The Nevada Legislature in 2003 passed legislation that, regardless of AYP performance, requires improvement plans be developed/revised and implemented annually by schools, school districts, and the state (through its State Board of Education).

The culture behind Nevada’s improvement planning embraces high expectations for each student and is built upon the foundation of the following beliefs:

• The work of schools is student learning.
• All children can benefit from challenging and relevant curriculum.
• Every teacher can be an expert when provided collaborative and sustained professional development focused on improving instruction.
• Content should be aligned to standards, be challenging, and be relevant.
• Key indicators of success are achievement/proficiency scores, graduation rates, dropout rates, percent of highly qualified teachers, and adequacy and equity of funding for all public schools.
• Improvement must be continuous.
• Parental support and involvement are critical to improved student performance.
• Effective use of data is critical to continuous improvement of teaching and learning.

Comprehensive improvement plans take several years to implement and to demonstrate improvement in the targeted areas. An annual revision provides the opportunity to identify effective practices and/or actions that should be continued and ineffective practices and/or actions that should be revised or eliminated.