Clark County schools kick off new year with greater collaborations, math and literacy focus
However, chronic absenteeism remains one of the district’s top challenges, Ebert said. While the district has lowered its chronic absenteeism rate to 28 percent for the 2024-25 school year, down 12 percentage points from its peak five years ago, it still remains higher than its prepandemic level of about 22 percent.
“I think we still have folks that, out of the pandemic, don’t feel like being in the school building is important, but it is,” Ebert said.
One of the district’s goals in its 2026-31 strategic plan is to increase math and literacy proficiency in grades 3 through 8 by 50 percent.
This effort comes as the state prepares to implement a policy to retain students in third grade if they are not reading at grade level beginning in 2028. Superintendents such as Ebert have spoken out against the mandatory retention requirements and plan to ask lawmakers to support repealing it.
“Without the law in effect, we do currently in some instances hold back students because it’s the right thing to do for that child,” Ebert said in an Aug. 3 interview. “People are just asking to make sure that we look at each and every child as an individual.”
