It's 10:40 a.m., the floodgates are about to open and Rancho High School Principal Robert Chesto is struggling to unfold a stack of cafeteria tables in time.
Chesto and two of the school's custodians work quickly, snapping tables into position and setting up chairs. But it's not fast enough for the steady tide of students now bearing down on them.
"I don't think it's going to work," Chesto says, shaking his head. "It's too late for today - we're just not going to have anywhere for all of them to sit."
So, after three years of planning and two years of construction, how is it that the nine-week-old campus is already overcrowded?
"There's more kids than there's supposed to be," says Karina Monarred, a Rancho freshman.
"No, the school's not big enough," suggests her classmate, Karen Rodriguez.
In a way, they're both right - illustrating the challenge of planning and building schools in the fastest-growing metropolitan region in the country.
The new Rancho opened in August, a $75 million replacement for the original 52-year-old campus. The new two-story building is designed for 2,700 students. Last week Rancho was spilling over with 3,333 students, necessitating the use of 22 temporary classroom trailers - which the principal prefers to characterize as "learning cottages."
"We could use 20 more," Chesto said.
A recent legislative audit determined the district could save as much as $350 million over five years in real estate acquisition costs if lawmakers require developers to set aside land for schools. But whether the land comes free or at a hefty price, the district's struggle to house its ever-growing student population will likely continue.
Campus overcrowding may only worsen in coming years as the district moves to add more full-day kindergarten classes, and parents continue to push for smaller class sizes.
One solution - to put more campuses on year-round schedules - is generally opposed by parents. About half of the district's more than 200 elementary schools operate year-round.
The district will go back to voters with hat in hand in two years. Proceeds from a $3.5 billion bond measure approved by voters in 1998 are about spent, and the district says it will be short by as many as eight elementary schools in 2008.
But it's not just about the money for construction. To open a new school with enough classroom seats, the district must find available land - something that is both scarce and expensive - and then find contractors willing to bid on the job when there's so much lucrative work on the Strip. Then, the district must hope its enrollment projections are on target. If just one new neighborhood sells more briskly than anticipated, it can mean hundreds of extra children showing up for school.
The revitalization of North Las Vegas neighborhoods surrounding Rancho High is the biggest contributing factor to the overcrowding at the school, Chesto said. But some school district officials are privately blaming Rancho's principal.
"He refused to turn any kid away (from the magnet programs)," said one exasperated administrator, who asked not to be identified. "Then we had to scramble for space, and we had to scramble to find the teachers." Rancho represents the district's new prototype campus, designed somewhat like a mall that clusters classrooms by their areas of study. They include the school's popular aviation and medical careers magnet programs, a freshman academy, business and technology and the visual and performing arts.
Chesto says he accepted about 1,000 students in the magnet program three years ago because no one from the district office told him to cap enrollment. The magnet programs are now limited to 850 students.
"If I had my way, we would have a seat here for every student that wants to enroll," Chesto said.
Overcrowding has other repercussions. Rancho nearly failed a fire drill because students couldn't get far enough from the building to meet the minimum safety requirements. Without access to the athletic fields, which are under construction , students quickly filled the parking lot. And moving the overflow onto the sidewalks of public streets adjacent to the school wasn't an option, as students are prohibited from leaving campus during the academic day.
"It took me a good six minutes to get outside," Rancho senior Michael Sausa said. "People were bottlenecking in the doorways. If it were a real emergency, it would have been really dangerous."
Rancho is far from the only high school in the east region that is suffering from growing pains. Eldorado High School's lunchroom is so overcrowded that the traditional lunch period has been scrapped in favor of ending the school day an hour earlier. At day's end, students can stay for lunch but many just go home.
District officials acknowledge the cafeterias at the new prototype high school campuses - Rancho, Arbor View and Legacy - don't provide sufficient student seating. To compensate for the design flaw, an outdoor area was added at Rancho, which includes a shade canopy. Legacy received a similar setup and Arbor View's is under construction.
Of the nine new schools that opened in August, three have portable classrooms. Ward and Thompson elementary schools, both operating on nine-month schedules, each have four portable classrooms. The new Wright Elementary School, which is on a year-round schedule, has 14 portable classrooms.
A new elementary school will open in 2008 and is expected to provide relief to both Ward and Thompson, which are located in the district's northwest region. Residential development in the areas surrounding the new schools is moving at a faster pace than was anticipated, said Sharon Dattoli, director of zoning and demographics for the School District.
Dattoli and Clark County School Board President Ruth Johnson said they were taken aback during a road trip last week to northwest Las Vegas to check on construction progress at the 15,000-home Providence master-planned community at the base of Kyle Canyon. "The pace has me concerned, which is why we have to physically go out there and monitor the development rate," Dattoli said. "We have to be prepared when kids from those neighborhoods show up for school." At Wright in the southwest valley, overcrowding is due largely to a faster-than-expected influx of families in the new Mountain's Edge community. A new elementary school will open in 2007 north of Blue Diamond Road, and provide some relief to Wright. Another campus is scheduled to open in 2008 on the south side of Blue Diamond Road.
Back at Rancho, they're trying to figure out how to quickly come up with more room. One possibility: shifting the school's thriving JROTC program's headquarters to the old gym, with its locker rooms available for class space and instructors' offices. That would free up a handful of classrooms inside the main building and give other student groups more access to the new gym.
A more Las Vegas-flavored solution is on its way to help with the jammed lunch hour. Chesto has asked for cocktail-style tables that can be set up against the walls outside the cafeteria, giving students a spot to plant their sandwiches.
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