Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert has been on the job for about a year now — and she could have picked an easier time to take over. Amid declining enrollment in public elementary schools nationwide, paired with an increasing number of high school graduates opting out of college, the teaching veteran faced a top administrator’s daunting task: keep students, along with their parents and teachers, engaged in their education.
Desert Companion checked in with Ebert to see how that’s going.
During a recent school board meeting, you said the district is “stabilizing, growing, and regaining trust of the community.” What are you doing to accomplish that?
Number one is getting out there and making sure I’m not just sitting in my office. This year, our entire team started by making sure we were at the football games. I went to one at Boulder City High School. The principal there said that they hadn’t seen a superintendent for over a decade. So, getting out into the community so they know we come to work every single day on behalf of children.
It’s also getting out there and making sure they have the correct information and being honest about where we need to go. You can’t build trust if you’re just saying everything is wonderful and that we don’t have any work to do in the Clark County School District. We have a lot of work to do in the Clark County School District, but there are also great celebrations with graduation rates up and all.
So, what are you focused on as you head into the summer and the next school year?
My degree’s in mathematics. So, data is my thing. All year, we’ve been tracking how to increase that graduation rate by making sure students are in the right classes, that if we see students who aren’t coming … making sure that they’re coming to school, they’re staying on track, that they earn great grades in school, and that they participate.
We’re also working directly with the students who have the steepest climb — those who are behind and not proficient in mathematics or literacy. We just partnered with the College Football Playoff Foundation. They came to town. Their mission is to support the cities that they’re in with education. … So, they are working with us on behalf of our students with dyslexia. We did not have a (dyslexia) screener previously in the Clark County School District to screen our students. And so now we’re going to screen our students for dyslexia and make sure that teachers have the resources they need to support those students and their parents.
Those are just a few of the things we’re focusing on for the next year.
In 2020, there were about 480,000 students in Nevada public schools. Now there are about 455,000 students. How big is declining enrollment’s impact on the district?
We had this massive influx of students moving into Southern Nevada. We were building a school a month for a very long time. Finding educators, finding teachers, was our core business … So, staffing-wise, we’re in a great place. But how are we going to use our facilities now? We’re exploring that through our facilities master plan. We have over 1,000 — close to 1,500 — portables in the Clark County School District. We won’t need those anymore. Do we sell them? Do we have other entities come in, like nonprofits that partner with us, like the United Way or Communities in Schools?
Those are all things we’re exploring, so we’re trying to get ahead of the news. Some people have gotten out and are saying, ‘Oh, we’re closing schools.’ Well, if we do, it won’t be for another four years. But we want to know what the community wants to see. Do they think we should use our school buildings for our partners, including on-campus health services? Is that a good idea? We’re going to expand pre-K. What does that community need?
A letter to staff earlier this year said roughly 1,200 CCSD employees were at risk of losing their jobs next year. What’s the status of those positions?
Yes, the numbers are down. The staff right now, whom we call “surplus,” who have the opportunity to select other positions available across the district, is just around 450.
We have many staff members who have been here for 30 years or more and are going to retire. I have some wonderful staff members whose husbands just got jobs in other states, and they’re moving. It’s standard that spring is a time for movement, so we are in that process right now. We are finding positions for those staff members. We expect to have everyone in a position on time, though it’ll be close. Other places, like L.A., had more than 1,000 pink slips. We are not near that at all at this point.
… So, we’re making sure we stay focused on core academics, that our students are proficient and successful, that they … own their learning, that they have a pathway they identify with, and that our parents know our schools are safe and fun.
