LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Students will be back in the classroom at the Clark County School District on Monday.
The district’s superintendent, Jhone Ebert, was made available for one-on-one interviews.
Below is that conversation where Ebert discussed a range of things, including boosting student performance, extending the school day, pushing back school start times, and increasing student safety.
The interview has been edited for clarity.
Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert discusses school safety and school start times ahead of the 2025 -2026 school year. (KLAS)
8 News Now: We were talking before this started about everything you have going on for the first day. Any jitters? Or what are you experiencing?
Jhone Ebert: Oh, yes. Absolutely, butterflies. It’s not my first day of school, obviously, but it is my first day as the superintendent for the Clark County School District. I’m still waking up before the alarm goes off, and excited to get everyone in the classrooms and let’s get going for the 2025-2026 school year.
8 News Now: With your background as the superintendent of public instruction, you’ve seen the English Language Arts and math scores. I think next month is when the Nevada Department of Education releases them [for the previous school year], and you’ve seen the upward trajectory the state has made in all schools in the state, specifically for CCSD. What do you expect to see in those numbers when they come out next month? And how do you think you can supercharge student performance?
Jhone Ebert: Yeah, those numbers will come out on September 15. We do have a preliminary indication just looking at the raw data. It’s not official that we will have progress made in several areas. Attributable to that is the consistency of staff, right? Keeping the staff that we have and making sure they’re in the schools. That they’re trained. That we have the materials that the teachers need, which were provided out of ESSER funds three years ago. So, using the materials, being consistent, having kids in the classroom. That is a huge piece as well. You can’t be successful as a student if you’re not in school.
And you know, statewide, this is when it’s positive to have a drop. The chronic absenteeism rate it dropped nine percentage points statewide. So, getting back to the norm and the pre-pandemic, I fully expect this time next year we’re going to be way above the pre-pandemic scores. We’ll wait for the official ones this year. But yes, upward trend, fully expect it and expect more coming out of this year.
8 News Now: One of the things you mentioned when you were being interviewed as a candidate for superintendent was longer school days. How is that going?
Jhone Ebert: Yeah, so we do have schools already that have additional time added to their instructional day. And we also have schools that have added days. So, it is not something new for the Clark County School District. It is something, though, that we do need to address. We are comparing ourselves, you just asked about test scores. We’re comparing ourselves to students and schools that have half an hour, 40 minutes longer school day than we do here, as well as a longer school year. And it’s about time, you know, how much interaction and time do our children have with our amazing teachers and our classrooms, with the supports that comes along in school, and the co-curricular activities just club, dance, theater, music, band. All of those activities in after school. So, yes. Want to see that happen. We obviously do need to seek more funding to have that happen with the legislature. But it’s something that is needed and, quite frankly, that our children deserve.
8 News Now: You know, as a state superintendent, you, in your previous role, you were there when the Nevada Department of Education, the Board of Education, tried to push back high school start times. At the time, CCSD was against it. But now that you’re the superintendent of CCSD, what’s your stance on pushing back high school start times?
Jhone Ebert: We are going to put out a survey this fall that asks our community exactly that. What do they see in school start times? The prior administration, there were a lot of concerns in regard do we have enough buses to be able to do that work. I’ve had the team here look at do we have enough buses. Can we move even just 30 minutes so that the high schools don’t start any earlier than 7:30? That just moves everything. Thirty minutes and it’s doable. But I do want to go out and ask the community where they would like to see this. We know in other states there are laws already in place where school start time, you don’t start before 8 a.m., and in some places, 8:30 a.m. We have our high schools now starting at 7 a.m. And so in some instances, they’re on buses starting at 6 a.m. when they should be sleeping.
