Governing Board | Educational Environments within PVSchools

While backpacks and lunchboxes may have lost their “first day” freshness, we still aren’t that far past first bell to wish everyone a heartfelt welcome to the 2025-2026 school year here in Paradise! We hope everyone has sorted out schedules, grown comfortable in their schools, and plunged ahead on this latest stepping stone of their journey of excellence.

As it does continuously, our Facilities Department worked tirelessly throughout the summer to ensure that our schools were ready for the return to learning. Refreshes, upgrades, and more were made to ensure that the environment for teaching and learning at each site is inviting and invigorating. 

Over the years, as structures age past the point that even a well-honed maintenance schedule can keep a building running as effectively as needed, decisions have to be made about next steps with facilities. I grew up in a school district where the original high school was repurposed into a junior high when a larger high school was built – while around the same time a new elementary school sprung up right next to the now junior high school. I attended that elementary school midway through fourth grade, finishing at a different elementary school when my family moved, then went back to that junior high school. Many years later, the district decided a number of older schools needed to be rebuilt into more modern, welcoming facilities, including both elementary schools I attended, while my old junior high was torn down and not replaced. Today, one of the elementary schools remains and the other serves as an alternative school and family resource center for the district.

This type of “circle of life” change is natural in school districts, and certainly we have faced similar situations in our district. Here in PV, we have been fortunate indeed to have a community that has helped make many of those decisions easier by supporting bond efforts that include funding not just to more efficiently maintain our schools but often reimagine them into new, exciting educational environments for our students and staff. 

Recently, we have been able to do so with various schools including Campo Bello Elementary, Palomino Primary, and Roadrunner Schools. In each case, some of the existing structures were maintained while new facilities were raised around the sites. At Roadrunner, for instance, the rebuild was able to incorporate the multipurpose room from the old school (also known as Gold Dust and the Cholla Complex once upon a time) and then transform the rest of the campus to meet the unique needs of this vibrant K-12 alternative school.

Currently, we are transfiguring one of our older campuses, Indian Bend Elementary. Working with the students, staff, and community, the design and build teams are crafting ideas that will honor Thunderbird history while helping everyone soar into the future in a brand-new building that will better support teaching and learning in the 21st century. The enthusiasm is palpable in the community about all the possibilities that await when the new school becomes reality.

Education changes constantly – from new textbooks, technology, and tools to updated theories and practices – and so do the settings that shape education and the art of teaching. In PV, we work to integrate all these moving pieces together to ensure the educational environment throughout the district is robust and able to meet the needs of our diverse learners and families. I want to thank all of our teachers and staff for being the amazing architects of these educational environments here in PV and to our parents and families for choosing them! We look forward to collaborating with you to make this the best year – and environment – yet in Paradise!

On behalf of the Governing Board,

Anne Greenberg

President