Nevada has never excelled in education. Ranked consistently in the bottom five states for educational achievement, Nevada’s leaders in education are tackling the issues and looking to change education’s trajectory. Challenges of undervaluing education, chronic absenteeism amongst students, advancements in technology, overpopulated classrooms and a teacher shortage are among some of the top issues they are facing. Recently, a group of Nevada’s education leaders met at a roundtable sponsored by City National Bank and held in Las Vegas to discuss the challenges Nevada faces with education.
Connie Brennan, publisher and CEO of Nevada Business Magazine, served as moderator for the event. These monthly roundtables bring together different industries to discuss issues and solutions.
How Does Nevada Value Education?
Dr. DeRionne Pollard: The continued undervaluing of higher education in our region and the national conversations about who gets to go to college, who should not be in college and what the value proposition of college is, is something that keeps me awake at night. We have not yet had a substantive commitment around what an educational system should look like for Nevada. Until we can come up with a comprehensive notion of what that looks like, whether it be public, private, charter, K-12 or higher-rate graduate education, that [will continue to be a] problem.
Tami Hance-Lehr: Every student should believe that they have an option to go to college. And if they choose not to, they at least [should] have the option to be able to do so. The fact that we say some kids should not go or do not need to go is not what we want.
Melissa Mackedon: Whenever I hear anyone say that you do not need a college degree, [I point out] that they want [a college degree] for their own kid, but they are marginalizing everyone else’s kid [by saying] not everyone needs it. We have to think about that.
Dr. J. Kyle Dalpe: Forty-percent of our head count last year [was dually enrolled] and [we saw a] 17 percent enrollment [increase]. If a student in high school takes a dual enrollment course that shows the student that they can do college. Even if it is one class, we just tackled the access component and [students] know they can do it, they are successful in it, and we can move them into any program, whether it is at my college or another school in the state. If they have confidence and have been successful in those college courses in high school, that closes the gap from when they walk across the high school graduation stage. [Instead of saying], “Maybe I will wait a year or maybe I will park cars” [they consider higher education because] they are already linked into the system.
Dr. Renee Coffman: Those innovations are key when you can start to get dual degree credits in high school and create more efficient pathways for students who desire [a college education] and know where they want to go. One of the things that can intimidate students is the amount of time they have to spend to get a particular degree. We can help shorten [that time frame], with the dual credits at the high school level or the program that we have with Nevada State. [That program is a] truncated bachelor’s degree along with our pharmacy degree so the final year of the bachelor’s degree actually happens in our pharmacy program. The credits to our pharmacy program count for their bachelor’s. That makes a make a big difference to students. They do not want to waste their time.
Hance-Lehr: Every student should have the opportunity [to know] their options and all the things that they can do. We should be starting those conversations in middle school. If we can start these conversations earlier and put the seeds in their head that college is an option for everybody, should you choose that path, then we will be filling the roles that you all need us to fill in that particular space.
Dalpe: I have had parents tour campus and look at the welding lab and say, “This is great stuff, but my kid is going to go to college.” And I say, “This is college! And they need the training.” It is about the credential, but it is also about the training because high school [only] gets you to a certain level. Organizations like National Skills Coalition say that in Nevada, half the jobs require more than a high school [diploma] but less than a master’s degree.
Pollard: Only 27 percent of Nevadans, over the age of 25, have a baccalaureate degree. You need a baccalaureate degree to be a teacher. That is a full 10 percent behind our neighbor in Utah. You need more teachers to educate students who then stay in the system to graduate from high school, to go to college, whether that be a phenomenal community college or one of the other state institutions, hopefully to stay and teach in this state so that we do not export our greatest talent which is something that we are doing. That is a distinctive competency at Nevada State. 80 percent of our graduates stay in the state. There is a profound ecosystem that we have to talk about in order to craft that. [We need to have conversations] about us being more than just a hospitality community and more than just a sports community. [We need to] attract businesses that require investments in education, in infrastructure, and all the things that make people want to live in this community, and that is a challenge.
Andrew Priest: We do not invest enough in education. We do not invest enough in health care in Nevada. If you live in Utah, it is a pretty republican state, but you still pay taxes to help support [education and healthcare].
