Rancho High could be rebuilt

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, March 25, 2003 | 10:49 a.m.

If 49-year-old Rancho High School were a Las Vegas Strip resort, it would have been demolished and replaced long ago, Principal Robert Chesto said.

"As far as this area's concerned, we're ancient," Chesto said. "We're ancient, outdated and outmoded. How many more adjectives do I need to come up with to convince people?"

Rancho, the oldest high school in Clark County that has not been slated for replacement, has been patched and repaired so often that future renovations would be useless, Chesto said.

"We have a car with a broken motor, but instead of fixing the motor, we paint the car," Chesto said. "When that didn't solve the problem, we put some new tires on it and re-chromed the bumpers. The truth is we need a new school, and our students deserve nothing less."

The odds of Rancho being rebuilt improved Monday when members of the Assembly Education Committee supported a bill that would allow the Clark County School District to use bond money to replace the aging campus.

Assembly Bill 396 expands a pilot program that allowed the Clark County School District to use money from a 1998 bond program to replace five existing schools.

Of the $90 million allowed for the program, $58.8 million has already been allocated. Two campuses have been replaced -- Sunrise Acres and Wendell Williams elementary schools. Two other campuses, Booker Elementary School in North Las Vegas and Virgin Valley Elementary School, are being rebuilt as part of the pilot program.

That leaves just over $31 million for the final campus -- enough for an elementary or middle school, but not for the estimated $75 million reconstruction and outfitting of Rancho.

If the bill passes, district officials say they intend to build the new Rancho High School on the campus' athletic fields and then demolish the existing buildings.

Voters in 1998 approved a $3.5 billion capital improvement plan for the Clark County School District to build 88 new schools. The district is about a third of the way through the plan, and construction of dozens of campuses have been accelerated two years or more to meet the demands of surging student enrollment.

The cost of a new high school in Clark County -- such as Liberty and Shadow Ridge, which open next fall -- runs about $43 million for the structure alone, according to Fred Smith, construction manager for the district.

That works out to $147.26 per square foot for 292,000 square feet total. The national average for high school construction is $116 per square foot, according to the National Education Facilities Clearinghouse.

Clark County spends more on school construction because of "the pioneer costs," Smith said.

Unlike other communities with established infrastructure, the district is often the first to break ground in newer areas, Smith said.

"We end up bearing the costs of putting in those first roads, the sewer lines and the power lines," Smith said. "It's not like the lines are already there and we can just tap into them. In fact, developers usually wait until we get started so they can tap into ours."

One of the cheapest places in the country to build a high school is Mississippi, at just $75.93 per square foot. In New York, the cost is more than twice that, with school construction going for $194.66 per square foot.

Spending $75 million to fully build and outfit a high school isn't an outrageous sum, said Judy Marks, associate director of the national clearinghouse.

"In New York City it would be considered a bargain," Marks said Monday.

What matters is what districts get for their money, Marks said.

"Does the school have a state-of-the-art media lab, a theater the entire community can share in, a flexible floor plan?" Marks said. "These are all questions that have to be asked when you look at actual costs and benefits."

Clark County School District officials say the rebuilt schools are worth the extra money. The new schools are equipped with solar panels, which save money in the long run on power bills, and modern infrastructure means fewer repair costs down the road.

Some school district critics, such as Louis Overstreet of the Urban Chamber of Commerce, are skeptical.

The higher price tag for Clark County school construction stems not from better designs but from cost overruns attributable to poor planning, Overstreet said.

But Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-North Las Vegas, another frequent school district critic, said studies show the cost of replacing the school is less than the long-term bill for continued remodelings. Williams, who chairs the education committee, introduced the bill.

Williams offered rare praise Monday for the rebuilding program. The use of prototypes has helped the district design more environmentally friendly schools, as well as facilities that are more flexible as class sizes increase or decrease, Williams said.

"The district has been very good about being creative ... what I have seen so far is that they are doing a lot things outside of the box," Williams said. "They're doing a good job of it."

All of the cost of rebuilding the schools will come from bond funds already secured by the district. No state funds are being used.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, also praised the pilot program, noting the new school prototypes are based on studies that show elements such as natural lighting and better acoustics lead to higher student achievement.

"We expect these new schools to last 50 years," said Giunchigliani, a former district teacher who now works for the community college system. "We do get a good bang for our buck."

The district's construction department has identified 60 additional campuses that are need of major overhauls -- either total rebuilds or renovations.