LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — School might be out for the summer, but we are continuing to bring your concerns surrounding the Clark County School District directly to our valley's educational leaders.
Here are just a few follow-ups I got recently with CCSD's Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning:
CCSD looks to community organizations and parents to help boost student literacy
The Clark County School District now has a strategic plan in place — and with it, a clearer picture of how community organizations and parents can play a role in improving student literacy.
About a year ago, Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dr. Jesse Welsh said the district would engage community stakeholders as part of building that plan.
Now that the plan exists, the district is moving forward with those partnerships.
"There's a number of initiatives that we have going, working with some of our community partners to really help make awareness out there in terms of literacy," Welsh said. "Parents sometimes, they want to help, they just don't know what to do, so trying to work with some of those parents understand how they can help with what their kids are learning."
That includes efforts as straightforward as encouraging parents to read with their children at home.
Last school year, CCSD announced a number of programs and partnerships to support literacy, including Read With Me, a community-wide initiative to help boost reading scores.
The district also launched Project Rise, a partnership with the College Football Playoff Foundation to help children with reading challenges like dyslexia.
Hear more of my conversation with Welsh here:
CCSD working to close achievement gaps between student groups
Black and Hispanic students continue to lag behind their white and Asian counterparts in the Clark County School District, and the district's deputy superintendent says having the right tools — and knowing how to use them — is the key to closing that gap.
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jesse Welsh said the district's approach centers on identifying where individual students are struggling and targeting those specific gaps.
"It's really about meeting students where they are, identifying where the gaps are in learning for students and being able to target those gaps," Welsh said.
Welsh said consistency in classroom expectations is also central to the district's strategy.
"As you saw in our strategic plan, we're working on making sure that consistency in terms of the level of expectations within each classroom, that it's on grade-level standards, that it's aligned to the pacing, is happening everywhere. I think that's how we're going to push that needle," Welsh said.
Here's more of my conversation with Welsh:
CCSD math teachers attend summer training sessions to boost student proficiency
Even with school out for the summer, Clark County School District educators are already preparing for next school year — and improving math proficiency is a top priority.
A few days after school let out, math teachers attended training sessions designed to help them learn different strategies to better engage students. Those sessions are taught by other teachers within the district, creating a teacher-to-teacher model aimed at benefiting students.
I saw teachers sharing examples of approaches that work for them and demonstrating how they connect fun activities back to math concepts.
It is the fifth year the district has run the program.
CCSD was recently recognized as one of the districts on the rise nationally when it comes to math, according to a scorecard. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jesse Welsh said the recognition is encouraging, but there is still work to do.
"We are so that is really exciting. We still have a lot of work to do in mathematics, but we are very excited that we are on the right track and being recognized as one of the districts leading the nation in terms of progress and mathematics," Welsh said.
The district followed the math session with one focused on science.
If you have any questions surrounding CCSD, you can send them to me and I'll work to get answers before the start of the next school year. You can reach me at Justin.Hinton@KTNV.com or just click on the banner below:
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