Pollard: [Education is undervalued in Southern Nevada] because we think that we are [only a hospitality community] and we do not have anything else. We do not understand the implications for an economy when you are only that and that is how you choose to define yourself. It is not a sustainable economy. Therefore, you are not able to recruit teachers to a region and you are not able to build the safety nets that are necessary that we see here. You [also] do not fund education.
Priest: We are a low-tax state, relatively speaking, Texas and Utah are also low-tax states, but they do not have the same problem as we have. Can we still be a low-tax state? Maybe not. I am not advocating for anything, [but] the money has to come from somewhere if you want the quality to go up.
Is Nevada Still Experiencing a Teacher Shortage?
Dr. Ercan Aydogdu: We have a lot of challenges, but the teacher shortage, including psychologists, special education teachers, pre-K teachers, and teachers [in general], which are fundamental for [students] in K-12 education, [has been significant].
Jhone Ebert: Statewide, there’s about 1400 [teacher] vacancies.
Mackedon: There are not enough teachers to go around, and it is creating an almost toxic competitive environment. Everyone is trying to get all of the licensed teachers, and it is a big problem because you end up with long term subs in classrooms.
Ebert: If there are four second-grade teachers [needed] within a school, and they have three of them filled, instead of having a long-term sub in one of those classrooms, [the school district] will divide the students up across the other classrooms. That increases the size [of the classroom]. In Nevada, we have had one of the [largest] class size ratios across the United States.
Mackedon: When I graduated from college 25 years ago, if you were a couple in Reno, and you were both teachers in Washoe County, you could afford to buy a house. But now, if you are a husband and a wife, and are both teachers, you are never owning a home in Washoe County. So even if one of my own kids [says they want to be] a teacher, [I will tell them] they are going to be poor. They are never going to have a house. It is reality. We need people to go into teaching, but if you can’t afford to buy a home in Washoe County now [based off the salary], who is going to choose that? [Teaching] is a hard job, it is a lot of work. It takes just as long as getting a computer science degree, [but that graduate] is going to be able to afford a home. We have to pay people enough to live, and we are not doing that.
Aydogdu: The problem with teacher’s salaries [in Nevada] is we are paying more than other states overall. Most states do not have mandatory state retirement. But we pay 33 percent retirement on top of a contracted salary. Most of the other states are getting a deduction from the teacher’s salary [into the teacher’s future]. Some states will match 6 percent or 7 percent [in a 401K]. For young teachers, if you have something like that option, you can attract them. But they do not understand that [Nevada] is paying to invest for their future They [only] look at their paycheck. That is our challenge here in Nevada. It is a great thing, but [investing] 33 percent is too much.
Ebert: In many school districts, not the two largest school districts but in the rural areas, this is the first year they are starting fully staffed. They attribute that to the funding that was made available [at the last legislative session with the] 18 percent to 20 percent increase in pay and the incentives. We are on a trajectory upward.
Are Students Showing up for Classes?
Coffman: [Absenteeism is not an issue] with professional programs because it is essential for them to be there.
Joe Ernst: There are plenty of challenges that we are facing in [K-12] education. One of the ones that we are looking at right now is around chronic absenteeism and working to take some substantial steps forward in that area, knowing that it will lead to improved outcomes for students as well.
Aydogdu: [Absenteeism became a significant issue] after COVID. Most businesses [moved to] working from home and students and parents learned to study from home.
Ernst: We are about 10 percent higher right now than we were pre-pandemic [with students not showing up for school]. The grade levels with the highest percentage of chronic absenteeism are with 11th and 12th graders.
Hance-Lehr: There were [already] some challenges before the pandemic [with absenteeism] and a lot of that had to do with transportation. [During the pandemic though] some of our kiddos had to take second jobs to put food on the table and childcare was certainly an issue then. That has been enhanced since the pandemic. The other thing that we are seeing is that nowadays, you do not go to work or school when you are sick. Before if [your child] had a fever, [you would still send them to] school. But now, [if they are] coughing [you tell them to] stay home. Our families do not have the resources and the network to be able to keep their kids home with someone else to watch them while the other kids go to school. [For example], if I have a fourth grader and [their] younger sibling is sick, guess is staying home to watch the kids? It is our fourth grader. That is a reality that happens daily in our schools. The lack of a network of support and the lack of childcare plays a really large role in [chronic absenteeism].
