The Clark County (Nevada) district has opened a new Thomas Elementary School--the last of 14 district schools created with an identical structure.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the $42 million Las Vegas campus encompasses 86,000 square feet. It can hold 850 students and has 53 teaching stations; the former building had 41 teaching stations.
“There’s only so much you can do with a building designed for a different era,” principal Michael Stosek said. The old building was built in 1966.
Stosek says the school received a certificate of occupancy just 12 hours prior to the first day of school. Over the year leading up to the new building, the school moved three times. Stosek called the temporary trailer park campus, which would heat up to 125 degrees on the pavement, “insane.”
Stosek’s favorite part of the new building is the outdoor space, a welcome change from the old location’s sinkholes and broken sprinkler system.
