"These beautiful new homes, and the beautiful children that will be attending our school." That's how CCSD Superintendent Jhone Ebert described the mound of rocky dirt on North Shaumber Road where district officials, construction partners, and a handful of schoolchildren broke ground on June 22, 2026. What she didn't say, but what the district's own numbers make clear, is that this is the last school Clark County plans to build anywhere in the valley purely because a neighborhood grew too fast to fit in its existing schools.
Skye Canyon is that neighborhood. And for the next nine days, through 5 p.m. on August 17, residents get an unusual say in what the building will be called.
What Ground Was Actually Broken
The site sits at Skye Canyon Park Drive and Shaumber Road, north of Grand Teton Drive, on an 11.85-acre parcel that was still bare dirt as of this spring. Planning filings describe a two-building campus with up to 63 classrooms, eight of them portable, spread across roughly 109,000 square feet. Ethos Three Architecture is the architect of record, with SLA Land Architects handling the grounds. The Las Vegas City Council signed off on the project in February 2026, and the district's bond oversight committee lists the total cost at $92.9 million, funded through CCSD's 2015 Capital Improvement Program.
Here's the project at a glance:
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Location | Skye Canyon Park Drive at Shaumber Road |
| Site size | 11.85 acres |
| Capacity | Up to 850 students |
| Classrooms | Up to 63, including 8 portable |
| Building size | About 109,000 square feet |
| Budget | $92.9 million |
| Groundbreaking | June 22, 2026 |
| Opening | August 2027 |
The school still doesn't have a name. CCSD is calling it, for now, simply the newest elementary school in the northwest valley.
The Two Schools This Was Built to Relieve
The reason it exists at all traces back to two campuses a couple of miles away. According to enrollment data the district cited at the groundbreaking, Bozarth Elementary ran at 101 percent capacity last year, and Divich Elementary sat at 141 percent, the most crowded campus in the entire district. Divich was built for about 800 students and was carrying more than 1,100, propped up by 17 portable classrooms.
The new Skye Canyon school will draw students currently zoned for both Bozarth and Divich, which fall within roughly a two mile radius of the new site. For families at those two schools, that means fewer portables, more room in the cafeteria line, and a shorter walk for a lot of Skye Canyon households once the doors open in fall 2027.
Why CCSD Says This Is the Last One
Here's the part that doesn't fit the growth narrative most people carry around about the northwest valley. Districtwide, CCSD enrollment has been shrinking, not growing. Total enrollment peaked at about 327,000 students in 2017 and is projected to land at 282,643 for the term starting this fall, a drop of roughly 13.6 percent in under ten years.
The district's own facilities plans show what that decline looks like elsewhere. Chaparral High School, which opened in 1973 and currently has room for about 2,400 students, is scheduled to reopen after a rebuild in 2029 with a capacity of just 1,800. That's the pattern across most of the valley right now: replace an aging building, but plan for fewer kids, not more.
Skye Canyon got the opposite. A brand new campus, built at full capacity, in a neighborhood the district's own zoning and demographics team correctly bet would keep filling in even as Las Vegas overall cools off. District facilities chief Brandon McLaughlin put the distinction plainly.
"New schools are always a different approach for us."
Replacement projects mean stepping into a building with decades of history already built in. This one means pouring a foundation where there was only dirt a few months ago, for a neighborhood the district says still needs the room. CCSD officials have confirmed this will be the last school built specifically for capacity growth for the foreseeable future, which makes Skye Canyon the exception the whole district is currently working around, not the model it's repeating.
How to Put a Name In Before August 17
CCSD's School Name Committee, chaired by trustee Tameka Henry, is running an open nomination window right now, and anyone in the community can submit a name.
"We welcome nominations from all members of the community."
Under CCSD Policy 7223, a nominee generally needs to fit one of these categories:
- A former CCSD employee or Board of School Trustees member who showed exceptional leadership in Clark County education, separated from the district for at least two years or out of office for at least three
- Someone outside education entirely who has served as a genuine role model and shown leadership toward the advancement of education or humanity in Clark County
- The name of a previously closed CCSD school, which the committee automatically considers alongside new nominations
Applications are reviewed as they come in, and the three nominees with the highest combined evaluation scores become finalists. The committee makes its recommendation at its August meeting, and that recommendation goes to the full Board of Trustees for final approval at a regular public meeting later in September. But none of that happens without nominations first, and the window closes at 5 p.m. on August 17, 2026. If you have a name in mind, the CCSD School Name Committee page has the current application and eligibility details.
What It Means If You Live Here
For a neighborhood that's spent the past several years absorbing new residents faster than most of the valley, this is a small but real marker of how that growth gets processed institutionally. This is only one piece of what has been rising around Skye Canyon's edges lately. If you want the fuller picture of what else is under construction nearby, our resident's field guide to what's being built around Skye Canyon covers the rest of it.
The new campus also sits close to the trail network that already threads through the community. If your household uses those paths to get to Skye Canyon Park or Skye Center, the new school will likely become one more stop along a route you already walk. Our guide to parks, trails, and outdoor life in Skye Canyon has the rest of that map.
A dirt lot on Shaumber Road is going to have a roof by next fall, classrooms full of kids from Bozarth and Divich, and a name that, for once, a Skye Canyon resident might have helped pick. Nine days is not a lot of time. If you have someone in mind who deserves that honor, now is the window.
For more on what's changing in Skye Canyon and the rest of the neighborhoods across the valley, Alex McGurk keeps a close eye on the northwest valley and is always glad to talk through what's actually happening on the ground, whether you're already home here or just keeping tabs on the community from afar.
