The Clark County School District is looking to end its sponsorship of charter schools.
The affected schools — public schools operating independently of CCSD but contracted with the district to oversee their compliance with state and federal regulations — will not necessarily close because of the proposed change, which would go into effect at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
But they would need to find new sponsors to remain open. If approved by the CCSD board, the sunsetting of charter sponsorship would affect six schools. They are: 100 Academy School of Engineering and Technology, Explore Knowledge Academy, Innovations International Charter School, Odyssey Charter School, Rainbow Dreams Early Learning Academy and Delta Academy.
The Nevada Legislature passed its first laws allowing charter schools in 1998, but at the time, there was no centralized state sponsor for charters. Rather, charter schools were sponsored by public entities like universities or public school districts.
That changed in 2011 with the creation of the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, or SPCSA. Now, with a well-established organization dedicated to sponsoring charter schools statewide, it makes sense for CCSD to step back, said Gia Moore, the district’s director of College and Career Readiness and School Choice.
“We’re just looking to allow schools to move to the SPCSA. … Now they have the state public charter authority that can best serve them, and we can reallocate our resources to matters related to CCSD,” she said.
Moore said the phase-out would be cost-neutral, and more about saving resources than dollars.
As a charter school sponsor, CCSD has a limited auditor-like relationship with the charters it sponsors. The district ensures they follow all state and federal regulations that govern public education — for example, in finance, curriculum, special education services and testing — but does not dictate their programming or operations. They are not “CCSD schools” and their teachers and other staff are not district employees.
“We look at ourselves as more of a customer-support service center,” said Dan Tafoya, a director in CCSD’s office of school choice. “Aside from looking at their compliance, if they have a question, we can provide reasonable technical assistance to them. But they have their own boards of trustees and they have their own superintendents and principals. Look at them as microschool districts, in a sense. They have autonomy.”
Most charter schools in Nevada are under contract with the State Public Charter School Authority, although districts oversee a handful: In addition to CCSD’s six, the Washoe County School District sponsors seven, and the Carson City School District sponsors one. The state authority sponsors 80 schools.
Melissa Mackedon, executive director of the state authority, said she anticipated that at least some of the six CCSD-sponsored schools would apply to the SPCSA.
Delta Academy in North Las Vegas is one of them.
Kyle Konold, Delta Academy’s superintendent, said that in conversations with his colleagues at the other five schools, they’ve all shown a desire to apply to the state authority.
He said that while it was not a given that the state authority would accept his school, which offers online and in-person learning in grades 6-12, he was optimistic. He said the switch would be an overall positive.
“I think with the SPCSA that it’ll be a streamlined, more focused, supportive environment than CCSD has or would ever have been for charter schools,” said Konold, who authored the charter that opened Delta Academy in 2007. “They need to focus on their own needs and issues of the community. They don’t need to worry about a small portion — they’re still Southern Nevada students, but (CCSD has) enough to worry about. I can understand their decision to do this.”
Konold acknowledged that Delta Academy struggled post-pandemic, as all schools did.
It has fallen to a one-star rating under the state’s performance framework. The high school is considered an alternative school; Konold said his older students, who are generally more interested in learning a trade than going to college, don’t perform well on standardized tests.
But he boasts that the most recent graduation rate was about 80%, which is within 3 percentage points of CCSD’s — and, he added, far ahead of other area alternative schools.
And enrollment has grown significantly. When Delta Academy opened, it was in a strip mall on Rancho Drive, next to a bar and pawnshop. It moved to its current, standalone facility at North Commerce Street and West Cheyenne Avenue in 2014.
In 2018-19, the last full year before the pandemic, it enrolled fewer than 500 students, according to state records. This year, it has about 1,200. That makes it the second-largest of the district-sponsored charters.
“I think Delta would add value to the portfolio of SPCSA. We’re doing a lot of great things down there, and innovative programs,” Konold said. “We just started a commercial drone pilot program where students will get their FAA certification. We have robotics, we have a Rock Academy of Performing Arts. We’ve got good stuff that other schools don’t have.”
Konold said that on the downside, becoming state-sponsored instead of district-sponsored would mean that Delta Academy loses easy access to CCSD’s student records system, which is helpful because almost all its students come from district schools.
The school would also have to collect data itself for some reports, a service that CCSD currently provides.
But, once separated from CCSD, Delta Academy would be free to choose its food vendors to provide meals in the cafeteria, which is of no small interest to its students, Konold said.
He also expected the state authority to be able to address the school’s interests quicker, with its specialized staff that is much larger than the two people in CCSD who work directly with the charters among their other responsibilities. The state authority could also provide more opportunities to secure grant funding, he said.
The CCSD school board will consider sponsorship withdrawal when it meets Thursday. If the withdrawal is approved, the district would submit a notice to the Nevada Department of Education of withdrawal being effective when the schools’ current sponsorship contracts expire in June 2026.
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