Editorial: Rural school left behind

Thursday, Oct. 6, 2005 | 8:20 a.m.

Sandy Valley is a farming community of about 2,500 people situated a little more than 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas. It is within the Clark County School District, but residents there sometimes wonder about that. Formed around 1900, the community has never had a high school. But by the 1980s it did have its own elementary and middle school building, sparing the younger children from being bused out of town for their education. Over the years, however, even Sandy Valley grew in population. But the school building did not grow.

Today its eight classrooms are wholly inadequate for its 250 K-8 students. The School District has arranged for temporary, portable classrooms to be set up outside the building, but crowding remains a daily struggle for the students and teachers. Because classes are taught in the library, students can only use it during their assigned periods. Small children have trouble pulling books off shelves because the books are so tightly wedged together. This type of space crisis is felt throughout the Sandy Valley School.

Clark County voters in 1998 approved a $3.5 billion bond issue for the School District so that it could build, expand and renovate schools to meet growth. The Sandy Valley School was scheduled for expansion under that improvement plan. But it wasn't until this past February that the district sought bids for a separate middle school there. "We're left to the very last because we don't live in the city," Sandy Valley resident Beth Bacher, leader of a coalition of concerned citizens, told the Sun. "People forget we're out here unless we show up at a School Board meeting and complain."

After waiting so long for attention, there was another disappointment in store for Sandy Valley residents. The bid for the separate middle school came in at $5.9 million, more than the district wanted to pay. So the district negotiated for a building framed with wood instead of concrete, which is considered by many to be more durable and energy efficient. The district hopes to have a building contract by November and to open the school in time for the 2006-07 school year.

As we see it, the community is getting shabby treatment from the School District. The children of Sandy Valley deserve the same access to education and the same quality of construction for the school buildings, as the children in the rest of Clark County. In addition to the new middle school, there needs to be an expansion of the elementary school. We hope that doesn't take another seven or eight years to come to the attention of district officials.