect until the 2028-2029 school year.

And as I understand it, the superintendents in Nevada may want to change that in this upcoming legislative session, claiming that the funding hasn't quite been there.

It's competitive grants that fund the literacy interventions that are part of Read by Three, but that it's not quite there in order to make that happen.

Where do you stand on Read by Three?

Do you support the retention aspect?

-Yeah.

So there-- You have a lot of things in that question.

-I rambled.

-It's okay.

But what I want to lift up to what you were talking about is: Do our students need to be able to read by grade three, right?

Yes, 100%.

Should 100% of the students be retained?

There's research going both ways on that.

It depends on the student.

We've been talking this whole show about individualized instruction.

So that ELL student that just came into the country at third grade may not be ready.

Do we really want to retain that student?

So we need to look at each individualized student.

So your final question, I believe, is: Do I support Read by Grade Three?

100%.

We're lucky today.

As you noted when Governor Sandoval started, it was a competitive grant.

It is not a competitive grant today.

They folded all that money in, in the new Pupil-Centered Funding Plan.

However, we all need to realize that Nevada still is almost $4,000 per child below the national average.

So I don't know anyone that is trying to get to average.

We're trying to get to average in funding for our children.

It's an investment.

It's an investment in our future.

And every single time the legislature has made an investment, because Governor Sandoval with Read by Grade Three, it was competitive, but it was an investment.

That is how we made gains.

We actually became-- Our first time as a state on the national assessments, we were right there in the middle with everyone else.

We weren't below, we weren't the top, but we were right there in the middle after that funding became available.

The funding from the '23 legislative session, we've seen; we increased graduation rate to 86.6%.

Five percentage point increase.

That is higher than Washoe County School District.

It is higher than the Charter School Authority.

-And perhaps I can summarize what I was trying to say better.

The Carson City School District superintendent, who is also president-elect of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents, told The Nevada Independent that Nevada doesn't have the funding to ensure the retention policy works as intended.

Do you agree or disagree with that?

-I would not state it the way that my colleague did.

I would state it as just-- I said earlier.

Funding for education in Nevada, if we want to invest in our children, we need to think differently.

If we want the scores, if we want lower class sizes, if we want more athletics, if we want more field trips, all of those things take funding.

And so Nevada educators-- And that's why I came back home.

Nevada educators, as I said earlier, work very hard.

They work very hard with the resources that they're provided.

Let's get more resources into the classroom and have accountability.

That's what people are like, Oh, you know, you're afraid of-- I'm not afraid of accountability.

Let's put all those numbers up every single day of the week.

And when you fund, I expect you to hold me accountable at increases.

And again, that's here as CCSD superintendent.

I was a state superintendent as well.

Every single time funding has been provided, we've improved outcomes for children in our state.

-Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert, we look forward to having you back on.

Thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you for having me.

-And thank you for watching.

To find back-to-school resources and more information about open enrollment, go to vegaspbs.org.

And we'll see you next week on Nevada Week.