Schools struggle in boom-to-bust neighborhoods

From The Las Vegas Sun: As a school serving a once-growing neighborhood in Henderson, Nev., Liberty High School has been hit harder than most by the economic downturn. Opened in 2003, Liberty was the Clark County district’s response to the southwest valley’s housing boom. Today, those neighborhoods are sprinkled with “For Sale” signs, foreclosure notices and abandoned properties with dying landscaping. Some builders simply quit midstream, leaving behind three or four finished model homes where 30 to 40 had been planned. Fall enrollment was well below projections: 1,850 students on a campus built for 2,600.