David E Norman Elementary

David E. Norman Elementary is a PK–5 school serving 362 students at 1001 E 11th St in Ely, Nevada — the largest elementary in the sparsely populated White Pine County School District, where its only same-district peer, McGill Elementary (131 students), sits 11 miles away.

In 2025-26 the school ranked 302nd of 376 Nevada elementary schools — the 20th percentile, 1 star. That is a genuine improvement over 2024-25 (13th percentile), but it restores only about half of what was lost since 2021-22, when the school reached the low 30s and 2 stars. Reading is the success story: proficiency climbed from 18.5% in 2022-23 to 29.1% in 2025-26, a 10.6-point gain that outpaced the state (up 4.2 points) and the district (up 1.8). Math reached 25.4%, up 2.1 points while the district fell 3.1 — but the state gained 4.9 points, so the school lost ground relative to the state. Norman now performs essentially at the district average in both subjects, yet trails the state by 10.8 points in math and 16.1 points in reading. Chronic absenteeism is the clearest bright spot, down 15.8 points from 37.0% in 2021-22, though it ticked back up to 26.0% in 2025-26.

Comparisons nearby are striking. Norman flipped its reading position against McGill Elementary in a single year, turning an 8.8-point deficit into a 9.9-point lead. The charter school Learning Bridge, 0.4 miles away, posts higher scores (30.5% math, 40.3% reading) while spending far less per student and running much larger classes — but it serves a substantially different student population (18.67% free/reduced lunch versus Norman's 100%), so it is not a simple model to copy. The gaps to Learning Bridge narrowed last year, and math remains the constraint: 3rd grade reading (24.2%) is the weakest reported grade level, and key grade-level math data is suppressed.