LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Clark County School District Interim Superintendent Dr. Brenda Larsen-Mitchell and other district leaders delivered the 2025 State of the Schools address.
"We are making progress in the Clark County School District, " said Larsen-Mitchell. "I will be the first one to say, we are not where we need to be."
Larsen Mitchell delivered the address to staff and administrators Wednesday at Del Sol Academy.
She said there's been improvements with teacher recruitment and retainment.
Larsen-Mitchell told the crowd there a 96% classroom fill rate with licensed educators. The district also reported a 94 percent licensed employee retention rate.
CCSD Chief Human Resource officer RoAnn Triana told the audience the district's outreach goes worldwide.
"We are hosting teachers from the Philippines, Kenya, Jamaica, and Colombia. We started this school year with a 13 percent decrease in classrooms vacancies, that is 25 percent less than the year prior to that," said Triana.
The district tells us they have also made headway with chronic absenteeism.
So far this school year, attendance officers have made 20,000 thousands home visits in an attempt to reconnect students with the classroom.
Last school year, they made 32,000 visits.
"For quarter one this year compared to quarter one last year, right now, we are at 26.6% at chronic absenteeism. We are three percentage points lower, first semester this year, than where were last year. And that is coming off the 9 percentage point decrease that we made in the last two years," Said Larsen-Mitchell. "Very grateful to our schools who are working with their families and their kids to get them engaged."
Last October, Channel 13 told you about the "Everyday Matters" campaign.
Attendance officers go door-to-door offering students and their families encouragement and resources in a supportive rather than punitive approach.
"We really tried to change the narrative from punitive to positive building relationships and providing resources," Danielle Jones, Director of Education Services.
And in another key development, CCSD also reported an 11 percent decrease in suspensions and a 17 percent decrease in expulsions.
Larsen Mitchell told Channel 13 she struggled with the budget.
Last summer, Channel 13 told you about the budget issues CCSD was grappling with.
One concerns was at the school level and the other at the district level.
At the school level, the issues were caused by inaccurate calculations of at-risk funding, that’s money given to schools for students who need extra support.
At the district level, CCSD reported a roughly $10 million shortfall. The district blamed cyber security and litigation costs.
The deficit has since been paid off with the district’s unassigned ending fund balance.
“We’ve built some tight systems and structures to breakdown silos and to improve processes," said Larsen Mitchell.
You can watch that presentation here:
It comes as board members prepare to resume the search for a superintendent. The updated timeline indicates the application deadline is Feb. 5, one week from today. The official hiring and contract approval will take place during the March 27 board meeting.
