What causes students to chronically skip school? A new Guinn Center report offers answers.
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School spotlight
A new report by the Guinn Center for Public Policy Priorities found that students who experience bullying and those with learning disabilities are more likely to miss school compared to their peers.
The findings are part of the nonpartisan Guinn Center’s recent series examining chronic absenteeism and efforts in the state to address it.
Students are considered chronically absent after missing 10 percent or more of the school year (about 18 days during a typical 180-day school year), whether the absence is considered excused or unexcused.
An estimated 23 percent of students nationwide were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year, an 8 percent increase from the last school year before the pandemic. Nevada’s chronically absent rate for the 2023-24 school year — at almost 26 percent — was slightly higher than the national average.
Anna Colquitt, the center’s education policy director, said it’s an issue that needs to be tackled as the state demands better school performance.
“If a quarter of our students are chronically absent, thinking we are going to continue to grow our achievement rates seems really difficult,” she said.
Mental health diagnoses and other struggles are reported as the “top health-related drivers of absenteeism,” and can lead to students feeling school is overwhelming or not worth attending. This includes students who are bullied, an experience 26,000 of Nevada middle schoolers reported in 2023. The center’s report found that the percentage of students missing school due to bullying rose from 7 percent to 13 percent between 2013 and 2023.
The report also noted students with disabilities are 36 percent more likely to be chronically absent compared to their classmates without disabilities. The report states this could be because these students are more likely to experience depression or anxiety or feel frustrated when they compare themselves to their peers. Having an undiagnosed condition can exacerbate these feelings.
Students with physical disabilities also have similar experiences.
“The mental health piece impacts both students' ability to attend school and their desire to attend school, and so it is linked to a great degree with chronic absenteeism,” Colquitt said.
Lawmakers this year passed a bill, SB165, that advocates say will bolster the state’s child mental health workforce, crucial for a state with a higher than recommended student-to-counselor ratio.
The bill establishes regulations and licensing opportunities for behavioral health and wellness practitioners. Those providers are trained to identify early warning signs of mental health disorders, trauma and emotional distress, and can offer kids and families strategies on how to mitigate those issues.
It also provides a total of $3.2 million in funding to create new programs at UNLV, UNR and Great Basin College for students pursuing careers in child behavioral health and offer them scholarships.
It establishes the first Nevada internship program accredited by the American Psychology Association for UNLV students interested in child psychology and appropriates another $3.2 million to the Nevada System of Higher Education to establish the program and offer scholarships.
“Nevada will be able to create and retain child psychologists rather than lose them to other states,” the Children Advocacy Alliance of Nevada stated in its 2025 legislative report.
News briefs
🏫 Clark County after-school program to begin as scheduled after funding delays —
A nonprofit that provides after-school programming to 21 Title I schools that serve a high percent of low-income families in the Clark County School District announced it will be able to start on time after receiving the green light last Tuesday to begin drawing down federal funds that had temporarily been frozen by the Trump administration. Without those funds, it wouldn’t have been able to provide programming at 13 of those schools
“It’s a huge relief,” said After-School All-Stars Executive Director Jodi Manzella. “I’m so thankful that our families will be able to return at those 13 schools.”
She said their after-school programs will begin as normal on Aug. 25, two weeks after the start of the new school year to give families time to enroll into the program.
👍🏼 City of Henderson authorizes its first charter school — The City of Henderson announced last week it approved its first charter school operator, Kesher Academy, two years after the state Legislature passed AB400, a bill by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo that allows local municipalities to authorize charter schools.
Kesher Academy, a Hebrew-language charter school, is expected to open its new school in fall 2026.
The city said it received four applications from charter schools during its first-ever application cycle this year.
Applications were evaluated on several criteria including their proposed school’s enrollment, academic, operational and financial plans as well as alignment with the city’s mission, vision and values. The city invites operators whose applications were denied to revise and resubmit them within the next 30 days for reconsideration at a future city council meeting.
AB400 sets an enrollment cap on students at charter schools sponsored by local governments but doesn’t set a specific number on how many they can each sponsor.
Reading assignments
Federal program could offer lifeline to Nevada’s starved school choice scholarship program
The new program, which goes into effect in 2027, will help raise funds for scholarships that can be used to cover educational expenses such as private school tuition.
Clark County schools leader says immigration officials will stay out of schools
The superintendent’s comments come amid reports that some immigrant parents are fearful of sending their children back to school or deciding to keep their children home altogether to avoid increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.
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What a throwback.
