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.
Nevada law does give homeschooled students a path into public school programs: NRS 392.074 allows them to join public school classes, sports and extracurricular activities as long as parents file an annual Notice of Intent of Homeschooled Child to Participate, according to the Nevada Legislature. In Jeremiah's case, it wasn't his homeschool status that closed the door at Del Sol — it was the strict age cutoff itself. The friction isn't new; the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in April 2025 that Clark County families had already clashed with the district over age-based grade placement rules that kept homeschooled students from placing into higher grades based on completed coursework.
Erin Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Power 2 Parent, said strict age requirements give families less flexibility in educating their children, per the Review-Journal's reporting. That tension is exactly what pushed the Klein family toward a different route entirely.
From Drum Kit to UNLV Lecture Hall
Jeremiah's musical training started early. He began on a drum kit at age three and received a DJ controller for his sixth birthday, the newspaper reported. Local instructors, including Sherry St. Germain, who performs under the name Wolfy Lights, taught him music-production foundations. St. Germain, a former two-shows-a-day performer in Cirque du Soleil's Viva Elvis who has also held a residency at The Palms and produced electronic tracks alongside artists like Steve Aoki and Excision, according to the Museum of Making Music, taught Jeremiah piano, guitar, songwriting, collaborative performance and Ableton Live. She called him her favorite student, per the Review-Journal.
Now Jeremiah is supplementing his homeschooling with music classes at UNLV, enrolling this month in music theory and guitar performance courses that will earn him college credit. UNLV classifies him as a non-degree-seeking student taking a part-time credit load — a status that caps non-degree undergraduates at eight credits per semester, though up to 24 total credits earned that way can eventually count toward a bachelor's degree, according to UNLV. He does not plan to pursue a diploma; he plans to take university-level classes purely to strengthen his skills as he works toward becoming a full-time musician in adulthood.
Building a Career Before High School Age
Jeremiah has performed at South Point and The Palms in the Las Vegas Valley, along with a family rave attended by hundreds, and now spends five to 10 hours a day making music. He posts song breakdowns, mixing tricks and pool-party performances to thousands of Instagram followers, and committed this year to releasing new music every month. He plans to sell out venues across the world and become a household name in music, he told the Review-Journal.
His mother supports the musical ventures but says she does not act as his manager, aiming instead to build a community of positive influences around him. That community, and the university classroom he now shares with adult undergraduates, has become the workaround for a 13-year-old whose ambitions outpaced what the local school calendar would allow.
