Students at Von Tobel Middle School walked into a brand-new building this week, trading a campus that had stood since 1965 for a modernized facility just blocks away on Alto Avenue. The new site includes reflective windows that block outside visibility into classrooms, doors that automatically bolt-lock when closed, and a fresh drop-off and pickup layout designed to keep car lines safer and more secure.
The roughly two-year construction project replaced Von Tobel’s aging former building on Pecos Road, according to FOX5 Las Vegas. The new campus houses all of its roughly 900 students in a single building, a change from the previous layout, and school officials said the facility was designed to be safer, more functional and more comfortable for students. Assistant Principal Amanda Dupree said the new campus feels like a college campus to the students walking its halls.
The original Ed Von Tobel campus opened in 1965 as a junior high school serving grades seven through nine, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It was named for Ed Von Tobel Sr., founder of the Von Tobel Lumber Company, who helped around 200 Las Vegas families finance their first homes during the Great Depression, per the Nevada Community Foundation. The replacement project was estimated at $95.7 million as part of Clark County School District’s 2015 Capital Improvement Program, the same bond-funded initiative that designated more than 30 aging schools built in the 1950s and 1960s for full replacement.
Security Upgrades Follow a 2023 Shooting Scare
The new building’s emphasis on physical security did not come out of nowhere. In May 2023, an unarmed campus security monitor at the old Von Tobel campus was wounded by a stray bullet fired during an off-campus gang rivalry, triggering an emergency lockdown. Two brothers were later sentenced to state prison in July 2024 for their roles in that shooting…