Council grills CCSD official

Once each quarter, Dr. Deanna Jaskolski, regional superintendent for region 3 of the Clark County School District (which includes Boulder City) presents a report to the city council about the city’s four local public schools.

She last made that report on March 11.

As is typical, she highlighted the positive: athletic victories, cheerleading competitions, guitar building, etc. But, also typically, council members are less interested in that info than they are in quizzing Jaskolski about student proficiency.

Councilwoman Cokie Booth led off with the question. “It looks like a lot of our children went down instead of up and I, living in Boulder City, think we should all be about an 80, that’s how I look at it but I was really kind of surprised to see that, and I’m just wondering why do we think that, we’re right around 50% instead of up in the 80s?” she asked.

Booth continued, “And also I’m just kind of shocked about the science in grade 10 is at 6.7% proficiency. I just think, how are we going to build any astronauts that way?”

Indeed, every category in the CCSD report was down from the 2022-2023 school year and 60% were lower than in the 2021-2022 school year.

The best news is that 63% of 11th graders are proficient in English/Language Arts. But that is down from almost 71% in 2022-2023.

Areas where less than half of students are proficient include grades six to eight in math (38%, down from 42%), grade 11 in math (40%, down from 42%), grade five in science (26%, down from 29%) and grade 10 science at a dismal 6.7% which is down from 24% in 2022-2023.

The data is broken down into racial groups with Asian, Native American and Native Hawaiian students all scoring 100% in English/Language Arts in all grade levels except Asian students in grades six to eight where they were at 83%. Meanwhile, white students were at 60-62% in the same category except in grades six to eight where they were at 64%.

Multi-racial in that category, students were at 57% in the category except for grade 11 students,where the score shot up to 78%. Black students were at 43% in grades three to five, 0% in grades six to eight and 67% in grade 11.

Hispanic student were at 40% in grades three to five, 57% in grades six to eight and 60% in grade 11.

English/Language Arts scores are generally significantly higher than math or science scores across all grade levels and most racial categories.

Despite the disappointing scores, all Boulder City schools score three stars or higher (out of five) in the Nevada School Performance Framework. The report did not specify anything more than at least three stars in ranking.

Another data point was the percentage of high school students in advanced placement courses, which dropped sharply in the current school year in comparison to previous years. (Note that AP numbers are based on enrollment, not a test and so data for that category for this school year is available now.)

In a bit of good news, chronic absenteeism (defined as students who miss at least 10% of school days) were down across the city’s four public schools.

When it comes to behavior issues, no students have been expelled since at least 2021. Suspensions were up by almost 25% between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years with white students accounting for almost all suspensions.

By way of comparison, Henderson and city of Las Vegas students scored more than twice as well in science in 10th grade while students in North Las Vegas are tied with BC.

And Jaskolski did not have an answer that appeared to satisfy the council, saying only the the district is reviewing its books and teaching materials.

Councilwoman Sherri Jorgensen, a retired teacher, pounced on the materials explanation.

“Say a year ago, right? When it was at 24%. I mean, it’s across the board if you look at the district as a whole. Fifth grade went down from 16.5 to 12.2. Sixth to eighth grade went from 64.7 to 56. Tenth grade went from 8.7 to 9.4 and that’s just the district as a whole. The only one — yay — six through eight went up in science for us and congratulations on that. But my question is, what’s the difference between the materials they had the year before when they got 24.1% and last year when they got 6.7?”

Jaskolski had little explanation but said she would work with Amy Wagner, principal of Boulder City High School, to provide “more detailed information.”

Jorgensen was not finished. “It kind of leaves me wondering if our kids will be prepared to enter college. I just think when you see numbers at this level that’s critical. I mean 6%, you can’t go much lower for next year. And we’re in Boulder City and I know that they do a great job. We have great teachers. We have great things that are going. So, I don’t know what the disconnect is, but I surely would love to see a connect and I don’t know if more materials is the answer.”