Nevada

Chronic absenteeism decreases at Nevada schools, proficiency rates improve – The Nevada Independent

Published

1 year ago

September 20, 2024

Chronic absenteeism decreases at Nevada schools, proficiency rates improve – The Nevada Independent

Public schools statewide are making progress toward lowering chronic student absenteeism and improving student achievement, according to data from the 2023-24 school year released Monday by the Nevada Department of Education (NDE).

However, despite the gains the state experienced in its math and English Language Arts proficiency rates among third- through eighth-grade students, they still lag behind pre-pandemic levels.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert said the data points are a sign that things are headed in the right direction. She credits the progress to some of the recent investment the state has made in K-12 education including professional development opportunities on reading instruction and the work that NDE has been doing to personalize learning for students.

“Coming out of the pandemic, we knew that there were a lot of pieces to the puzzle that we needed to tackle,” Ebert said. “I think all of those coming together: making sure that teachers have resources, making sure that kids are coming to school, all of those components help lean in on the increase in ELA and the increase in math.”

Chronic absenteeism

The state’s chronic absenteeism for the 2023-24 school year dropped by 9 percentage points from about 35 percent during the 2022-23 school year to 26 percent last school year, with some 60 percent of the state’s 781 schools lowering their rates by at least 10 percentage points, NDE said in a Monday statement.

Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10 percent or more of school days.

Ebert credits the decrease to the work that schools are doing to connect with students and their families. That includes home visits and efforts to track down missing students.

The state’s largest school district, Clark County, also saw an improvement in its chronic absenteeism rate from 38 percent during the 2022-23 school year to 31 percent last school year. But Clark County remains higher than the statewide rate.

Washoe County, which saw a surprising increase in chronic absenteeism rate in the 2022-2023 school year from the year prior, dropped its rate by about 3 percentage points in the 2023-2024 school year.

Despite the improvements, the chronic absenteeism rate remains much higher than before the pandemic. About 77 percent of schools saw increases in chronic absenteeism — averaging about 8 percentage points — from the 2018-2019 to the 2023-2024 school years, according to a Nevada Independent analysis.

Esmeralda County, the state’s smallest district with about 90 students, had the highest chronic absenteeism rate among all of the 17 school districts and the state’s charter school system, 43 percent. Douglas County School District with about 5,000 students had the lowest at less than 21 percent.

Student achievement

Nevada schools saw improvements in mathematics proficiency among students in grades third through eighth for a second consecutive year. Overall, about a third of students in those grade levels demonstrated proficiency in math – a 1 percentage-point increase compared with the 2022-23 school year. But it still remains behind the pre-pandemic math rate, which is about 38 percent.

The state’s English Language Arts rate for those grade levels, 41 percent, also saw a slight uptick, but it too is behind the pre-pandemic rate of about 49 percent. Statewide, more than half of schools increased their English and math proficiency from the 2022-2023 school year, according to a Nevada Independent analysis.

Clark County School District (CCSD) students in grades third through eighth are performing below the state’s rates, scoring 30 percent in math proficiency and 39 percent in English Language Arts. CCSD’s high schoolers’ math proficiency rate has been on a downward trend since the 2018-19 school year, which mirrors the state’s rate.

Ebert attributed this to a need for more math teachers and an increase in student engagement.

Take the maps below, for example. They show that most schools in the Las Vegas Valley increased their English and math proficiency in the past year, though there were schools with falling proficiency levels, mostly in the central and eastern parts of the valley. Still, it’s a marked improvement from the same maps a year ago (shown here), which had many more schools with falling English proficiency.

However, the proficiency rates still lag significantly behind pre-pandemic levels. The Indy found that more than 75 percent of schools have lower English and math proficiency than in the 2018-2019 school year. The rate was slightly higher among Title I schools, a federal designation for schools with a higher percentage of students from low-income households.

Of all the district and charter schools, Lincoln County students in grades three through eight had the highest rate in math proficiency (47 percent), while Eureka County students had the highest rate in English Language Arts proficiency (59 percent).

Eureka County 11th graders outperformed their peers in other districts in math proficiency with a rate of 32 percent, while 11th graders in the state charter school system outperformed their peers in English language proficiency, 53 percent.

While the state is working on strategies to move the needle on K-12 education at a faster rate, Ebert said it will take some time until the investments made during the 2023 legislative session on K-12 education are reflected in the data.

