Clark County School District Archives

    Getting children to school safely and on time has been a concern of parents, teachers, school administrators, and the School Board since the first school in Las Vegas opened in 1905. This presented challenges from the beginning although Las Vegas was a small community at that time. Many families lived on the west side of the railroad tracks resulting in the children having to cross the tracks to get to and from school at Second and Lewis. This safety concern existed until 1923 when the Westside School was opened. In the outlying rural schools in the mining towns of Goodsprings, Nelson, and Searchlight, the communities were more compact and the children could walk, without concern, to school. In the agriculture areas of Moapa and Virgin Valley, schools were close to the center of town. As these areas became more populated and the small school districts were consolidated for economic reasons, some sort of transportation solution became necessary. The most common solution was to pay families mileage or contract for school transportation services. It soon became an assumed responsibility of the larger school districts to provide student transportation. As the student population grew, the districts adopted regulations to provide to/from school transportation services as a courtesy and at no charge to the families. Federal mandates of 1973 required that children with disabilities be entitled to a free, appropriate public education. To meet this mandate, special education transportation services were coordinated and established. Today in Clark County, the special education transportation demand is just as large as the general education operation.