1. There is hereby created the Grant Fund for Incentives for Licensed Educational Personnel to be administered by the Department. The Department may accept gifts and grants from any source for deposit in the Grant Fund.

2. The board of trustees of each school district shall establish a program of incentive pay for licensed teachers, school psychologists, school librarians, school counselors and administrators employed at the school level which must be designed to attract and retain those employees. The program must be negotiated pursuant to chapter 288 of NRS and must include, without limitation, the attraction and retention of:

(a) Licensed teachers, school psychologists, school librarians, school counselors and administrators employed at the school level who have been employed in that category of position for at least 5 years in this State or another state and who are employed in schools which are at-risk, as determined by the Department pursuant to subsection 8; and

(b) Teachers who hold a license or endorsement in the field of mathematics, science, special education, English as a second language or other area of need within the school district, as determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

3. A program of incentive pay established by a school district must specify the type of financial incentives offered to the licensed educational personnel. Money available for the program must not be used to negotiate the salaries of individual employees who participate in the program.

4. If the board of trustees of a school district wishes to receive a grant of money from the Grant Fund, the board of trustees shall submit to the Department an application on a form prescribed by the Department. The application must include a description of the program of incentive pay established by the school district.

5. The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall compile a list of the financial incentives recommended by each school district that submitted an application. On or before December 1 of each year, the Superintendent shall submit the list to the Interim Finance Committee for its approval of the recommended incentives.

6. After approval of the list of incentives by the Interim Finance Committee pursuant to subsection 5 and within the limits of money available in the Grant Fund, the Department shall provide grants of money to each school district that submits an application pursuant to subsection 4 based upon the amount of money that is necessary to carry out each program. If an insufficient amount of money is available to pay for each program submitted to the Department, the amount of money available must be distributed pro rata based upon the number of licensed employees who are estimated to be eligible to participate in the program in each school district that submitted an application.

7. An individual employee may not receive as a financial incentive pursuant to a program an amount of money that is more than $3,500 per year.

8. The Department shall, in consultation with representatives appointed by the Nevada Association of School Superintendents and the Nevada Association of School Boards, develop a formula for identifying at-risk schools for purposes of this section. The formula must be developed on or before July 1 of each year and include, without limitation, the following factors:

(a) The percentage of pupils who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1751 et seq.;

(b) The transiency rate of pupils;

(c) The percentage of pupils who are English learners;

(d) The percentage of pupils who have individualized education programs; and

(e) The percentage of pupils who drop out of high school before graduation.

9. The board of trustees of each school district that receives a grant of money pursuant to this section shall evaluate the effectiveness of the program for which the grant was awarded. The evaluation must include, without limitation, an evaluation of whether the program is effective in recruiting and retaining the personnel as set forth in subsection 2. On or before December 1 of each year, the board of trustees shall submit a report of its evaluation to the:

(a) Governor;

(b) State Board;

(c) Interim Finance Committee;

(d) If the report is submitted in an even-numbered year, Director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau for transmittal to the next regular session of the Legislature; and

(e) Legislative Committee on Education.

(Added to NRS by 2007, 23rd Special Session, 16; A 2011, 789; 2013, 3280; 2015, 1600; 2017, 3273; 2019, 2687) — (Substituted in revision for NRS 391.166)