Jeremiah Klein spins monthly 90-minute sets at The Portal at AREA15, has tens of thousands of monthly Spotify listeners, and just enrolled in two music classes at UNLV this month. He is 13 years old. Known by the stage name DRGN, pronounced “dragon,” Klein was recently turned away from a Clark County high school performing arts program for being a few months too young, so his family is routing his musical education through the university system instead.
Klein performed at The Portal at AREA15 on August 16, delivering mostly his own remixes and original songs to a crowd inside the 7,500-square-foot venue known for its 360-degree projection mapping and 4K laser visuals, according to Pollstar. As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Klein even created the visuals accompanying his own performance. He told the paper that DJing lets him control the room and energy, adding, “it’s cool to be in this scene.”
A Homeschool Path Through the Pandemic
Klein has been homeschooled since his family moved to Las Vegas during the COVID-19 pandemic, per the Review-Journal’s reporting. That timing tracks with a broader shift in Nevada: homeschooling in the state jumped from 2.5% of families in spring 2020 to 13.1% that fall, and roughly 6.02% of all K-12 students statewide were homeschooled during the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Johns Hopkins Homeschool Hub. Nevada’s homeschooling statutes, outlined by the Nevada Department of Education, require only a one-time Notice of Intent filed with a local school district, with no mandatory standardized testing or state curriculum approval.
His mother, Tori Klein, tried to enroll him in music extracurriculars at Del Sol Academy of the Performing Arts, a Clark County School District magnet high school re-established in 2016 that offers specialized majors including music production, band, orchestra and theater tech, per background compiled on the school. But Del Sol turned Jeremiah away because he was not yet 14 years old by the start of August, even though the Review-Journal reports he had the academic foundations needed to be a high school freshman.
How a State Law Reset the Age Cutoff
The rejection traces back to a change in state law that altered how a child’s grade level is determined. Under Nevada Assembly Bill 65, passed in 2023, the state tightened its public school entry cutoff so children must turn five years old on or before August 1 to enroll in kindergarten, standardizing age placement across every Nevada school district starting with the 2024-2025 school year, according to The Nevada Independent. District officials say Clark County School District amended its own age of entrance and enrollment requirements in October 2023 to align with that state law and ensure age-appropriate grade placement, the Review-Journal reported…