Clark County School District students return to the classroom on Monday, August 9.

They're returning after a difficult year for them, parents and teachers.

So what lies ahead?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

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(Kipp Ortenburger) There is no question that last year was a difficult one for students, teachers and parents.

Now with the new school year starting, there are more difficulties ahead.

We'll talk with Superintendent Jesus Jara about the school year in a moment, but we start our discussion about the upcoming school year with April Corbin-Girnus, education reporter for the Nevada Current; Tami Hance-Lehr, chief executive officer for Communities In Schools, and Rebecca Garcia, president of the Nevada PTA.

Thank you so much for being here, we really appreciate it, and I think we need to start maybe by reflecting on where we've been over the last 18 months.

Remember that we had of course our closures and different iterations of virtual school, and then of course a slow hybrid and then a full hybrid last spring, and now here we are in the fall with almost-- almost I should say because we do still have distance learning-- but almost full enrollment back into regular school.

I want to start off with let's talk about some of the positives and talk a little about what you are encouraged or most excited about for the school year to start.

Rebecca, I'd love to start with you.

(Rebecca Garcia) I think for me it's seeing my own kids' excitement to be able to go back into classes with all their peers and really experience school again.

That seems to be what I'm hearing from parents across the valley is that people are happy to have that school community back, and I think that was what was missed.

Even though teachers did a tremendous job trying to make up for the difference, it's hard to replicate being in a class with your peers, going out on the playground, or if you're in high school, doing extracurricular activities.

So I think that's really-- there's a sense of excitement and there's a little hesitancy to see how it's going to go but there's definitely excitement to just feel like there's that return to community and in-person learning.

-And those aspects are so important to the school experience and so important of course to the entire learning experience.

-And really it's important I think for youth development.

There's a lot of things you learn when you're with your own peers.

There's a lot of social interaction that even-- you know, my kids had their siblings at home, but when they started going back to school, it was like a reminder of like you can't say that at school with your classmates, you know, you need to-- so I think some of those developmental milestones and we think about little kids, but I think they're just as important for middle and high school kids to be able to have that interaction and learn kind of how do we grow and develop and be more independent again.

So I think those are some of the things that I think we're all, as parents and kids, feel just a great excitement about.

-Yes.

Tami, let's get the perspective of community-based organizations, and of course Communities In Schools is in 57 schools with predominantly low-income populations.

Let's talk specifically about those schools, and again we might assume that Communities In Schools shut down a lot of your services with closures, but that's not the case.

-Not the case.

-Not the case at all.

So let's talk about maybe where you've been and also where you guys are going.

(Tami Hance-Lehr) Sure.

Well, you're right, we didn't close.

Communities In Schools, that was our role, right?

We put the community into the school, and we pivoted that and we took the school and really put that into the community.

So we continued services with home visits, with well checks, with delivering supplies to our families and our students, making thousands of phone calls to check in and make sure that everybody was okay and had the basics that we needed.

I think what we all learned was that people, our children specifically, get more out of the school building than just the reading and writing and the arithmetic, right?

Their basic needs are met and in many occasions, their social-emotional health is so needed, the mental health most importantly, and that's what we're most excited about.

We are so excited to have our kiddos walk in those school buildings with that anticipation.

If everyone remembers your first day of school with that anticipation, we have students that have never seen a school room, right, because they were in virtual learning.

So to be able to have them be in there and then visit our resource rooms in our 57 schools and, you know, maybe check out what's going on, see what other basic need that maybe they weren't able to get at home and be able to eliminate that barrier for them.

That is a huge just really great game changer for us to be able to pivot and go back into putting community into the schools.

-Community into the school building is so important, being able to go into buildings.

April, I need to go to you because on the reporting side, of course you've been also in lockdown and not had the connections maybe you would need to report.

How has that changed, and what are you really excited about and reporting on the new school year?

(April Corbin-Girnus) You know, the past year and a half has been so dramatic, and it's been putting out one fire after another, right?

Like when we pivoted to online, it was oh, all these kids don't have laptops and computers, and now we have to do that.

