Mall design planned for new Rancho High

By Emily Richmond

Monday, May 24, 2004 | 10:56 a.m.

Knowing many of his students prefer the mall to the classroom, Rancho High School Principal Robert Chesto can't wait to give his kids exactly what they want.

"Instead of Bath & Body Works we'll have the biology labs," said Chesto of the new mall design prototype slated to replace the 50-year-old North Las Vegas school. "The layout is going to seem familiar and comfortable to the students -- it's going to be an exciting place."

District officials held a ground-breaking ceremony last week for the new 330,000-square-foot campus, which will be built on the school's existing athletic fields. The current school will be razed after the new campus opens for the 2006-07 academic year.

The two-story mall design, budgeted at $75 million, will be paid for through the $3.5 billion capital improvement plan approved by voters in 1998.

"On the surface it may sound crazy to people -- make a high school look like the mall," said Bob McCord, assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "But I think it makes terrific sense -- that's a place kids like to be, and it's also going to create a functional, friendly atmosphere. Those are the things that connect you to your school."

Chesto plans to divide the school into four "houses," each with its own assistant principal, deans and student services.

How the houses will be divided up -- possibly by grade level or special programs -- hasn't been determined, Chesto said.

Rancho's aviation and medical careers magnet programs will each have specialized facilities and administrative offices on the new campus, Chesto said. The ROTC program, which boasts one of the highest participation rates in the nation, will also have its own complex for its more than 500 students, Chesto said.

With Clark County high schools boasting some of the largest enrollments in the country, it makes sense to design campuses that can be broken down into more manageable units, said McCord, who retired after 30 years from the Clark County School District as an assistant deputy superintendent.

"Anything that can be done to downsize schools, either in reality or in the perception, is a good thing," McCord said. "The bigger the school the more chances for a kid to get lost -- literally and figuratively," McCord said. "For the most vulnerable students the personalized attention is going to be the glue that keeps them in school."

Through a pilot program approved by the Legislature, the district set aside $90 million in bond money to replace five existing schools. Two campuses -- Sunrise Acres and Wendell Williams elementary schools -- have already been replaced. Booker Elementary School in North Las Vegas and Virgin Valley Elementary School are next on the list.

During the last legislative session lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 396, which expanded the district's pilot program to include replacing 10 additional schools at a cost not to exceed $230 million. In addition to selecting Rancho for replacement, the Clark County School Board has identified McCaw, Manch, Taylor and Tom Williams elementary schools, as well as Burkholder Middle School.

Rancho will be the second Clark County high school to open with the mall prototype design. The first will be at Buffalo and Grand Teton, adjacent to Gilcrease Orchards, in 2005. The five new high schools remaining in the district's $3.5 billion capital improvement plan will use the mall prototype, said Dave Broxterman, administrative manager of the district's facilities division.

The prototype provides extensive natural light and fresh air for classrooms, Broxterman said. The layout also makes it a more secure, closed campus than the current high school, Broxterman said.

Chesto, 1967 graduate of Rancho, said he's ecstatic that the school will finally have the kinds of facilities that its students deserve. Frank Martin, president of Martin Harris Construction Co. which is building the new school, graduated from Rancho in 1965.

Martin said this morning it was "a unique honor" to be overseeing the rebuilding of his alma mater. Martin-Harris built Sierra Vista High School in 2001 and the new Del Sol High School which opens in August.

"He's reinventing his own school and then handing it over to another alumnus to take care of it," Chesto said. "There's a nice circle there."