KVIG Informative

Clark County’s traditional schools are bleeding students and money. Its STEM and career-training magnet schools are doing the opposite — even as the district can’t find enough math and science teachers to go around.

The Clark County School District’s Board of School Trustees renewed a critical labor shortage designation effective July 1 covering math, science and several other subject areas — a designation the district has renewed nearly every year since at least 2019, according to district records.

The renewal comes as CCSD projects it will lose roughly 25,000 more students over the next five years, a decline officials say could cut school funding by nearly a quarter-billion dollars by 2030, according to Rick Baldwin, the district’s director of comprehensive planning.

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One category of schools is moving in the opposite direction. Enrollment at CCSD’s STEM magnet schools and career and technical academies has grown even as the broader district shrinks, according to district enrollment data. At Kenny Guinn STEM Academy, students take specialized courses in computer design, astronomy and forensics not available at most traditional middle schools.

East Career and Technical Academy has grown its student population over the past decade by offering students industry certifications alongside their diplomas — culinary certification through the American Culinary Federation, welding certification, and hands-on experience running the campus’s on-site preschool for students pursuing teaching careers.

School officials say most traditional schools, already squeezed by declining enrollment and shrinking budgets, can’t afford to add the trade-oriented programs driving growth at CTA campuses. The district’s own five-year strategic plan, approved unanimously by the school board in May, sets a goal that by 2031, every CCSD graduate will leave with career-ready skills and experience.

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The plan doesn’t say how the district intends to staff the math and science classrooms that feed those career pathways in the first place. Math and science teaching positions have remained on the district’s critical shortage list continuously even as three other previously short-staffed subject areas were removed from the list this year due to a surplus of licensed candidates.

CCSD wants every graduate walking out with career-ready STEM skills by 2031. It still can’t guarantee every science classroom has a teacher standing in front of it come August.