Pollard: If a [student’s] child is sick and they do not have adequate support structures, they are going to stay home [to care for their sick child]. If they can’t afford transportation [they will also stay home]. That is a huge issue in Clark County. Maybe 20 percent of our students come from North Las Vegas and if they are coming from North Las Vegas to the Southern part of Henderson on public transportation [that is] an hour and a half to two hours. That is sometimes a [decision] they are not going to make. The complexity of the lived experience is manifesting itself in the little people’s lives that we are seeing, as well as the adults. [It is a challenge to help them understand] the value proposition of being in class every day.
Dalpe: In the rural community, it is not the time frame on the public transportation [that is a contributor to absenteeism], it is the time frame of driving, period. It could be an hour and a half [drive] to class, and then there is [still] the whole class time [to consider]. Childcare too has become a bigger issue. We do not track attendance the same way they do in K-12, but I have seen the preference of students wanting to take things online, even though they sometimes say they want the classroom experience.
Mackedon: Charter schools have never had access to transportation funding until this last year and have [always blamed] transportation for chronic absenteeism. This school year will be the first year where they are fully implementing transportation from day one to the end. I am eager to see the data and see if it helped [with students not coming to school] or if it is [due to other reasons].
Pollard: Our students, particularly in access-based institutions, are having to make choices between working and going to school. If they are members of the gig economy, which we are seeing more of our students doing, and they [find out they] can pick up an Uber drive versus being able to have to come to class, [that is a dilemma for them].
Hance-Lehr: One-to-one connection with an adult on campus or somebody that sees you and believes in you, is super important to also get kids to want to come to school. If there is someone checking in on you, high fiving you and is happy to see you [that makes a difference]. Our educators are amazing, but there are not enough of them and classes are a little on the larger side. [It is essential that our schools have a] community of support and our students feel like that they have a connection on a school campus.
Aydogdu: The mental health [of students], which is related to COVID [also plays a role in absenteeism]. If there are no resources at the school, parents sometimes do not feel safe sending their kids to school. We are also having a lot of chronic absenteeism at [our campus located near Nellis Air Force Base]. That is because there are some parents that work overseas and when they visit for one or two weeks, they do not want to send their kid [to school] because they only get to spend the time with their kids [for a brief time].
Hance-Lehr: When we talk about mental health, some of our kids did not thrive in an online environment [during the pandemic]. Some of our kids lost the ability to have social interactions with other students and so walking into a school building is very overwhelming for them. They do not know how to interact. They do not feel safe and that is another reason why kids do not want to go to school.
What Role Does AI and Technology Play in Education?
Pollard: [AI] is challenging all of us within the classroom and [our concept of] what we think about the nature of knowledge. But most importantly, [it challenges] how we comport ourselves in terms of our colleagues within the workforce. At the end of the day, how do we make sure that we are still using these things as assets rather than replacements?
Dalpe: In the classroom, it has become a discussion of how [AI] is used. It has [created] whole new [challenges for educators] of skimming the internet for pre-written papers or having to use Turnitin.com and trying to figure out how to get ahead of [plagiarism due to the technology].
Pollard: The key is using it as a tool. [The question is] how do we co-op these instruments as assets rather than replacements? That is what we [need to be] spending our time talking about. Also, how does that change the nature of work within our organizations?
Dalpe: All schools [are setting] parameters around [AI] to make sure that it is not abused in the classroom, but can be used appropriately because it is going to be the future. We used to talk to [Amazon’s] Alexa, but that seems almost remedial now with the way that AI is working on ChatGPT on your phone. It can do so much for you. And that is going to be the future, so it needs to be blended in with all the things we do.
Gil Lopez: One [advantage of technology in the classroom is] active access to AI. If someone does not speak a language, AI does a tremendous job translating it. It knows the colloquial terms, the implications between different cultures, and different ways of speaking. It is going to add a lot to both access through language and is also becoming a parody where if you have a very smart student, who maybe does not know the language, you tell AI your ideas and how it is all connected, and it is going to be grammatically correct. [The student] is not going to get [penalized] because they do not know the language. The idea of what is behind that paper is there. We still have a lot of questions [about AI in the classroom] but it is a language access and equality equity issue, too
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