Nevada superintendents are calling on state leaders to repeal a Read by Grade 3 policy that would require students struggling with reading to be held back by the end of third grade effective in 2028. 

It marks the first substantial resistance to the requirement since it was brought back.

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and state lawmakers in 2023 reinstated the Sandoval-era policy that requires third graders who are not reading at grade level be held back. The policy, passed in 2015 before Democrats spearheaded its repeal in 2019, was their solution to addressing elementary students' literacy proficiency rates. 

According to the latest state data from the 2024-25 school year, less than half of the more than 35,000 Nevada third graders read at grade level. Though the rate has been improving, it's still slightly below its prepandemic level.

Carson City School District Superintendent Andrew Feuling, president-elect of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents, said in a June 24 interview that while he and his colleagues support the goals of the state's Read by Grade 3 program, which includes literacy supports, research shows that retention may do more harm than good in the long run. He also argues Nevada doesn't have the funding to ensure the retention policy works as intended. 

One of the association's priorities for the 2027 legislative session is to repeal the retention mandate. 

"Kids who end up getting retained tend to be more disengaged once they get to high school, their dropout risk actually more than doubles. … It would make more sense to us that instead of retention, let's focus on how we can offer even more intensive support to students," Feuling said. 

The State Board of Education has yet to establish a cutoff score on the state's standardized literacy test to determine which students will be retained, so it's still unclear how many students might be held back once the mandate is in effect. 

The retention mandate may be one area where the two major gubernatorial candidates, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, see eye to eye. 

Lombardo spokesman Drew Galang said in a June 25 statement that the governor's office doesn't believe the mandate should be repealed but wants to ensure it affects the fewest number of students possible. 

"Research consistently shows that reading proficiently by third grade is one of the most important predictors of a child's future academic achievement," Galang said in the statement. "Our focus is on working collaboratively to set a logical cut score, clearly define good-cause exemptions, and intervene early when students are struggling."

Ford said in a May 14 interview he would not repeal the retention requirement but expressed a willingness to look closer at legislation and see if any tweaks were needed. 

Ford's campaign didn't respond to multiple requests for comment on the superintendents' call to repeal the policy. 

The Read by Grade 3 program was launched in 2015 by then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, as a way to ensure students read at grade level by the end of third grade. 

But in 2019, under Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, lawmakers passed a bill, AB289, that removed the mandatory retention requirement, meaning that third-graders who had not reached grade-level reading skills were no longer required to be held back from advancing to the next grade.

The retention requirement was reinstated by lawmakers during the 2023 session as part of Lombardo's education omnibus bill, AB400. 

Nevada is one of 26 states with some kind of third grade literacy retention policy and among 14 states that require retention for certain students who do not meet the state's literacy expectations, Torrey Palmer, deputy superintendent for student achievement for the Nevada Department of Education, said at the State Board of Education's June 26 meeting. 

But she said that doesn't mean those states are retaining all third graders struggling with reading. For example, in Arkansas, more than three-fifths of students are below reading proficiency, but only the lowest percentage of those struggling readers will be required to be held back a grade level, Palmer explained. 

Florida's law is similar. Roughly 20 percent of Florida third graders faced potential retention, but of those students, more than half qualified for a good-cause exemption, Palmer said. 

After granting good-cause exemptions, Palmer said most states end up retaining 1 percent to 8 percent of all their third graders. That would equal about 300 to nearly 2,700 Nevada third graders based on enrollment counts for the 2025-26 school year. 

Nevada's retention mandate provides good-cause exemptions for certain students including: 

• Students who obtain a passing score on an alternative assessment approved by the State Board of Education.
• Students who can demonstrate reading proficiency through a portfolio of their work.
• English as a second language learners who have received less than two years of instruction.
• Students who received intensive remedial instruction in reading for two or more years and were previously retained in kindergarten or first or second grades for a total of two years.
• Students who have a disability and their individualized education program exempts them from the state's standardized literacy test.

Feuling argues that other states that have reading retention mandates have dedicated per-pupil funding to support literacy instruction and interventions for struggling readers before or after the third grade, but Nevada does not. 

AB400 appropriated $140 million for early childhood literacy. During the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers did not appropriate any funding for early childhood literacy in 2026, but did appropriate $12 million for 2027 under a bill by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) that Lombardo collaborated on, SB460. 

Feuling said not only are the funding amounts volatile, but they are distributed as competitive grants, which makes it hard for districts to predict what services they will be able to provide students. He added his district did not win a grant for next school year. 

Feuling argues it would be helpful if the state provided consistent funding for literacy for all school districts through the per-pupil funding formula instead. He also called for funding universal pre-K so school districts can start identifying and supporting students early on. 

During the 2024-25 school year, 10 percent of Nevada's 4-year-olds and 2 percent of 3-year-olds participated in state-funded preschool, well below the national averages, 37 percent and 9 percent, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.

Democratic legislative leaders have previously supported funding universal pre-K, and it's also part of Ford's campaign platform.  

"The earlier the interventions happen, I think the better in the long run, and that's where I think we all would like to see more support from the Legislature … rather than just relying on retention," Feuling said.