A Moment of Transition

President Ortiz opened her report by saying goodbye to Malia Poblete. Malia has served as the Student Member for the past year but has now taken on the responsibility of the State President of the Nevada Association of Student Councils (NASC). Ortiz then welcomed me onto the Board. Words cannot express how happy and honored I am to serve Nevada’s students. Additionally, this was Superintendent Stevens’ last meeting as she is retiring. We wish her and Member Poblete the best of luck!

Unveiling the Portrait of a Learner: Shaping Nevada’s Educational Future

President Ortiz gave an update on the “Portrait of a Learner” project during the President’s Report. After receiving feedback from multiple stakeholders, they synthesized the information and compiled it into one final portrait. The portrait is what we, as a state, want Nevada’s graduates to look like. We wanted to know what skills and traits students needed to learn outside the traditional educational program. Feel free to contact me if you or anyone else has any questions or comments on the portrait. 

So, what are the next steps? They already have 13 teams across the state beginning to align high-level concepts and building competencies around them. These include concepts such as finding joy in learning, critical thinking, communication skills, and more, which are outlined in the portrait. These teams will develop the competencies through this summer and the upcoming school year. President Ortiz stresses the importance of soft skills as students, parents, and business members have told us the importance of it within Nevada graduates. Ortiz ends the update by saying, “Let’s make sure our kids have all the skills they need to be successful, not just in college or in work, but in life, and this is really getting us to that point.” Please visit https://www.portrait.nvfutureoflearning.org/ to learn more about the upcoming steps and how to volunteer.

Legislative Update

Superintendent Ebert gave us a report on the latest legislative news on the education landscape. The Governor signed Assembly Bill 54 into place on June 5th, which shifted the roles around the hospital educational plan so that the school district and hospitals are tightly integrated; additionally, it added clarifying language in regards to “enrollment” and “attendance” as well as free and reduced-price data. Assembly Bill 65 was signed by the Governor on June 2nd, which changed the start date of kindergartens across the state to August 1st. This bill also cleaned up the definitions of “bullying” and “reporting” and approved the work-based learning plans. 

At the time of the meeting we were awaiting the Governor’s signature on Senate Bill 9, eliminating the EOC (End of Course) exams. While there was concern from some around this bill, the EOC is repetitive now that we have the ACT in our state to collect data, and all school districts administer final exams. The Governor did not sign it in time for the deadline. The legislature also adjusted some of the funding. We will have a deep dive into the legislative session during the Board’s next meeting on July 26th.

Safer Schools Funding

Superintendent Ebert also gave us an update about the allocation of funding from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). It gave 8.4 million dollars out to schools around the state. We are one of the top states to provide the money directly to the schools. “Our team works very, very hard to make sure that the money is not here at the department, but the money is in the schools where it can be expended,” Ebert reports. The Nevada Department of Education recently released a press release about the funding, which you can read here.

Boys Town and Opportunity 180

A few months ago, the Board of Education invited community organizations to come and present to the Board on what they do to help the educational landscape. This month, they invited two more organizations, Boys Town and Opportunity 180. If you know of any community organizations that support Nevada’s schools and may be interested in presenting at a board meeting, please email me at nevstuco.sboeducation@gmail.com. 

You can find the Boys Town presentation here and learn more about them on their website. 

You can find the Opportunity 180’s presentation here and learn more about them on their website.

Local Control, State Influence: Unraveling the School Start Time Conundrum

Before this meeting, President Ortiz asked the Board Members to come to the meeting with either three solutions to start times later or bring language for policy. I brought the following solutions:

1. Create a virtual “Zero Period” students can choose to do online before they come to school to allow some kids to leave an hour earlier. 
2. We could push every school start time back. For example, high school, middle school, and elementary school would start an hour later than they had previously.
3. Flip the times that high school and elementary schools start. 

I don’t see one of these working for every school and district. There are issues with every solution, and we will need to figure out how to make it work best for the students of Nevada. It will need to be a mix of everything as our state is so different and diverse.

We started the meeting with public comment from Susan Keema, the executive director of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents (NASS). She expresses that through her conversations with Nevada’s superintendents, she believes school start times should be left to local control. She says each community is different, and start times should be up to local citizens, boards, and school districts.

The conversation around school start times in this meeting revolved around the question of local control and the need for stakeholder involvement in determining start times. While there was some agreement that the current practices in some districts did not align with community feedback or best practice, there were differing opinions on how to address the issue. President Ortiz summarized some members’ views by suggesting we implement guardrails and offer flexibility and choice to students when they want to start, suggesting a regulation that requires a certain number of schools in a district to begin later and allowing students to transfer if it better suits their schedule. If we take that approach, we may require the districts to have only a certain percentage of schools starting early by a particular end date. Some members, such as Superintendent Stevens, emphasized the importance of local control and expressed concerns about unintended consequences and limitations on a district’s options. We will work on drafting language for start times over the next month and present it during the July meeting, with the aim of reaching a legislation meeting in the near future.

Local control is essential, but there comes a time when higher authorities need to step in. The start times we see across the state do not align with what we, as a Board, hear from their communities. Even if we hear from a community that they are okay with an early start time, we must ensure that sometimes quiet voices, such as students, are equally represented in the discussion. If we simply suggest to school districts that they should start closer to best practice, I’m not sure anything will get done. We must impel these districts to do what’s best for their students as they are currently not. The data shows that an early start time is detrimental to students’ mental and physical health and harms their academic success. We need to stop making excuses about why we can’t start schools later and start finding solutions.

In order for me to best represent the Nevada students, I need your help.  My school starts at 8:10 am, so I don’t fully experience the difficulties of early start times firsthand. However, I am committed to understanding and representing the needs of Nevada students. If you have any thoughts, ideas, concerns, or personal experiences related to later school start times, please email me at nevstuco.sboeducation@gmail.com or contact me another way. I value your input and look forward to hearing from all of you!

You can find the entire meeting materials HERE. You can also watch a full recording of the meeting HERE. The next meeting will be held on July 26th at 9 am. I’m going to Carson City for the July meeting, as all board members will meet in person! See you then!