And it was just-- it was so responsive.

And finally I think to a certain extent, we're getting to a point where we can sort of be proactive about the education experience.

So now we're seeing CCSD start to do new reform policies, and they're starting to change things and get back to making education better rather than just trying to survive the pandemic, even though it's not over and there's still concerns.

For a large part of it they're moving forward, they're starting to build on education which is going to be exciting because as we all know, there's a lot that can be built on.

There's a lot that can be improved in our school system, and I'm glad to start seeing that move back to that.

And from a policy perspective, you know, Nevada is getting over a billion dollars' worth of federal relief to go to education, CCSD and the state.

They are in the process now of figuring out how to spend that money, so that'll be a really interesting thing because that unprecedented amount of money has a huge impact and has the potential to really change education.

So seeing what choices are made there and how we move forward is going to be really exciting, not just as a reporter but also for students and families, I think.

-Yes, absolutely.

And as you said, this isn't just a short-term solution; this is something where this money can be applied for a lot of long-term solutions and we'll talk about that more in a second.

Rebecca, I want to come to you.

Let's talk a little bit about the concerns now as schools reopen too and some of the things particularly from the parent perspective.

We need to remember that our COVID numbers are still increasing.

Learning loss is a big thing on a lot of people's minds right now.

What are parents telling you?

-You know, I think there's a general concern just about logistics.

Obviously, there's been a lot of discussion about going back to universal masks, but really parents are asking questions about how are things going to happen if a child does get sick?

What are the quarantine policies?

How are we going to if, for example, my child's entire class has to quarantine for a week?

How is that education going to move forward because like you said, I think there's a definite concern from families that are related to learning loss, and I know, again, I appreciate the immense work that was done by educators but the reality is that distance education didn't work for all kids.

So there are kids that did succeed well in that, but there are a lot of kids, including some of my own, that really struggled.

So I think parents are kind of in this struggle right now looking at the community numbers, not really-- there's very little information coming out from CCSD right now regarding any of those logistics.

The emails that we're getting is just reminders about masks, and parents are asking about sick rooms and that pivot back to distance learning if it has to happen, and right now CCSD is essentially silent on that.

So that's causing a lot of anxiety for families but at the same time, it's coupled with I know my child needs to be in school, or will distance learning work?

And obviously there's changes too happening with distance learning, so most distance learning in CCSD is going to be exclusively at Nevada Learning Academy.

So for parents it's a choice of if I don't feel like in school is going to be the safest option for my child, now it's not keeping them at that same school and choosing distance learning.

It's actually needing to unenroll them and move them to a different school, and that's always again a choice that raises a lot of questions for families.

So I think, you know, there's a challenge right now because I think families have a lot of questions, and unfortunately I don't feel like CCSD is giving very many answers to those questions right now and school starts Monday morning.

My son has to be there at 7 a.m., so time is ticking on those things.

-Time is of the essence, and I want to bring it back, Tami, to the community conversation and where Communities In Schools fits into something like this, and then where some of the schools that serve predominantly low-income families, low-income students, are you feeling the same?

Does it seem like there's a little bit of a communication gap, and where exactly does Communities In Schools fit into this?

-Listen, we link arms with our school district partners and try to work with them as much as possible to be able to, you know, figure out whatever barrier it is and how can we jump in and help, right?

So when schools closed down, Communities In Schools was one of the first ones at the table that raised our hand and said we will help connect every student to a laptop and every student to internet, and we did that.

As we continue now into this new normal that we live in, we definitely are working with our district to make sure that we can open safely, but we all know when our students are, you know, hungry or when they've experienced trauma at home or when they don't have the basic needs, they can't function in school.

So for us to be able to continue to open our resource room safely and continue to eliminate those barriers, that's the work we continue to do with the school district and are really proud to do that.

So you mentioned we're in 57 schools, and 57 schools means that I have at least 57 site coordinators that are in that school building every single day.

They'll be working very closely with their administrators, their teachers and their counselors to follow whatever protocols we need to follow, but to make sure that our kiddos walk in and have what they need to succeed on day one, and we'll continue to do that.

