State labels Carson City’s Pioneer High an ‘under-performing school’

The state Department of Education on Friday released a list of 78 “under-performing” public schools in the state and one of them — Pioneer High — is in Carson City.

But Carson City School District Superintendent Richard Stokes said he is trying to contact state education officials to figure out how Pioneer ended up on the list.

State Superintendent of Education Dale Erquiaga said Friday when the list was announced that it included schools that have under-performed for students in the past three school years.

Stokes said that’s a problem because, for the first two years of that period, Pioneer was exempt from the rankings.

“My understanding is that, because of our status, we did not meet the same standards as a comprehensive school,” he said. “So I’m asking folks at the department why, this year, Pioneer was ranked (for all three years).”

“We’ve had one year of ranking,” he said.

Stokes said he needs an explanation of exactly how the schools were ranked and categorized.

The release of the school puts those schools into three categories.

There are 27 “priority” schools the report says rank in the bottom 5 percent of achievement for Title 1 served schools.

Another 37 are “Focus” schools in the bottom 10 percent for groups such as English language learners, and 14 more “One Star” schools “that have room for substantial improvement in multiple areas.”

There is one school in the Focus group in Churchill County: Numa Elementary School.

No Douglas County or Lyon County schools are listed.

Of the 78 schools on the list, the majority — 49 — are in Clark County.

Another six are in Washoe County.