192 laws went into effect on July 1. 2 News Nevada has covered some that are centered around education, but there are some big ones looking to tackle a lot of different aspects.
The Silver State has ranked around the bottom when it comes to education ratings for quite some time.
Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo had a bill, AB584, centered around education, but ultimately it did not make it through.
However, parts of that legislation were added into Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro's education bill that did pass out of the 2025 Nevada Legislative Session.
"What you see in Senate Bill 460 is a result of maybe a month of hard discussions and building the two bills together to create the bill that passed," said Steve Canavero, Interim Superintendent of Public Instruction, Nevada Department of Education.
There are a lot of themes in the law that center around efficiency, literacy, and transparency. However, a huge focal point is accountability.
The Governor spoke about this in his State of the State Address at the beginning of the year, but it will take some time before families start to see the changes.
"It's going to take a while to plan and to develop. They're giving us the year to build in that work," Canavero said.
Starting July 1, focus will be all about planning how to implement this massive law. Canavero says the Legislature laid out a timeline for implementation.
That new accountability system isn't expected to go into effect for another two years, at least.
"What 460 has done is introduce a new aspect to our accountability system and that now holds districts accountable," Canavero said.
Nevada does have stipulations in place for rating traditional public schools. It's known as the Nevada School Performance Framework.Â
It's based on a one-to-five-star rating for each school. The more stars, the higher the chance the school has at being rewarded. The less, then the chances of needing additional help increase.
Now, sights will also be set on school districts as a while, and it won't just be on school performance, but they will also look into governing boards.
"There's been some, I think, statewide issues around instability around the board level and so there is accountability for districts to ensure that they're running and that they're being governed by elected trustees to get the work done," Canavero said.
It will also include a new tiered system. A district can be deemed as low-performing, and if the district doesn't improve then it can be labeled as underperforming where a state monitor may be assigned to the district for oversight.
"There are targeted oversights and sort of more significant accountability measures that could be applied to the district level, and this is where this entity and oversight board, Public Education Oversight Board, would have a role," Canavero said.
This board is also new in this law. It'll include input from the Governor, Speaker, and Senate Majority Leader.
Canavero says that next year they will have to develop a system for how the districts will be rated. They do not know how exactly at this time.
A big portion from the Governor's bill that's not included in the law is the component that could have turned underperforming schools into charter or innovation schools.
Other priorities of the Governor that were passed in another piece of legislation, AB533, include options for open enrollment and help with funding for transportation for students moving out of one- or two-star schools into higher performing ones.
Those things Canavero says families can expect to see done first, but not at least for another year.
"The Governor was very clear that every student should have the opportunity, that families should have the opportunity, to choose schools especially if they are in a one or a two-star school, the two lowest ratings across the state," Canavero said. "So, what that means is every district is a system of open enrollment, meaning a student that's traditionally zoned for a school given the address of the student's residence, that student could then participate and attend a different school through this provision of open enrollment at the district level."
Canavero did mention that Clark County and Washoe County have similar systems in place and would just have to make some minor tweaks.
He says this next year is for how districts determine vacancies at a particular school or open seating where students can move from one school to another.
"Those kinds of details will be what we spend our next six to eight months working out," Canavero said.
Also included in the law is that districts, teachers, and principals will be able to petition to remove redundant reporting.
"Efficiency is a major theme for the Governor and so this fits within that body of work," Canavero said.
There will also be changes to literacy from the law.
"So, the state is formally making the transition to the Science of Reading framework, which is as the name implies, it's an approach to literacy and an approach to reading that's grounded in the research and grounded in the science," he said. "So statewide we'll be spending time working on providing professional development to teachers and new licensing standards."
The Interim Superintendent says the law also focuses on increasing transparency.
