Rounds of gunfire rang out in broad daylight, and construction workers scrambled for cover in dirt trenches and behind concrete walls.
Several youths, targets of the shots, scattered before the dusty school construction site. Their arms flailed and they ran "like they were on fire," said Wayne Tanaka, pointing to the corner of J Street and West Lake Mead Boulevard where the drive-by occurred earlier this year.
In a neighborhood stained by violence and littered with discarded drug needles and broken bottles, no one was hurt -- that time.
"A kid saw someone he didn't like," Tanaka said. "The construction workers thought they were shooting at them."
Standing at the entrance of what will be the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, Tanaka turned and faced the corner where the shots were fired.
"Not many parents would want to bring their children into the hot spot," said Tanaka, the school's principal and executive director.
Dozens of violent incidents have been reported around the neighborhood since January.
Agassi Prep -- a charter school -- is open to anyone, but it's the neighborhood's disadvantaged children Tanaka most wants to reach. He said the majority of applications for the school, set to open Aug. 30, came from a 2-mile radius.
The school building is mostly a framework, much like Tanaka's plans for running it.
Doubters say it will be hard -- nearly impossible -- to take children from a neighborhood where tough breaks heavily outweigh easy ones, where drugs and gangs seem like an easy out, and turn them into college-bound scholars.
Tanaka says it can be done.
From reading, writing and arithmetic to ballet and high tea, he intends to build a charter school that walks and talks like a private school.
Its goal? Every student will graduate ready to attend college.
It all starts this fall, with 150 students in grades three through five chosen from a lottery of more than 300 applicants. Each year a lottery will be held to select new students, and a grade level will be added through high school.
The school has the potential to change more students than the ones it will directly serve. As educators look for ways to boost student performance and keep good teachers in at-risk schools, Agassi Prep is expected to become a model for Clark County.
It will have advantages other schools do not have, such as an extended school day and school year.
The extra time includes a six-day school week just before TerraNova testing in fourth grade.
Just weeks into the school year all Clark County fourth grade students take the standardized exam that is used to evaluate school performance. Schools that perform poorly are labeled inadequate and must outline improvement for the Nevada Education Department.
Tanaka, who retired from the Clark County School District after 29 years as a teacher and principal, said he refuses to accept excuses for poor scores.
And he's bringing that philosophy into an area where schools have consistently struggled.
At Agassi Prep, students and staffers will work the Saturday before testing, going over ways to improve test-taking skills and overcome testing anxiety. At the beginning of the year, teachers will evaluate students to find their weaknesses.
"It's time on task and exposure to teachers who care and who are turned on to education," Tanaka said. "It's nothing magical.
"Why are the foreign countries that are outperforming us on a 240-day schedule and we're on 180? They have a whole semester more than we do."
Agassi Prep will contract its teachers for a 194-day school year, making it 10 days longer than the Clark County School District's.
"One of the biggest things is the extended school day," said Julie Rossetti, Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation executive director. Rossetti spent about a year traveling to charter schools throughout the country, studying what works best.
"The ones that were doing the best had an extended day," she said. "And they weren't just sitting in classrooms. There were a lot of other fun and unique programs."
Agassi Prep students will attend school for eight hours -- possibly more -- compared with a six-hour day in the Clark County School District.
Tanaka said the extended day will provide an additional 10 minutes of math instruction per day. By the end of the week, students will have completed one additional period of math.
The rest of the longer day will be spent on things many kids don't learn in school: study skills, culture and manners.
In fact, Tanaka said, culture will play a big role for all students.
"We're going to pull out all of the stops," Tanaka said. "The kids are not going to hear only rap. That doesn't cut it, not for a cultured person. When they are doing test preparation, we are going to have Baroque music playing in the background."
Students will study ballet and other dance forms with groups such as the Nevada Ballet Theater. A chorus teacher with professional theater experience will teach music at the school.
Manners, such as knowing which dining utensils to use, will round out the students' training.
"We're going to have high tea right here," Tanaka said.
Overall, the school will focus on technology, college preparation, cultural activities and community and parental involvement.
Located near the Agassi Boys and Girls Club, Rossetti said officials hope the school will reach many children who use the club.
The school came about, Rossetti said, because the tennis star and his staff wanted to do more to improve education.
"We felt we were not doing enough for education," she said. "We felt we were really just skimming the top of it."
The charitable foundation founded by Agassi has given more than $14 million to causes that benefit Nevada children.
The foundation provided $4.1 million for the school's building and startup. The school has received other grants as well as state funding.
"The nicest thing about them is they don't have to do this," Tanaka said of those associated with the foundation. "(Agassi) is the kindest, most humble person you would ever want to meet. All he ever asks about when you see him is how the children are doing and whether we have enough books or computers for the school."
The foundation selected Tanaka to run the school after a national search.
"These kids don't believe they can go anywhere, except to jail or to sell drugs," he said. "In 2008, when the first graduating class walks across the stage, I want to hear the name of the student and where they are going -- which university or college they are attending."
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