Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro’s sweeping education bill will be heard Wednesday afternoon in the Senate Committee on Education as the clock ticks toward the end of the legislative session.
Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, first announced her Education through Accountability, Transparency, and Efficiency (EDUCATE) Act in December. It was formally introduced at the end of April. It proposed expanding pre-K programs and improving accountability measures for schools.
“I believe wholeheartedly in the promise of public education, and that’s why I’m excited to introduce this bill,” Cannizzaro said in an April statement. “These reforms can improve outcomes for students, help us hire and retain great teachers and staff, and give parents more confidence in our educational system.”
Gov. Joe Lombardo also has a sweeping education bill called the Nevada Accountability in Education Act, which he unveiled at the end of April, but the bill text is still not finished.
Both Lombardo’s and Cannizzaro’s legislation include hefty price tags, and the ability to see each proposal through remains murky with lower-than-expected revenue in the next biennium.
Cannizzaro’s bill has a ballpark cost of more than $24 million. The Nevada Department of Education estimated it would cost the department over $12 million over the next biennium, according to the bill’s fiscal notes. The State Public Charter School Authority estimated the fiscal impact on it also would be another nearly $12 million.
Here’s a few highlights of what Cannizzaro’s bill proposes:
A plan to improve achievement — with consequences for principals.
Senate Bill 460 requires the State Board of Education to prepare a plan to improve the academic achievement of pupils enrolled in public elementary schools — including improvements in English, math and science — and professional development requirements for teachers in elementary schools.
If a school does not meet the goals outlined in the plan, the principal will face consequences, including removal from their position or a requirement to re-apply to the position.
School District Oversight Board
The bill would create a School District Oversight Board that would work to improve accountability for school districts by addressing the cause of a state of emergency for a school district.
The board would be chaired by the governor and be made up of six members. Two non-legislator members would be appointed by the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader. Other members would include the director of the Office of Finance, the superintendent of public instruction, and a teacher who is employed at a school in the district in question appointed by the Legislative Commission.
The board would convene if the governor, state board or chair of the Legislative Commission issues a written complaint to the school district’s board of trustees about a failure to comply with state law, and the board of trustees does not provide a satisfactory plan of correction.
Meetings would be open to the public but would otherwise be exempt from the provisions of the Open Meeting Law, according to the bill’s text.
A 17-to-1 teacher vs. administrator ratio
The bill requires 17 teachers for every one administrator within a school district, and it requires boards of trustees to prioritize filling classroom-based positions before non-classroom based positions.
At CCSD, the ratio of teachers to administrators was about 16.3-to-1 in 2015 but fell to 14.2-to-1 by 2023, according to a previous Las Vegas Review-Journal report.
Changes for charter schools
The bill allows school trustees in some districts to object to the placement of a proposed public charter school.
After receiving a notice of objection, the State Public Charter School Authority would issue a finding and decide whether to approve the proposed charter school. A school board could appeal the authority’s ruling to the State Board of Education, which would have 10 days to respond with a decision.
The bill also expands the membership of the State Public Charter School Authority from nine to 11 members and requires more members to be teachers.
It requires every teacher at a charter school, with some exceptions, to hold a license to teach in Nevada, increasing the current requirement that 80 percent of teachers at a charter school have a license.
Studying teacher recruitment and retention
Cannizzaro’s bill creates the Commission on Recruitment and Retention within Nevada’s Department of Education, requiring the commission to study issues relating to recruitment and retention of educators in the state.
It would dissolve the Nevada State Teacher and Education Support Professional Recruitment and Retention Advisory Task Force.
To help with teacher apprenticeships, the EDUCATE Act also creates the Nevada Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Support Account and the Nevada Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Support Program
Expanding Pre-K
The bill expands eligibility to receive grants through the Early Childhood Literacy and Readiness Account to private, for-profit organizations like pre-K programs and requires that programs supported by the grants serve a child regardless of their economic status.
Superintendent requirements
The bill establishes rules for the board of trustees of Clark and Washoe counties school districts for hiring a superintendent, including requiring that a superintendent to have at least six years of teaching experience or have served as a chief finance officer or administrator of an entity with at least a $275 million budget.
Salary incentive program negotiated with unions
The bill requires each large school district to establish through negotiations with an employee organization, such as a teacher’s union, a salary incentive program for professional growth for teachers and principals.
It also sets forth requirements for the agreement to provide a salary increase through the program and requires school trustees to reserve for each fiscal year “an amount of money sufficient to provide such agreed upon increases in salaries.”
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.
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