CCSD is replacing 3 aging elementary schools in east Las Vegas

The Clark County School District will replace three aging schools within the next two years, with construction at two of them set to begin next month.

Harris, Ferron and Harmon elementary schools in east Las Vegas — all of which are about 50 years old — will get new facilities on their existing campuses. The construction will not displace students.

The School Board approved contracts for the three projects at a May 14 meeting as part of the district’s 2015 capital improvement program.

Construction is expected to start in June on the Harris and Ferron replacement schools, which are scheduled to open in August 2021, CCSD said in a statement to the Review-Journal. The Harmon project is in the design phase and is scheduled to open in August 2022.

The Harris project was awarded to CORE Construction Services of Nevada at a guaranteed maximum price of about $34.5 million.

The 100,333-square-foot school will be constructed on a turf field south of the current school, which was built in 1973 on South Sandhill Road.

The Ferron project was awarded to Martin-Harris Construction at a guaranteed maximum cost of nearly $33 million.

Ferron’s existing campus was built in 1970 on South Mountain Vista Street.

The new facilities — a two-story classroom building with space for administrative offices and a separate single-story multipurpose building — will be built in an open turf area, according to materials submitted to the trustees. The project will include a new parking lot, a bus drop-off, “kiss and go” vehicle lanes and a playground.

A one-story annex building will be demolished “while the existing school facility is active and occupied,” according to the meeting materials. The remaining old buildings will be torn down after the replacement school is open.

Harmon’s design contract was awarded to TSK Architects for $1.16 million.

The replacement 107,000-square-foot elementary school — which will have an 849-student capacity — will include a one-story building and two-story building on an 8.59-acre lot at the school’s existing campus, built in 1972 on Hillsboro Lane.

Harmon’s replacement school will be larger and fully enclosed, and portable buildings won’t be needed anymore, Principal Shannon Schumm said Wednesday.

She said construction is expected to begin in summer 2021.

“A lot of difficulties and logistics will be gone with a building that functions properly,” she said.

A few weeks ago, a pipe broke at the school, flooding two conjoined classrooms, Schumm said. The school was closed because of the COVID-19 outbreak, so there weren’t students or employees in the building.

But when classrooms flood, materials have to be replaced and furniture gets ruined. “Dealing with mold and floods and stuff is never good because you have to move people around,” Schumm said.

When students have a better school facility, she added, it’s a better environment for learning.

In 2015, the Legislature gave CCSD the authority for 10 years to issue bonds for new schools and renovation projects. The bond program is estimated to total about $4.1 billion.

With the replacement school projects, CCSD is opening a new school — Tyrone Thompson Elementary — in August at Mountain’s Edge Parkway and El Capitan Way in southwest Las Vegas. The estimated project cost is $44.9 million.

The school is named after the late assemblyman and education advocate, who died in May 2019 at age 51.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.