-Between closures, hybrid learning and COVID mitigation mandates, students, parents and teachers have struggled.

Well, joining us to talk about the return to school is Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara.

Superintendent Jara, thank you so much for being here especially in a very busy schedule, and I'm sure this week more so than usual.

-Yes.

No, I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for having me.

-Absolutely.

This week is so exciting and very nervous for parents, for new teachers, for administrators I would assume, and of course for students.

I don't know if you get this question, but what are your feelings as superintendent?

(Dr. Jesus Jara) Well, it's been a great week.

Excited, nervous, anxious, but more so relaxed I think than last year.

You know, last year, I still remember that last weekend as we were getting ready.

I said, how are we going to open up schools virtually, right?

So this year, you know, I know going through distance education, there was a lot of challenges and, you know, we didn't get a lot of things right but we tried, and this community came together on behalf of our kids.

So this year, you know, we've learned a lot.

I think our staff and our parents are excited.

I believe our kids are excited.

They had a great summer.

I think summer was well received and, you know, we're looking forward to Monday morning, August 9, to welcome all our kids back to school.

-When we had you on the show last time, it was right before the full hybrid reopening if you remember, and we had a couple of your staff members on as well.

Two things you applauded were teamwork and adaptability of your team.

Let's go to where we are now.

What are you applauding on your team?

-I think persistence and resiliency.

You know, our team is all 42,000 employees.

Our focus is on our kids and the community.

You know, we are ready.

We are ready-- as ready as we're going to be.

But really I think the persistence, the resiliency on behalf of our students is really by far I would continue to celebrate them.

-Yes.

It isn't a normal school year.

I mean, let's not forget we are still dealing with COVID, and unfortunately we're seeing test positivity rates rise to higher rates than when we were at reopening with the hybrid actually, when we were still in full closures here, and now you're dealing with that.

We had a conversation before this and had a roundtable, and Rebecca Garcia from Nevada PTA mentioned that district communication around protocols other than the mask mandate have been lax.

If I'm a parent and I want to know what's going on and this is a major concern of mine of what happens if there's infections in my school, what do you say to that?

-Well, the protocols haven't changed.

We had kids in school when we were going through the pandemic.

They have not changed since March 1 of 2021.

You know, one of the things that obviously we have now quarantine and we have contact tracing that we're going through so I hear that, and I go back and I'm saying well, we're going to continue to do the same thing we did last year and that we did throughout the summer.

So we're going to put out our entire guide, you know, just really open and be transparent and put it on the website for parents to see exactly what we're doing, which is what we did all of last year.

So you know, still working with Southern Nevada Health District.

Now, the mask mandate that we put out there is just one of the mitigating strategies but, you know, it's going to be up on our website for our parents and for our schools and communicating it out to 366 schools, and our principals will be ready.

-Now, that's the more immediate things that aren't changing.

Let's go back to pre-pandemic.

So much has changed in a normal student's life going to school, but let's highlight some of the things maybe that are going back to how they were during pre-pandemic in the school year.

-Well, you know, we're going to have athletics.

We're going to have band, we're going to have all the extracurricular activities just going to be with masks.

There's some mitigating strategies that we're putting in place being in our classrooms.

You know, what we are seeing is that we're seeing parents making that choice to more of the online, the Nevada Learning Academy, so we're seeing an increase there which is, you know, a parental choice for whatever reason, and we're accommodating them.

But I would just tell you, our teachers in the classrooms with our kids, you know, bringing them in is going to be very important for us.

So those are some of the things that we're seeing.

You know, the lunchroom, obviously it's going to be a little bit hectic and I will say anxiety for us because of contact tracing, you know, but it's just ways that we're going to keep our kids safe and our staff safe as well.

-Let's talk a little more about the school system in general, still talking about, you know, where we are with reopening.

The Review-Journal reported that the district is facing widespread staffing shortages.

I looked at some of these numbers.