“We’re driving specific, specialized resources to those that are most in need, and those resources just became available a year ago,” she said. “To implement any program you’re looking at least two to three years to see some shifts.”

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Nevada

Bill by Nevada’s Amodei to ramp up mining on public land passes House

Published

11 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

Bill by Nevada’s Amodei to ramp up mining on public land passes House

The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday put forward by Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei that would reinvigorate mining activity on federal lands.

Amodei, a Republican who represents the state’s top half, described the bill as strengthening the nation’s mineral supply chain and helping to counter China’s dominance with minerals.

“Western states are sitting on a wealth of resources and a critical opportunity to break our dangerous reliance on foreign adversaries while powering our own economy,” he said in a statement.

“The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act … gives domestic mining operations the certainty they need to compete aggressively and win.”

The bill passed 219 to 198. Republicans voted 210 in favor, 1 opposed and 9 not voting. Democrats voted 9 in favor, 197 opposed and 7 not voting. It was one of the House’s last actions before adjourning for the year.

Nevada delegation split on mining bill

Amodei was joined by Las Vegas Democrat Steven Horsford, who co-sponsored the bill in the House.

“Streamlining the hardrock mining process will create good jobs and strengthen our energy sector,” Horsford said.

The state’s other two House members — Democrats Susie Lee and Dina Titus — voted in opposition.

Titus spokesperson Dick Cooper told the Reno Gazette Journal that the congresswoman voted no because the bill would allow for increased dumping of mine waste on public lands.

“It would also allow mining companies to gain permanent rights to occupy public lands and preclude other uses including recreational and cultural uses,” he added.

It now heads to the Senate, where Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto will work to get it passed.

“This bill is common sense, and it’s key for communities across Nevada that count on mining for their livelihoods,” Cortez Masto said in a social media post.

Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, a Democrat, also supports it. She helped introduce the Senate companion version of Amodei’s bill.

“Nevada is one of the few places in the United States with an abundance of critical minerals and a robust hardrock mining industry,” Rosen said. “The responsible mining of these minerals supports thousands of jobs and will help to strengthen our domestic manufacturing and clean energy supply chains.”

What does Amodei’s Mining Regulatory Clarity Act do?

The bill is a response to a 2022 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals involving the Rosemont Copper Mine in Arizona.

The decision basically meant that mining companies must prove valuable minerals exist on a piece of land before they can dump waste material on it. Called the “mineral validity” requirement, it disrupted decades of precedent.

Amodei’s bill would reverse that and allow the practice to resume of using nearby land for mining waste without proving the land contains commercial deposits — something mining companies say is essential for operating on federal land.

“This legislation ensures the fundamental ability to conduct responsible mining activities on federal lands,” said Rich Nolan, National Mining Association president and CEO, in a statement. “Regulatory certainty, or the lack thereof, will either underpin or undermine efforts to decisively confront our minerals crisis.”

The bill also creates an “Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund.” Some fees related to mining claims will be used to fund a program to inventory, assess and clean up abandoned hardrock mines.

Environmental groups blast House vote on Mining Regulatory Clarity Act

Some environmental groups campaigned against the bill and described it as choosing corporate interests over people, Native Americans’ rights and the environment.

Lauren Pagel, policy director for Earthworks, said the bill “will remove already-scarce protections for natural resources and sacred cultural sites in U.S. mining law.”

The Center for Biological Diversity said the bill surrenders public lands to mining conglomerates.

“The so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act would bypass the validity requirement and grant mining companies — including foreign companies — the statutory right to permanently occupy and indiscriminately use public lands upon approval of a company’s self-written plan of operations,” said the nonprofit conservation organization in an online post.

Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to mrobison@rgj.com or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page.

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Nevada

California school district near Nevada caught up in a dispute over transgender athlete policies – WTOP News

Published

23 hours ago

December 19, 2025

Press Room

California school district near Nevada caught up in a dispute over transgender athlete policies – WTOP News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Tahoe school district is caught between California and Nevada’s competing policies on transgender student…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Tahoe school district is caught between California and Nevada’s competing policies on transgender student athletes, a dispute that’s poised to reorder where the district’s students compete.

High schools in California’s Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District, set in a mountainous, snow-prone area near the border with Nevada, have for decades competed in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, or NIAA. That has allowed sports teams to avoid making frequent and potentially hazardous trips in poor winter weather to competitions farther to the west, district officials say.

