Thirteen new campuses expected to meet deadline

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, Aug. 2, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

With four weeks until the first day of the 2004-05 academic year, the Clark County School District's 13 newest campuses are on track to open on time.

"Nine campuses are, in fact, complete," said Fred Smith, construction manager for the district. "I credit a conscious effort on the part of everybody associated with the projects to get sites identified, (schools) designed and started earlier so we have more of a cushion at the end to solve problems as they arise."

The district is expecting more than 280,000 students this year, an increase of about 12,000 pupils over the 2003-04 enrollment. That would push Clark County up a notch, to the nation's fifth-largest school district.

Of the four campuses still under construction, Mannion Middle School in Henderson lags the most, Smith said. Because the district "pioneered" much of the infrastructure for the East Paradise Hills Drive campus, there have been delays in paving roads and hooking up utilities, Smith said.

In areas with less existing development, private builders often wait for the district to begin construction in order to piggyback on power, sewer and water lines.

"It saves them money and costs us time," Smith said. "Those types of delays are standard when we're first in."

The district's use of prototype designs for its elementary, secondary and high school campuses has simplified much of the construction process but there's still the challenge of identifying school sites, Smith said.

Enrollment predictions provided by the district's demographers have been on target in recent years. But that's only half the equation when it comes to determining how many classroom seats will be needed two or even five years down the road.

"It's easy to figure out the number of students we're going to have -- predicting where those kids are going to live is much more difficult," Smith said.

With the uncertainty of where the next housing development might pop up -- and with some that were once "seniors only" lifting age restrictions -- the district tends to wait as long as possible before identifying a school site. That leaves comparatively little time to actually build the campus, Smith said.

"I don't know that we could do things any faster than we already are," Smith said. "An extra year's notice that we'll have to build a new school down the road would be great, but I don't think that's a realistic goal."

The district is more than halfway through a $3.5 billion capital improvement plan approved by voters in 1998. In addition to building new schools, the capital funds are being used to replace, update and modernize existing campuses. On Friday the district announced plans for the 2004-05 Annual Plan, a schedule of $178 million in improvement projects at 156 schools.

The projects range from roof replacements to modernizing air conditioning and heating systems to new athletic fields, said Rudy Pope, coordinator of the district's Programming Services Department.

"Any prudent business, even the business of education, should have a plan in place to accommodate maintenance and eventual replacement of capital assets," Pope said.

The new campuses opening Aug. 30 and their locations are:

Elementary Schools Eileen Conners, 3810 Shadow Peak Drive Linda Rankin Givens, 655 Park Vista Drive Judy and John L. Goolsby, 11175 W. Desert Inn Road John R. Hummel, 9800 Placid St. William and Mary Scherkenbach, 9371 Iron Mountain Rd. Eva G. Simmons, 2328 Silver Clouds Drive, North Las Vegas Wayne N. Tanaka, 9135 W. Maule Ave.

Middle Schools Clifford O. 'Pete' Findlay, 333 W. Tropical Parkway, North Las Vegas Jack and Terry Mannion, 155 E. Paradise Hills Drive, Henderson Anthony Saville, 8101 N. Torrey Pines Drive

High Schools Canyon Springs, 350 E. Alexander Road, North Las Vegas Del Sol, 3100 E. Patrick Lane Spring Valley, 3750 S. Buffalo Drive