The Nye County school board approved the district improvement plan at its Dec. 3 meeting.

The 40-page plan is based on five major goals for the district that were established prior to the 2007-2008 school year by administrators, teachers, board members and principals.

"It represents a working, living document," Jerry Hill, assistant superintendent for student achievement, said. "It's a blueprint for success for this year and hopefully subsequent years."

All of the five goals are considered equally important, but the effort to reduce the high school dropout rate and increase the number of students who graduate from high school spurred some discussion.

Addressing these issues will actually begin in elementary school, where students deficient in math or reading will be identified and remedial steps taken.

Credit recovery programs will also be instituted and improved at both Pahrump Valley High School and Rosemary Clarke Middle School.

In addition, plans for future ninth graders will be devised and counselors required to make contact with their students regularly to check on quarterly grades and general progress.

Board member Tracy Ward expressed concern over identifying at-risk students only through academic measures.

"From sitting on the truancy panels, one thing I've noticed is a lot of the truant students aren't necessarily truant because of academics," Ward said.

In fact, Ward continued, "A lot of them will come in and share what good grades they had before they started skipping school all the time.

"A lot of them, it seems, to have more to do with the fact that they're disconnected with the group than that they have academic problems. I think it would behoove us to include students who are disassociated, that just kind of don't fit in. A lot of times that's why they skip school, because they don't feel like they belong."

Hill responded that much of the plan is already attempting to address that problem.

"We're looking to include a much closer relationship between high school counselors and students," Hill said. "Not only would we like this but we're looking at mandating it."

In addition, he said counselors had been meeting just about every month in an attempt to address some of the issues Ward brought up.

"We're hoping that the contact with another friendly adult, especially in ninth grade, will help kids to understand their role and their place in educational development," Hill said.

Ward, however, pointed out that many truant high school students begin as stellar elementary school students, which makes identifying at-risk students before they start ditching class more difficult.

Hill said a course of action that might be taken would be to speak to elementary school counselors as well to help identify students that may be at risk in the future. "We can suggest something the counselors might do to identify a potential problem," Hill said.

He added that since the elementary school counselors have smaller caseloads, it might be a little easier to identify at-risk students.

Another goal of the district plan is to align curricula through all grade levels with state standards in math, English and science.

Along those same lines, the plan also includes continuing to train teachers and other personnel in incorporating technology and active teaching methods in the classroom.

A Teacher Leadership Academy is being formed to serve as a kind of think tank on future curriculum, and a second cadre of teachers will be trained in using technology in the classroom.

Professional learning communities, groups of parents, teachers and administrators who work together to discuss and improve student achievement have been deemed largely successful by many principals, so one goal is for the district to sustain them.

Plans are in place to examine where and how such committees are most effective and if time for them might be set aside during the working day.

Student and staff safety is a concern for the district.

Plans to address safety issues include pinpointing truancy and discipline problems and enlisting the aid of parents to solve problems.

In addition, a character education program has been adopted that will be infused with regular classroom teaching at all grade levels.