But the Nevada association voted in April to require students in sex-segregated sports programs to play on teams that align with their sex assigned at birth — a departure from a previous approach allowing individual schools to set their own standards. The move raised questions for how the Tahoe-Truckee district would remain in the Nevada association while following California law, which says students can play on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Now, California’s Department of Education is requiring the district to join the California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF, by the start of next school year.

District Superintendent Kerstin Kramer said at a school board meeting this week the demand puts the district in a difficult position.

“No matter which authority we’re complying with we are leaving students behind,” she said. “So we have been stuck.”

There are currently no known transgender student athletes competing in high school sports in Tahoe-Truckee Unified, district officials told the education department in a letter. But a former student filed a complaint with the state in June after the board decided to stick with Nevada athletics, Kramer said.

A national debate

The dispute comes amid a nationwide battle over the rights of transgender youth in which states have restricted transgender girls from participating on girls sports teams, barred gender-affirming surgeries for minors and required parents to be notified if a child changes their pronouns at school. At least 24 states have laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some of the policies have been blocked in court.

Meanwhile, California is fighting the Trump administration in court over transgender athlete policies. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at banning transgender women and girls from participating in female athletics. The U.S. Justice Department also sued the California Department of Education in July, alleging its policy allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams violates federal law.

And Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has signedlaws aimed at protecting trans youth, shocked party allies in March when he raised questions on his podcast about the fairness of trans women and girls competing against other female athletes. His office did not comment on the Tahoe-Truckee Unified case, but said Newsom “rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids.”

The state education department said in a statement that all California districts must follow the law regardless of which state’s athletic association they join.

At the Tahoe-Truckee school board meeting this week, some parents and one student said they opposed allowing trans girls to participate on girls teams.

“I don’t see how it would be fair for female athletes to compete against a biological male because they’re stronger, they’re taller, they’re faster,” said Ava Cockrum, a Truckee High School student on the track and field team. “It’s just not fair.”

But Beth Curtis, a civil rights attorney whose children attended schools in Tahoe-Truckee Unified, said the district should fight NIAA from implementing its trans student athlete policy as violating the Nevada Constitution.

Asking for more time

The district has drafted a plan to transition to the California federation by the 2028-2029 school year after state officials ordered it to take action. It’s awaiting the education department’s response.

Curtis doesn’t think the state will allow the district to delay joining CIF, the California federation, another two years, noting the education department is vigorously defending its law against the Trump administration: “They’re not going to fight to uphold the law and say to you at the same time, ‘Okay, you can ignore it for two years.’”

Tahoe-Truckee Unified’s two high schools with athletic programs, which are located about 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) in elevation, compete against both California and Nevada teams in nearby mountain towns — and others more distant and closer to sea level. If the district moves to the California federation, Tahoe-Truckee Unified teams may have to travel more often in bad weather across a risky mountain pass — about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) in elevation above a lake — to reach schools farther from state lines.

Coleville High School, a small California school in the Eastern Sierra near the Nevada border, has also long been a member of the Nevada association, said Heidi Torix, superintendent of the Eastern Sierra Unified School District. The school abides by California law regarding transgender athletes, Torix said.

The school has not been similarly ordered by California to switch where it competes. The California Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on whether it’s warned any other districts not in the California federation about possible noncompliance with state policy.

State Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, a Republican representing a large region of northern California bordering Nevada, said Tahoe-Truckee Unified shouldn’t be forced to join the CIF.

“I urge California Department of Education and state officials to fully consider the real-world consequences of this decision—not in theory, but on the ground—where weather, geography, and safety matter,” Hadwick said.

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Nevada

Proactive power outage slated for northwestern Nevada

Published

1 day ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Proactive power outage slated for northwestern Nevada

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – Because of heightened fire weather conditions forecast for northwestern Nevada, a proactive outage is slated for Friday, Dec. 19, in Carson City, Clear Creek, Jack’s Valley, Genoa and Glenbrook from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to a NV Energy news release.

The outage would affect about 715 customers, the release said.

During a Public Safety Outage Management event, the utility proactively de-energizes power for customers in high-risk zones to help protect the community and environment from wildfires, the release said.

If weather conditions change, the potential proactive outage will be adjusted or cancelled.

Customers potentially impacted have been notified via phone, text messages and email.

NV Energy will continue to monitor conditions and provide updates.

The outage timeframe includes the duration of the weather event and an estimated time for crews to inspect the lines for damage, vegetation or debris to begin safely restoring power.

The restoration time may change based on weather conditions or if repairs to equipment need to be made.

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