Las Cruces elementary school rebuilt seven years after evacuation over mold

LAS CRUCES — Principal Michelle Valdez welcomed Columbia Elementary School’s 540 students to a brand-new school building two weeks ago.

Construction was still underway in parts of the building Monday, with workers in hard hats and bright vests readying the cafeteria, gymnasium and library as well as some common areas. Students reported to pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as scheduled, navigating work areas and eating meals in classrooms.

While the rest of the building is due to open later this month, the start of classes completed a circle begun nearly seven years ago when Valdez learned that her school building was being evacuated. The students calmly walked away from their school, never to return.

Columbia Elementary School was built on Elks Drive in north Las Cruces in 2003. According to school board minutes from the time, it was built on an expedited construction schedule. The school was plagued for most of its life by flooding on the school grounds, owing to the building’s location along an arroyo; and persistent, severe mold infestations due to errors in the building’s construction.

At 8:30 a.m. one Thursday morning in September 2018, Valdez got the word from Las Cruces Public Schools’ central office that the students and staff were to begin an orderly evacuation to the neighboring middle school.

Then, in a single day, the district moved Columbia Elementary, in its entirety, into 20 empty classrooms at Centennial High School on the eastern edge of town 10 miles away, hurriedly adapting the space into a safe learning environment for students as young as 5 years old within a large, busy secondary school far from their neighborhood. Columbia’s students adjusted to life on a campus with bathrooms and drinking fountains designed for teenagers.

The arrangement lasted until last spring, by which time Columbia’s student body had dwindled to 180, Valdez said: “People didn’t feel comfortable putting their 5-year-old on a bus from this side of town. It was about a 45-minute bus ride by the time it was all said and done, and people weren’t comfortable with that.”

District staff determined that a subcontractor had installed interior moisture barriers backward, exposing the internal structure to water and recurring mold. The building had been in service for 15 years, well past the date the district could have recovered its losses.

After agonizing for months, with Columbia staff and families pushing to preserve their school’s identity, the school board voted to demolish the building and rebuild at a different spot on the same property. The original Columbia was torn down in 2022, and a new $64 million facility broke ground in January 2024.

“The facility is not just a structure. It’s a bright beacon of our commitment to nurturing the minds and hearts of our students,” LCPS Superintendent Ignacio Ruiz — the fourth superintendent to serve since Columbia’s evacuation — said at the groundbreaking.

Yet, in a bit of irony, Valdez said some of Columbia’s fourth graders were not pleased about reporting to the new site. “They never knew any other building except Centennial,” she said.

The new, 103,000-square-foot school sits on the same Elks Drive property, but at a higher elevation to keep it out of the path of storm runoff, with additional protection from new drainage structures. It is designed to accommodate 752 students, and Valdez said she expected the student population to hit that threshold.

Some staff members from 2018 have either stayed on or are returning to Columbia for the new school year. Valdez said she brought them out to walk the construction site during the summer, and that many volunteered to help move the school once more, back to Elks Drive, in July.

The school’s name was chosen by the community in 2003 to honor the seven crew members of the space shuttle Columbia, which fell apart during a mission early that year. It was also the only space shuttle to land at White Sands Missile Range, in March 1982. References to stars, planets and spacecraft are incorporated in the decoration and design throughout the building. Even signage for the bathrooms depicts male and female figures wearing astronaut gear.

When the new construction broke ground, LCPS board member Bob Wofford grounded the occasion in the spirit of the lost spacecraft as well as sea ships that had been christened by that name in the past.

“Columbia symbolizes renewal, inspiration, hope,” Wofford said. “It is … the renewal of our country, personified.”

Completing another circle, Valdez said that Columbia’s fifth graders in 2018 — who are now completing their final year of high school — have been invited back to Columbia for their senior walk this spring.