After more than two months of summer break, students in the country’s fifth-largest school district braved triple-digit temperatures and returned to school on Monday. 

At Harriet A. Treem Elementary School in Henderson, pre-kindergarten students were getting used to being in a class, some for the first time. They spent part of their morning reading books, singing songs and practicing how to line up and walk as a class.  

Victoria Fertitta Middle School students in teacher Loretta Esposito’s class warmed up their math skills with an escape room activity where students had to solve pre-algebra problems to “break out.” 

Fertitta Principal Greg Siquerios said setting the standards from day one is crucial for teachers and students. 

“Many teachers do icebreakers to get to know students, but here we focus on activities that are going to get them thinking, ‘Hey, what can I expect this school year?’” he said.

The two schools were highlighted Monday as part of efforts to expand pre-K and improve student proficiency, two priorities for new Clark County School District (CCSD) Superintendent Jhone Ebert ahead of the 2025-26 school year. 

“I am claiming here today, we are going to have higher [profiency] rates than we had before the pandemic, right moving forward,” Ebert said Monday during a press conference. 

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and state lawmakers have also stressed the need to improve student performance across the state. In 2023, Lombardo pushed a bill, AB400, that brought back a policy of having third graders who aren’t reading at grade level repeat the year. The policy will go into effect in July 2028. This year, they pushed measures to increase school accountability. 

Ebert also shared bright spots the district is seeing in reducing teacher vacancies and improving retention after years of starting off with more than a thousand teacher vacancies. 

Pre-kindergarten

This school year, the district added 500 new seats for full-day and half-day pre-K programs at 33 schools, including Treem. This brings the district’s total number of pre-K students up to more than 11,000, a 40 percent increase since 2021, according to Ebert. She said the new seats were made possible thanks to the additional pre-K funding provided by the Legislature. SB460 allocated $21 million for early childhood literacy and readiness programs, and facilities over the next two years. 

“We know that our youngest learners, when they get off to a great start they'll be successful throughout their entire learning career,” Ebert said. 

Treem Principal Sarah Cyprus said this is in addition to two other pre-K programs the school previously offered, a half-day program for 3- and 4-year-olds and a full-day program offered five days a week for students with autism. Cyprus said the new program alleviated the school’s waitlist and is more convenient for families.

“So it really just means giving families options,” Cyprus said.  

Improving student proficiency

Although student proficiency rates districtwide and statewide aren’t back to pre-pandemic levels, several CCSD middle schools, including Fertitta, are seeing improvements in math scores on standardized tests. 

Siqueiros said over the past three years, the Las Vegas middle school’s math proficiency rates grew from 32 percent to 44 percent. He credited the school’s progress in its emphasis on building relationships with students, breaking students up into small groups, getting them engaged through project-based learning and working closely with its feeder high schools. 

“It's important that we know what's expected of them in high school, and then we can also work on that at the middle school level, so they'll be successful,” he said. 

Ebert emphasized the need for increased access to pre-K — which she said is crucial to setting students up for success in later years — high dosage tutoring and small group instruction to improve literacy. She added they need to improve communication with parents when students are struggling with literacy so they can be part of the solution.

“Sometimes the parents aren't aware, and so we need to do a better job in clearly communicating,” Ebert said. 

Ebert, who was the state superintendent when AB400 was passed, did not directly answer when asked whether she supported holding students back in third grade if they aren’t reading at grade level. 

Teacher recruitment and retention

The district is starting the academic year with more than 19,000 licensed teachers, the highest level it has had in five years, and 97 percent of its classrooms are staffed by a fully licensed teacher. Ebert credited that low vacancy rate to the 20 percent teacher pay increase the district was able to provide thanks to the historic investments lawmakers made to K-12 education during the 2023 session. 

CCSD also made progress on reducing teacher vacancies, to just over 200. It's a big improvement from the previous school year when the district faced about 1,000 teacher vacancies when students returned to class. 

Ebert also touted the district’s improvement on teacher retention, about 94 percent for the 2024-25 school year, compared to about 88 percent during the 2022-23 school year. 

“That means that we hired about 1,200 less teachers than we needed to in the past,” Ebert said. 

Ebert also noted that the district wrapped up its negotiations with Clark County Education Association (CCEA) on a new two-year contract ahead of the first day of school. Two years ago the district and the teachers union were locked in bitter negotiations that didn’t end until an arbitrator stepped in. 

The new contract was ratified by CCEA members this past weekend and is scheduled to be voted on by the Clark County School Board on Thursday. 

A copy of the contract was not among the board’s meeting materials as of Monday afternoon, and Ebert did not specify what was included in the contract.