By Vanessa Garcia

Copyright hoodline

Las Vegas schools have made significant strides in the latest state report card, with the Clark County School District (CCSD) witnessing over 136 of its nearly 370 schools improve their star ratings for the 2024-2025 school year. The star rating system, which rates schools on a scale from one to five stars, takes into account several factors such as proficiency and growth in math and English language arts, graduation rates, and student attendance, according to News 3 LV.

One remarkable success story is that of Quannah McCall Elementary in North Las Vegas, which vaulted from the state’s lowest rating to a four-star school. As reported by the Las Vegas Sun, principal Amanda Lush, whose leadership began just weeks before the COVID pandemic hit, has witnessed the school emerge from challenging times. During a celebratory announcement, Lush expressed her long-held conviction, saying, “I have waited my whole life to tell you what I already knew. I knew it in my heart. I just knew it,” emphasizing the school’s ascent to the four-star rank.

The CCSD superintendent Jhone Ebert highlighted a mix of factors that contributed to the district-wide improvement. She mentioned “high-quality tier one instruction,” the necessity of ongoing professional development for teachers, and the importance of parent-teacher conferences, as per News 3 LV. Superintendent Ebert also pointed to the district’s focus on the ‘Core 4’ which includes expanding pre-K, early literacy, increasing math scores, and workforce development at the high school level.

Statewide, the news was similarly positive, with an increase in the number of schools achieving five- and four-star ratings. Nevada’s interim superintendent of public instruction, Steve Canavero, attributed these gains to “the hard work and dedication of our educators, administrators, staff, students and families,” and “the historic state investment in public education,” as noted by the Las Vegas Sun. Specific Las Vegas area schools such as Frank Kim, Daniel Goldfarb, and Marshall C. Darnell Elementary schools were spotlighted for gaining three stars since the previous year.

Despite the recent cybersecurity issues that affected the state’s computer networks, causing an outage of some websites and delay in updated proficiency data, all grade levels in the state showed improvement in math and English Language Arts proficiency. Last year, Clark County students showed a 1.9 percentage-point increase in math proficiency and a 0.3 percentage-point bump in English Language Arts proficiency over the prior year, reinforcing the upward trend in educational outcomes for the region.