MARK WAITE / PVT Students leave Pahrump Valley High School headed for other classes in adjacent buildings. Advertisement

The existing Pahrump Valley High School should be expanded, while sixth-grade students could attend elementary schools next year after the new Floyd Elementary opens, lightening the load on Rosemary Clarke Middle School.

That is the plan the Nye County School District's construction committee will recommend to the school board of trustees.

That would scrap a plan approved in April by calling for the construction of one large, new high school on Gamebird Road and conversion of the existing high school into a second middle school.

The construction committee includes three school board members: Mike Floyd and Harold Tokerud were in favor of the idea, Tracie Ward wanted to study it some more.

The recommendations will be considered by the full Nye County school board during a meeting in Gabbs, Oct. 13. At the suggestion of Tokerud, trustees will also schedule the item for the Nov. 8 Pahrump meeting, to gather local input.

Floyd said the cost of extending water and sewer lines to the Gamebird Road site would be prohibitive at this time. He also liked the existing Pahrump Valley High School's central location on Calvada Boulevard.

Nye County School Superintendent Rob Roberts suggested course of action included a possible two-story high school with 32 classrooms. The cost of building additions at $300 per square foot could amount to $10 million for building and $10 million for career and technical academy equipment, including computers, according to Roberts' estimates.

Pahrump Valley High School was built in 1991, with an initial capacity of 500 students, later expanded to 650, Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Rod Pekarek said. Then modulars were added for more capacity. There are 10 modulars on site already, plus five classrooms are being used at Great Basin College.

Tokerud pushed for an overall education plan for the future.

"I'd make a list of what we'd like to see in the school and give it to the architects," he said.

When asked for his preference, Pahrump Valley High School Principal Kent Roberts said he'd just prefer everything be in one building instead of scattered around with a Ninth Grade Campus, Great Basin College building, modular buildings and the A and B wings.

"From my perspective, running that store, having these two buildings and having kids going so far back and forth is a security nightmare," Roberts said. He referred to the distance students need to walk from the Ninth Grade Campus to the main Pahrump Valley High School building in seven minutes between classes, as well as parents having to travel a quarter-mile from his office to see the school counselors.

"This layout is a nightmare. It really is," Ward said. "For being over 10 years old, the high school looks like it's been through 100 years of severe abuse."

Ward said school board members shouldn't ignore the fact the high school needs a lot of work. She repeated her dislike for big high schools, though she didn't get any support for having two high schools.

The principal suggested expanding the school administration area to the grassy area in front of the high school. Tokerud said the school district could fence in the high school grounds if there are security concerns.

Tokerud said the only change he'd make to the superintendent's preferred option would be the growth projections. Roberts estimated a 5 percent growth rate in student enrollment, something school district officials now think is a little high.

"Our growth rate has been about 5 percent the last four years," Rob Roberts said. "Whether that continues depends on the growth of the housing industry."

Pahrump Valley High School had 1,424 students in class on the official count day Sept. 14. Rosemary Clarke Middle School had 1,204. The high school enrollment is up from 1,370 students on the official count day on Sept. 22, 2006, but by only 3 percent instead of the 6 percent school district officials anticipated. The middle school enrollment actually dropped 4.5 percent from 1,261 last year.

Nye County school trustees are estimating at this point they'll have $65 million in bond money to spend on capital improvements over the next three years, depending on the growth of new construction. Rob Roberts said $7 million will have to be used for the new Floyd Elementary School, as bids came in at $16.3 million.

He doubted whether a new, big high school could be built for the remaining $58 million.

Assistant Superintendent Dale Norton, a former Rosemary Clarke Middle School principal, estimated that school could easily hold 1,000 students, if sixth graders were divided among the five elementary schools next year. Rob Roberts said elementary school principals like the idea of keeping sixth graders with the younger students instead of mixing them with the middle school students.

The additional sixth graders wouldn't require more modular buildings at those elementary schools because of the opening of the Floyd Elementary School next year, the superintendent said. He predicted that would allow the enrollment of the elementary schools to stay at about 500 each. As of the count day Sept. 14, Manse Elementary had 530 pupils, Hafen Elementary 587, J.G. Johnson 590 and Mount Charleston Elementary 597.

The major question arose over how to expand Pahrump Valley High School.

Floyd said the soccer teams could share the football field, allowing the soccer field to be used as the site of a new building about the same size as the main high school building and located directly behind it.

Nye County Maintenance and Operations Supervisor Bob Whimpey said the rubberized track surrounding the football field needs to be resurfaced soon due to deterioration. That could be done when the football field is widened to accommodate soccer, he added.

Plans are to relocate the early learning center, on the high school grounds along Mount Charleston Drive, to the elementary schools where it belongs, Rob Roberts said. Norton suggested when that moves, the football and soccer fields could be moved there.

"The biggest liability any school has is security issues," Kent Roberts said. His only wish? "Not being able to get everything under one roof but close to it."