The bells are ringing in Las Vegas, not just on winning slot machines but in some of 33 new schools built to relieve overcowding in the burgeoning desert community.
Five high schools, three junior highs and 10 elementary schools that can serve 20,000 students were open when the district's 130,000 students returned to class last Monday.The building spree is part of a $600 million bond issue that also funded 15 new schools last year in the nation's 14th largest school district.
"We were on a collision course with students sitting on top of each other," said Brian Cram, superintendent of schools. "We had to build our schools as fast as possible."
Schools were contracted out by the handful. Using fast-track construction methods, elementary schools were built in an average of eight months. Junior highs were completed in a little more than a year, while high schools took a few months longer.
In one new junior high classroom a few days before school opened, a teacher put up a bulletin board as a workman installed baseboards at her feet. A painter was across the room touching up a wall, while another worker was on a ladder adjusting the air conditioning.
"It was really kind of a superhuman effort by the contractors and our staff," Cram said. "The community also helped. We had parents and Boy Scout troops coming in and stacking books in the libraries."
District workers, by now accustomed to opening new schools, stocked them with military precision.
When a school was declared ready to move into, 10 trucks filled with desks, chalk boards, office equipment and books pulled up outside. The equipment was color-coded so workers could quickly put it in its proper place.
"We've got it pretty much down to a science by now," Cram said.
For the first time in several years, no schools are on double sessions and the district is close to maintaining the 15-1 student-teacher ratio mandated by the state Legislature for first and second grades.
More than 800 new teachers were hired for the current school year, which had an increase of about 8,000 students from the previous year. The students are part of a growth boom that saw 3,000 people a month move to Las Vegas last year and the area's population double to nearly 800,000 in the last decade.
Despite the construction, however, the district is still using about 600 temporary classrooms.
Another 10 new schools are scheduled to open next year. Voters may be asked to approve another bond issue to build even more schools. The $600 million measure funding the current schools will be virtually depleted by then, lasting only five years of what had been a 10-year building plan.