I looked at them a couple days ago, so correct me if they're not completely exact, but 796 licensed and certified job openings right now, and that sounds like a lot.

Is it a lot?

-Well, it is.

I mean, it's too many.

When you look at it times 30 or 35 kids, that's a lot of kids without a licensed educator.

I was on KNPR this morning with John Vellardita.

This is not a Clark County issue.

I was on the phone this-- you know, so many calls, right, nationally with my colleagues across the country.

Teacher vacancies are widespread, bus driver vacancies are widespread, and I think some of the businesses when they opened in this community as well, getting employees to come back is a concern, you know, and it is too many.

But I would tell you it's a national issue of folks going into education.

So we are working together with our higher-ed community and how do we then long-term address this teacher shortage?

You know, when I got here it was pretty similar numbers.

We dropped it last year.

We opened up with less I think, you know, everybody stayed put and didn't move because of what we're dealing with.

But I think it's what is the long-term and short-term game that we have to really approach here as a team.

-And you mentioned national, nationally this is a trend.

Is this more of a COVID-related issue of why we maybe have seen an increased gap or is it just the ebb and flow of things?

-No, I think what's happening is not so much of a COVID issue.

I think what's happening is really do we celebrate education, public education across this country, and that is what we are seeing across the country in schools of education is not many folks are going into education for so many different reasons, and that is the approach we have to really long-term, our game plan to be able to address.

-Something that ties right into this is the Focus 2024 strategic plan you have.

I know staff strength-- strengthening staff, expanding staff is a big priority of that.

You've mentioned post-pandemic some of the goals and priorities might change within that strategic plan.

What exactly are you looking at that might change?

-Well, there's a lot of different things that we may-- we have to look at our student achievement targets and goals, right?

I mean, when we put this plan together as a community and as a board, when it was adopted, you know, we were on a trajectory to really to look at those goals.

Now we have to go back and reanalyze when our kids come back.

Our kids come back to school next week, and throughout the fall, we have to reassess where they are, how deep that our kids fall academically.

That's one of the things are the strategies, that we have to review those strategies again.

So academically we'll have to look at-- the pandemic highlighted the inequities around technology, so how do we go back and address some of those gaps that we have.

Our mental health, you know, the mental health of our kids and staff, how do we then go back and review and take a look at that as well.

So those three big buckets have to be reanalyzed, and how do we then embed them back into our strategic plan.

Are the strategies we set two years ago, are they still valid?

Are they still research based?

Are there new ones we then need to employ?

So all these different things have to go back, and we have to review again.

-Yes, and all those buckets.

You just went through my whole list of questions, mental health being one of those.

I want to come back though to learning loss, and you mentioned assessing.

How do you assess something like this?

Of course we've seen the grades, more failures than normal across the board, but when you get down to really where these learning loss gaps are, what kind of assessment does a district do there?

-Yes.

You know, two years ago we looked at it and we adopted the MAP Growth Assessment which is really something that we've been investing in as a district for 2 or 2-1/2 years and it's a K-10 benchmark assessment.

So the kids take it three times a year.

Our kids took it last spring before they went home, and they'll take it as soon as they come back.

And it's really adaptive to the kids, so it gets harder as they're answering the questions to really gauge where they are.

It gives them a RIT score which is a score that they'll have.

So then now our schools, our teachers have been, you know, provided professional development, our principals also, to look at and then analyze the data.

So we'll look at spring, you know, then we'll look at the fall, and then the kids with the teachers will identify and set some goals for the winter.

They'll take it in the winter and then get them ready for the SBAC assessment in the spring.

So it's really targeted, individualized for the students.

And then the teachers, you know, who are driving this conversation in the classroom, they'll be able to, you know, provide some interventions within the classroom, you know, looking at what instruction, what benchmarks the kids need to strengthen or where have they already met the targets.

So it's very adaptive and individualized for the students.

-Mental health, another big bucket you talked about.

Big interventions that the district went through during our closures and then into hybrid now.

Where do you go from here?

What is really important?

And I wanted to bring a special attention to some of the counselor ratios we hear about, counselors to students.

