As the dust has settled after the end of the 2025 session, here are some highlights of education bills that made it through the Legislature and are now awaiting Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s signature (or veto) as of Friday afternoon. 

• AB224: School construction financing:
  • This bill will allow the state to issue up to $100 million in bonds that can be used to support a state fund for school construction. Proponents say it's a lifeline for rural school districts such as White Pine that don’t have the tax base to replace aging schools on their own and have struggled with this issue for decades.
    • Other approaches in recent years, such as requests for direct appropriations from the Legislature, have been unsuccessful.

• AB472: Supporting international teachers: The bill would prevent Nevada school districts from working with J-1 visa and H-1B visa programs that charge applicants or participants more than $10,000 in costs and fees per person.
  • School districts such as Mineral County and Clark County have come to rely on these programs to fill vacant teacher positions.

And here are some education bills that have been vetoed:

• AB205: Opt-out sex education
  • Proponents said this bill intended to capture students who miss out on the courses because their parents do not turn in paperwork, rather than because they have a proactive objection to it. The bill would have allowed parents to opt out of sex education at any point in the school year. 
  • Lombardo said in his veto message that it would have undermined “parents’ ability to make informed choices about their children’s education.”
    • It's the sixth failed sex education bill since 2013.

• AB445: Immunity for librarians providing access to materials in “good faith”
  • The bill would have made it so all school and public library staff members are immune from civil liability for helping patrons or providing access to library materials. 
  • In his veto message, Lombardo said the bill’s language was too broad.
    • It’s an indication that Lombardo may also veto a similar bill, AB416, which would prohibit school boards from taking action to limit students’ access to school library books and require individuals to go to court to object to school library books they want to see removed. 

You can find our veto bill tracker, which will be updated as new vetoes come in, here.

I want to hear from you! Send questions, comments or suggestions on what I should be covering to [email protected].

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News briefs

🥕 Green Our Planet nonprofit opening headquarters in East Las Vegas — Green Our Planet, a nonprofit organization that supports school gardens and hydroponic STEM programs that teach students about sustainability and financial literacy, broke ground on its new headquarters, the Green Our Planet Compassionate Gardens, in East Las Vegas on Thursday. 

• The project was made possible by a $900,000 grant from Clark County last January under Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick’s leadership and a $1.3 million donation from philanthropists Gard and Florence Jameson. 
• The space will include a hydroponics laboratory where people can learn how to grow produce with less water, a teaching kitchen for preparing healthy meals, a community garden where people can take home fresh produce and an outdoor classroom to teach community members how to grow their own fruits and vegetables at home. The nonprofit aims to revitalize an area of East Las Vegas that’s considered a food desert. 
• Lawmakers also passed a bill this legislative session, SB104, that will allocate $400,000 over the next two years to the nonprofit to create and maintain school gardens. It was significantly less than the $4 million the nonprofit was initially asking for, likely because of the state’s economic challenges.
  • The bill is awaiting Lombardo’s signature. 

🎣 Free fishing license for teens — For a limited time, kids ages 12-17 can sign up to receive a free youth combination license from the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) to legally fish and hunt, if they have a valid hunter education certificate, for up to one year from the issuance date. The licenses are available on a first-come, first-served basis. The free licenses were made possible by donations made by community members and private organizations to the Nevada Youth License Fund to cover the $15 cost for a youth combination license. Visit NDOW’s website for more.

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School spotlight

Documentary sheds light on student homelessness

A new documentary from the Clark County School District gives a firsthand look at what homelessness looks like to dispel misconceptions about the issue that affects more than 13,000 students districtwide. 

The district debuted its documentary, Learning to Survive: A Lesson in Student Homelessness, at screenings for staff and community members in late April. 

The film is meant to provide training on how staff can identify and support students experiencing homelessness. It included perspectives from staff and former district students who shared their stories about having to live in small, crowded spaces and the toll it took on them mentally and academically to bounce around from place to place.  

“We’re trying to make people sensitive to the fact that this is happening to everyone around you, whether you’re at a high poverty school or in an affluent area,” said Kelly-Jo Shebeck, a coordinator in the Clark County School District’s Title I Hope office. “We have students experiencing this across the district in just about every school.”

The office works to identify students experiencing homelessness and support them to make it easier to stay in school.

Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a student is considered to be experiencing homelessness if they lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence which can include:

• Living with friends or relatives because of loss of housing, economic hardships or a similar reason
• Living in a hotel or motel because of lack of alternative accommodations
• Living in an emergency or transitional shelter
• Living in a car, park, on the street or similar settings

The district’s Title I Hope office supports students with immediate enrollment in school without the documents that are typically needed, transportation for students staying more than 2 miles away from their school, emergency clothing, free school breakfast and lunch and assistance with school tuition grants. 

Last school year, the district identified about 13,500 students that met the federal definition of homelessness. The number has grown steadily since the 2021-22 school year, when about 12,000 students were identified as experiencing homelessness.

They make up roughly 4.5 percent of the 300,000 students districtwide, and about half of those students are in elementary school. The district estimates the real number may be higher.

Title I Hope coordinator Meg Pike said that number may be going up as more families are struggling to afford basic necessities such as housing, child care and transportation. 

Pike said it's easier to identify students who are struggling with homelessness when they are in elementary school because younger students tend to share more about their personal lives, while middle school and high school students tend to be more reserved. She added that parents themselves may also be reluctant to admit that they are struggling or may not know that they meet the federal definition of homelessness and qualify for assistance.  

“Homelessness is not something that families and students want to openly disclose because of the stigma around it,” Shebeck said. 

The documentary won’t be released to the public, but instead will be used periodically next year as part of staff training across the district. 

“It's just trying to raise that awareness that we all have a responsibility and an opportunity to do better by these students who are in vulnerable situations,” Shebeck said. 

Have a student or staffer who we should feature in the next edition of School Spotlight? Share your nominations with me at [email protected].

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Reading Assignments

Millennium Scholarship has helped nearly 200K Nevadans with college. Its future is cloudy.

By the time 2027 hits, the Millennium Scholarship program will not have enough money to cover all eligible students.

Extra Credit

KTNV: Local teen makes history with passage of antisemitism legislation he helped write

Events

🍎 Clark County School Board meeting — Thursday, June 12, 5 p.m. 

The agenda includes a discussion and possible approval of an employee agreement to hire Justin Dayhoff, who has a background in education policy and finance, as the new chief financial officer. It comes after the district fired its previous chief financial officer after a budget shortfall was discovered. 

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Check out this resource from RTC Washoe.