Nevada subcommittee reviews 'grad score' and options for redefining at‑risk funding

The State Board of Education''s subcommittee on at‑risk funding spent its meeting reviewing legislative guidance and budget closings and debating whether to keep, replace or refine the "grad score" method the state used to identify students eligible for at‑risk funding.

The discussion centered on two linked facts: the Legislature and the budget used the grad score to set funding for the 2025–26 school year, and any change the board adopts cannot be operationalized until a later fiscal year once new October 1 data are pulled and validated.

Deputy Superintendent Peterson outlined the immediate fiscal constraint: "for the purposes of the budget development and implementation ... the grad score would be used for funding purposes for the fiscal year '26," and any alternative metric could be used beginning in fiscal year '27 only after the department established and validated a new count. She warned that the October 1 data pull and subsequent validation process typically require weeks to months and that the department must model changes before they become effective.

Why it matters: the grad score''a proprietary algorithm applied to Infinite Campus records''reduced the number of pupils counted as at risk this biennium, producing a substantially smaller funding pool than prior years. That drop, participants said, affects planning for districts and charters and constrains what the board can reallocate for FY27 unless the Legislature or budget process adjusts funding.

Public comment and superintendents' input underscored three recurring concerns: volatility in counts and funding year to year, lack of transparency because the grad score is proprietary, and practical differences among districts in absorbing funding swings. Eddie Ablister, speaking for TriStrategy's Academica Nevada, told the panel that "the intent of at risk has historically and always been ... economically disadvantaged," and urged the subcommittee to favor metrics that more directly follow economically disadvantaged students.

Subcommittee members debated alternatives and tradeoffs. Member AJ Coming said he favored direct certification as a reliable proxy for economic need and warned against returning to broad free/reduced‑price lunch measures: "I don't think free and reduced lunch going back to that is the direction we wanna go," he said, citing complications such as the Community Eligibility Provision that obscure who is served. Member Annette Dawson Owens said multiple factors should be considered and that districts differ: "poverty is probably one of the biggest factors ... but there may be multiple factors ... a combined measure might serve the students well."

Board members and staff discussed several concrete options to evaluate at the subcommittee's next meeting: (1) use direct certification (SNAP, TANF/TAF, Medicaid) and McKinney‑Vento homeless/foster indicators as a principal economic anchor; (2) add a compact academic element (SBAC/Smarter Balanced proficiency in grades 3–8, math/ELA for earlier grades, and credit‑deficiency flags in high school); (3) apply business rules to remove students already funded at higher weights (special education, EL) before calculating a statewide quintile; or (4) consider a proportional or per‑pupil distribution model with district‑level discretion on use. Staff and members repeatedly recommended modelling each option to show fiscal winners and losers before any adoption.

The subcommittee asked the Department of Education to run data pulls to inform that modelling: the group requested counts and cross‑tabs of direct certification, McKinney‑Vento homeless and foster indicators, English learner and IEP overlap, and statewide academic proficiency measures. Member Amber noted the need for impact analysis: "it should be imperative that we have a definition that allows us to get down to the student level at least enough so that we can measure impact and effectiveness of the money."

Several members also raised implementation questions separate from definition: whether the at‑risk funding should be defined and applied statewide versus proportionally at the district level, whether to concentrate funding on earlier grades for proven early‑intervention benefit, and whether a transition plan would be needed if a new definition produced abrupt funding shifts for some districts.

Actions and next steps: the subcommittee did not adopt a new at‑risk definition at the meeting. Members voted to approve a flexible agenda earlier in the session and later voted to schedule a follow‑up subcommittee meeting on June 30 at 9 a.m. to review Department data and proposed evaluation criteria. Staff said they will share the analysis with commission and district stakeholders before the next meeting and recommended the State Board consider a regulation and hearing schedule timed to allow modelling and LegCom review before operational changes would be required.

Context and numbers cited in the meeting: staff recalled that using the earlier FRL (free and reduced lunch) counts in FY23 produced roughly 271,000 pupils and about $66 million in at‑risk funding lines, while the move to grad score reduced the identified at‑risk pupil count substantially (staff cited a decrease from about 63,325 in FY25 to 50,074 in FY26 after de‑duplication with IEP/EL). Deputy Superintendent Peterson emphasized these were the counts used to fix the FY26 budget and that a corrected or alternative count would not be in effect until the FY27 budget cycle once the October 1 pull has been validated and modelled.

The subcommittee requested the department run cross‑tabulations and historical analyses (including the share of students who did not graduate in recent cohorts who had direct certification) to inform the group''s next meeting and potential regulatory work. Chair and members signaled they expect further meetings, modelling and stakeholder outreach before recommending any regulatory change to the full State Board of Education.