Is that what this is about, just getting more counselors in or are there other strategies you're looking at?

-I think that's one measure, you know, and also this is where we're going to need the community partners.

This is where you look at the partners that we have had for years in this community.

How do we then bring them in to help us?

You know, we as a district created the Lifeline program.

We've put together a multidisciplinary leadership team to really analyze and assess the needs of our kids.

This is going to be the challenge, the hardest one to-- you know, I just gave you an example of the academic and how you can gauge where they are.

This one, how deep did the scars go for kids not socializing, not being in school.

So this is the one that we're going to have the human touch a little bit more.

So you're right.

How do we identify that and lower the gap with social workers, with counselors, with psychologists which is a huge need in our school district, so we'll rely on our partners.

And I know that Communities In Schools is a great partner of ours, and they are so entrenched in our community and our schools and that will help us advocate for students.

So that's one.

You know, we also as a school system have initiated Panorama, which is a universal screener where kids through technology can really ask for assistance and help.

So it's a multi-prong approach to be able to address the needs of our kids and our staff.

-I wanted to bring attention also to the school board voted to change the grading system, and it looked like-- and please correct me if I'm wrong-- but it looked like a lot of the changes were to absences and lack of maybe submitting assignments and things like that that weren't being incorporated into grades as much as they were prior.

Am I reading that right?

-Yes.

I mean, in very simple terms, exactly.

I mean, part of the board's decision to do this, I think the board took a bold step to say, you know, let's have equity across the board so when, you know, as I said on Tuesday to my leadership team, the grades in Laughlin, Nevada are going to be the same whether it's Laughlin, Moapa, which is a city of Las Vegas, Summerlin, Henderson.

So we're going to look at it.

There's going to be a growth.

The other piece is that, you know, really our kids are going to be graded on what's important, that's in the content, the Nevada state standards.

That's going to be the key.

The pieces when you look at it, you know, in simple terms, when you look at some kids it may take them two months to learn a concept.

Some kids it may take them 30 days.

So why are we going to penalize a kid that really it takes them a little bit longer to learn some of these concepts or whatever it may be.

You look at, you know, in mathematics if you don't learn some of the simple concepts, then how do you get to be able to meet, you know, as complex math may be.

I'm not a math teacher, but it's conceptual so you have to learn some-- you know, obviously to add before you can multiply and some of these other things that are in algebraic thinking.

So to me if we fail kids here, the kids know and then how hard is it, you know, for them to be able to stay in the classroom not engaged, so I think it's going to take us some time.

I want to make sure that the community understands this is not starting August 9.

This is going to be a long process for us.

I would say it's going to be a multi-year approach where everybody is, but we have to start somewhere.

This has been something that my principals, our principals have been studying for 10 years.

So let's do it when we come back and do it right and do it carefully, slowly, as we transition to a new grading practice for our schools.

-We've got about a minute left, and I've got another long-term question for you, unfortunately but it's funding and $777 million coming from federal relief sources.

How much of that is going to fill budget holes, and how much of that might be used for this future planning you're talking about over the next 10 years?

-Well, a great question.

The federal government made it very clear-- as a matter of fact, I was on a call this morning.

The federal government has made clear that you can't, you know, cover up budget holes in state requirements or state responsibilities.

That's number one.

Number two for me, you know, I gave you my three priorities as a school system, but we are right now in a community input process.

I want to make sure that this community-- I don't have a plan, you know, but there's some things that I am prioritizing, but this is where the community is really giving us input as what does this community want for our kids?

I want this to be a kids-first agenda with the using of these dollars.

-Very important.

We're out of time.

I'd like you to come back, and let's talk about that community input part of it.

I think that's a very interesting aspect as to how the district is going to use the funding.

But thank you so much.

We really appreciate you being here.

-Thank you for having me here.

-And thank you, as always for joining us this week on Nevada Week.

For any of the resources discussed on this show, please visit our website at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

You can also always find us on social media at @nevadaweek.

Thanks again, and we'll see you next week.

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