8 News Now: Nevada lawmakers passed open enrollment. How do you see that playing out [at CCSD]?
Jhone Ebert: We have had open enrollment in CCSD for many years, actually decades. Let me back up. It’s the construct of open enrollment that has been different. So, school choice has been made available in the Clark County School District. We recently called it COSA and thousands of people have been participating in school choice that way. We’re clearing the air. We realize people don’t understand COSA, but they understand open enrollment – what you just said. So, changing the name to open enrollment. Parents do have the opportunity to participate in that. If there are seats available at the school that they would like their child to attend, then there is a process that we follow, and then we fill those seats until the school is full.
8 News Now: So the law doesn’t conflict with COSA?
Jhone Ebert: It just amplifies. And that’s what we found that there was some confusion there.
8 News Now: As the state superintendent, because you have that unique background where you saw across the state what’s going on and you know, the numbers and the data. There’s an increase in parents choosing charter schools over public schools. Is there a concern next month when you finally get a tally on enrollment numbers? Is it going to be lower because now your schools are competing with charter schools?
Jhone Ebert: I have been tracking the data right now, as we’re sitting here, we’re about the exactly the same where we were this time last year. So, enrollment today is not going down, but we are also, we’re back up. I also do believe in school choice, whether it’s charter, private school or homeschool. I want though the Clark County School District to be the family’s first choice. What I found now, I’m day 81 in the job. What I found so far is that there is this piece of the universe where people don’t know CCSD, and they’re opting out before they even know their neighborhood school. And we need to change that narrative. And so thank you again. You know, the media needs to get out there and show what we have.
So we’re nationally known in many areas and gold stars in so many areas. But that feeling of, you know, this community and school has not been positive over the last few years. Every kid that I have spoken with and family, they’re excited to get back to school. They’re excited to see CCSD, and I want that excitement for every child. So, we’re driving for full transparency where we’re doing well, where we’re not doing well, you know, and that’s what I’ve asked you…you need to report where we’re not doing well. Please make sure it’s just fair and accurate, where, parents have the right information to make the right choice.
It could be a neighborhood school that they want to go to, or they want to go to a magnet school because there’s aviation at Rancho High School, and they want their child to become a pilot. All of those pieces coming together and changing the narrative. We are going to be the destination school district. We’re a destination community. We’re going to be the destination school district.
8 News Now: The last question I had is just looking forward. What more in terms of safety can CCSD do to keep guns out of the campus and reduce violence?
Jhone Ebert: So the number of guns on campus has gone down slightly. I know that you report on it really well. Thank you again. There’s one instance, you know, report the facts. We need to make sure that families that do have guns in the home, that they are locked up, that our students do not have access to those sorts of guns. We also need to make sure that our students are saying something when they know or hear. If there’s even just a rumor going around that they use either SafeVoice, or that they tell their teacher right away. They tell their principal, any adult on campus. And then on top of all of that, this is not going to be tolerated in the Clark County School District, ever. And as an entire community, it’s going to take all of us to make sure our schools are safe, whether it is in regard to weapons, whether it’s the traffic safety around our schools, whether it is just the entire environment, health and safety. First and foremost, you can’t have a good learning environment if the school is not safe. And that’s important to me.
8 News Now: The metal detectors at every high school are they permanent?
Jhone Ebert: We do the random checks. We will have them the first week of school. Absolutely. We will have them out. Our school police, we our coordinated with our emergency team. They will be activated that whole first day just to get make sure that everybody’s rolling. Our buses are rolling. Well, we’re coordinated with Metro, and the other municipalities, so that, you know making sure we have a tight partnership, and communication will help eradicate those issues that we have now.
8 News Now: All right. Thank you so much. I wish you the best of luck. You and the 18,000 licensed staff members.
Jhone Ebert: About 18,000 teachers, 44,000 employees. Total for 300,000 kids. If I can add just one word. Traffic in our city. When you think about that, 300,000 children that have been at home over the summer and their parents are going to start moving on Monday. Leave early, leave 10 to 15 minutes early. Give grace to our new bus drivers as they were out practicing their routes. If we all just take a little more time and grace and what we’re doing will be successful.
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