Well, in case you haven't heard, the Clark County School District has a new superintendent, but she's not new to Nevada or CCSD.

I had the chance to interview superintendent Jhone Ebert, and I got a little help from some talented aspiring journalists.

Check it out.

I have the incredible honor of serving as host of Student Spotlight.

And as you know, it is a show all about our amazing and talented students, so today it will be the CCSD students who will be asking you the questions, and we start with a trip down memory lane.

We're starting with a student from a school that's near and dear to your heart.

So here we go.

Ready?

(Alona Brown) My name is Alana Brown, and I attend Von Tobel Middle School.

How did starting your career as a math teacher at Von Tobel Middle School, 35 years ago, helped shape your approach as superintendent today?

(Jhone Ebert) That is a wonderful question, Alona.

You know, I was a first-year teacher.

I loved seeing that picture just now.

It was a bit ago, but you know what is so wonderful about our entire community and Von Tobel is the diversity and how much we reflect all of our culture, whether it's staff, students, our entire community, I really appreciated and learned a lot when I was at Von Toble Middle School.

-All right, here we go, talented students.

(Azilee Clements) My name is Azilee from Gilbert Academy.

My question is why did you want to be our superintendent?

-Oh, my gosh.

Amazing question.

I wanted to be the superintendent because I know that we have 300,000 students here that can do great work.

And as the superintendent, I have the opportunity to work with 44,000 staff members and the entire community, lifting up.

And so at this moment in time, we're going to work together as the adults to lift all of the students up.

-All right.

Again, these talented students.

-I know.

-Future journalists.

(Roheen Mehdi) My name is Roheen Mehdi, and I go to Spring Valley High School.

My question is what do you plan to do to keep teachers here in Clark County, since so many have left the district and sometimes even the profession?

-Roheen, we've started, and I'll share two quick pieces there.

Number one is the legislature last biennium, you know, invested a lot of money in education, and so we lifted up the pay for all of our staff.

Number one.

Number two is the working conditions and making sure that we value, that our teachers know that they're valued, that all of our staff, no matter what level we work at, that we're valued and we have a culture and that we're listening.

And so I'm proud to share with you that this last year, we actually had an increase in teacher retention.

And also, too, we have partners.

Nevada Gold Mines is investing in our entire state to lift up the teaching profession.

This is fun.

-I love it.

-My name is Hunter Perkins, and I go to Northwest CTA.

And my question is, CSSD has made tons of progress with the chronic absences, but what still needs to be done to make sure that kids are actively engaged and learning inside the classroom?

-So starting with why students are not engaged in the classroom is really important.

That's when I was at the state level, we did interviews and speaking directly with students like yourselves.

Why aren't you showing up to school?

We're changing our learning system and so that we truly understand and that you understand, number one, we see you, we hear you, we want you to be engaged in the curriculum, that we have a meaningful pathway for students to thrive.

So we want all of our students to start thinking as early as elementary school, you know, traditionally been thinking about high school and where am I going to college, and all of those things.

But we want to start thinking early on, Do you want to be a dentist?

Do you want to be a mechanic?

Would you like to be an educator?

And building those pathways out for you to see yourself in the future.

We're going to change our system to make sure that we have clear pathways for all of our students.

-All right.

One more.

Did you ever get in trouble at school?

Come on, you could tell me.

[laughter] -Awesome.

I can't remember a specific instance.

I do know I never went to the dean's office.

But that doesn't mean that a teacher, you know, might not have asked me to get back on track and all of those things.

But what I would say, take the opportunity, is that if anybody feels as a student that you're headed down a path and you need support and resources, there are adults around, you know?

And make sure if you see something, say something.

If you feel something, make sure that you have someone, an adult, you can trust and share that.

That usually avoids, in advance, getting in trouble when we're thinking about a path that we know, you know, inside it's like, probably shouldn't do this, but I might talk to someone and say-- you know, talk it out.

Should we?

Should we go down that path or not?

But I want to know now if you've ever gotten in trouble.

-We'll follow up with that one.

Thank you so much for your time.

And to close this out, what message do you have--you've had some wonderful responses to their questions--to all of our CCSD students and their parents.

They watch, as well, and our teachers.

-I'm really excited about the opportunity.

Student Voice, through the pandemic, we realized how important Student Voice is, and so working on several different commissions.

Our Nevada Portrait of a Learner, if you read that document, I mean, it's just one page, so you can, but a lot of the words in there and the empowering, you'll hear me say that a lot, they came from our students.

You know, students want to be empowered.

They want to be held accountable.

They want to be engaged in the work, and we, as the adults, need to make sure.

And so as we make that shift-- that people ask a lot of questions, that they see themselves, that everybody understands how to thrive, that we're all reflective about the work that we do moving forward --so all of those pieces coming together, I'm excited about our CCSD system as a whole.

-Yea!

We're done.

-That was great.

Those are great questions.

-I agree, Superintendent Ebert, that was so much fun.

Shout-out to Gilbert Academy, Von Tobel Middle School, Spring Valley High School, and Northwest Career and Technical Academy and all of your students for helping us with that interview.