The Engelstad Foundation has awarded a three-year, $1.9 million grant to Communities in Schools Nevada in support of efforts to address chronic absenteeism among younger students and help at-risk student stay on track for graduation, KLAS Las Vegas reports.

CIS of Nevada will use the grant to expand its program to Gene Ward Elementary, Walter V. Long Elementary, Sedway Middle, and Rancho High schools in Las Vegas. The funding also will support CIS Academy at Rancho High School. In the last school year, 22 percent of students in Clark County were chronically absent — defined as missing at least eighteen days of school for any reason. CIS places full-time site coordinators on school campuses who work directly with students to help them stay in school and graduate on time.

With the latest grant, the Engelstad Foundation has awarded a total of $3.2 million in support of the CIS program.

Nevada schools overall are ranked forty-fifth in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report. "Students who are hungry, sick, anxious, bullied, or troubled may be too overwhelmed to learn, leading to failure in the classroom and eventually dropping out," the organization said in a statement. "Using an evidence-based, success-proven methodology and employing a network of more than a hundred community agencies and nonprofits, CIS of Nevada literally brings the community into the school to provide students with the services and resources they need to alleviate outside pressures that prevent them from learning, ultimately encouraging them to stay in school. Since the pandemic, CIS of Nevada has worked around-the-clock to find creative ways in reaching students in their own homes, flipping the script, and bringing school support directly into the community."