Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

As CCSD embarks on new school-building blitz, a look at lessons from the last one

Lincoln Elementary

A lack of outlets leads to power strips being strung across the floor Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012, at Lincoln Elementary School.

Lincoln Elementary

Principal Jennifer Newton talks about the extensive repairs needed at Lincoln Elementary School Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012. Launch slideshow »

Rex Bell Elementary School

Principal Tim Adams of Rex Bell Elementary School checks out a roof leak on school grounds in Las Vegas Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011. Launch slideshow »

With a little help from the Legislature, the Clark County School District is poised to start building its first schools since 2010.

When Gov. Brian Sandoval officially signed a 10-year school district bonding authority into law at the beginning of the month, district officials were in tears.

For a district that has been straining under the weight of increasing enrollment and outdated facilities, it’s big news. Administrators argue it will help ease the county’s perennial overcrowding issues and mitigate the effects of continued population growth in Southern Nevada.

Having deja vu? That's because we’ve been here before.

After county voters approved a similar 10-year bonding period starting in 1998, the district embarked on a massive construction campaign to build 88 new schools.

With an eye toward avoiding past mistakes, here’s what CCSD learned that time:

Population growth can be a double-edged sword.

In 1998, the district estimated it would have $3.5 billion in bond money to work with. That number eventually ballooned to $4.9 billion as people moved en masse to Clark County during the height of the housing bubble. While the district had extra cash on hand for more construction, rising enrollment — which grew by an average of 12,000 students each year — meant more schools would be needed down the line.

Fast forward to the present, when another half-decade of growth has passed without a single new school. While enrollment is not as drastic as it was during the boom, the district still says it could build 32 elementary schools right now and fill them all up.

Building new schools is expensive.

Though the district originally planned to build just 88 new schools, they ended up with 120. By 2003, the midpoint of its bonding period, the district had opened 40 new schools at a cost of nearly $800 million. The sheer cost prompted administrators to get a little creative. Instead of paying to design every new school from scratch, engineers chose a handful of schools to act as prototypes. They also tweaked designs to fit in smaller parcels of land — some as small as five acres — to save space. The designs were updated in 2010, and will be used in upcoming construction.

You can’t underestimate the effect of aging infrastructure.

Building schools isn’t a fire-and-forget process. Maintaining older schools as their air conditioning and plumbing systems go out is just as important as building new ones. In the last bond period, the district spent a third of its bond money on renovations. With a quarter of the district’s portable classrooms well past their 20-year shelf life, that will likely be a recurring theme in the upcoming bond period as well. So far, the district has its budget planned out until 2018. Over those two years, they plan to spend $420 million — or half of the budget — on improvements at existing schools.

Here are the rest of the district's plans for the bond money until 2018:

• $355 million for construction of 12 new schools. Half will open in 2017 and the other half will open in 2018.

• $200 million for additions to existing schools such as portables and new classrooms.

• $64 million to completely replace Rex Bell and Lincoln elementary schools.

• $81 million for renovations to aging infrastructure districtwide.

• $75 million to renovate Boulder HS and Southeast Career and Technical Academy.

• $65 million for technology.

In keeping with the district’s promise that construction crews will break ground on six new schools before the end of the legislative session, surveying teams will be deployed to some sites in the next week.

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