Mt. Charleston elementary repairs await approval of $7.8M contract

The Clark County School District is set to approve a $7.8 million construction contract to repair the storm damage that closed the elementary school in Mount Charleston in 2023.

The proposed scope of work addresses damage that Lundy Elementary School suffered largely to its exterior and grounds when the remnants of a hurricane slammed the mountain with historic rain about a year and a half ago.

A summary of the contract award, which the school board will consider at its meeting today, does not give a timeline, but district officials had previously said they would like to complete work by August, ostensibly in time for the 2025-26 school year.

The work would include remediating the foundation, which was deeply exposed in parts by rushing water; replacing the air conditioning unit and septic system that were washed away; building embankments and placing rocks as erosion control; replacing the paving, ramps and handrails at the school’s southwest entrance; upgrading the electrical system; patching exterior walls; replacing interior flooring affected by intruding water and cracking from the foundation sagging; and replacing the kiln room, a closet-like addition that was swept away.

The contract would go to Martin-Harris Construction, and the project would be paid for by available bond funds.

The decision to reopen Lundy was not made quickly, coming in December after continual community advocacy and changes in the school board’s composition in the aftermath of prior board decisions to leave the school shuttered.

The storm that battered Mount Charleston in August 2023, just a couple of weeks into the school year, destroyed Lundy’s parking lot and threatened its foundation. Storm flows bypassed historic runoff channels and created a new drainage path through the school’s campus. The district said the building was unsafe, and the school’s dozen or so students either were sent to school in Indian Springs, about a 40-mile bus ride each way, or chose to go elsewhere.

Before agreeing to the school repairs, the board — with different membership than it has today — deadlocked in June 2024 on whether to reopen or permanently close Lundy. Then it decided, on a slim majority, to pursue a partnership with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District to build a classroom annex and playground on the grounds of the nearby Mount Charleston Library. The library board, however, was cool to the idea.

Lundy is one of CCSD’s smallest schools.

It’s rural, serving the year-round residents of Mount Charleston whoon a good day are about half an hour from services at the edge of the Las Vegas Valley.

It’s also in the only part of Clark County where snow and ice are a regular and significant concern — district officials had eschewed using portable buildings as a stop-gap for displaced students because the portables in the district’s inventory are not designed to support heavy snow loads on their roofs. District officials said trucking in portables to withstand the load would be too expensive.

Lundy has been a fixture on Mount Charleston, just off Kyle Canyon Road within the Old Town site, since 1966.