The Nye County School District (NCSD) is taking a proactive and cost-effective approach to protecting its recent investment in gym flooring by partnering with two key vendor partners: Tahoe Supply and Buckeye International. Through annual maintenance, comprehensive training, and ongoing support, the district is ensuring that the newly resurfaced wood floors at several schools will retain their quality and appearance for many years to come.
“This process is all about preserving the life of our floors,” explained Nate Cardinal, Director of Maintenance, Operations, Safety, and Security for NCSD. “After last year’s complete sanding, repainting, and re-striping of our wood floors, we now do a yearly screen and recoat. That way, we avoid having to do another full sanding for at least 10 to 15 years.”
A screen and recoat involves lightly abrading the existing floor coating using a vibrating machine fitted with a rough pad. Once the old layer is partially removed, new coats of finish are applied, restoring shine and protection. “It’s not a full refinish,” Cardinal clarified. “There’s no repainting. This is just to maintain the surface and extend the life of the original work.”
Helping lead the effort are two vendor representatives: Rich Anderson from Tahoe Supply, and Colin McCown from Buckeye International. Tahoe provides all custodial and facility supplies across the district, while Buckeye supplies the sealing products and chemical systems used during the coating process.
Both companies are deeply involved in hands-on support and staff training. “They’re really good about doing in-person trainings whenever we need it,” Cardinal said. “We just finished a training session in the north at Round Mountain and now we’re doing training in Pahrump for the southern schools.”
Cardinal added that the support is completely free to the district. “On top of the in-person sessions, there’s also computer-based training our custodians complete annually. And our teams have direct access to both reps any time they need help.”
Rich Anderson of Tahoe Supply echoed the sentiment. “We’re so happy to be working with Nye County School District and Nate and the team here, as well as Buckeye International. They’re awesome,” he said. “We’re a family-owned business based in Nevada, and we’re just happy to be helping out Nevada schools.”
Participating locations in the current round of training and maintenance include Pahrump Valley High School, Beatty High School, Round Mountain, Tonopah Elementary, and custodial staff from Manse Elementary. The Manse team joined voluntarily to learn how to maintain their stage flooring, which is also wood. Gabbs will also be going through a screen and recoat this year as well.
“Not all floors are wood,” Cardinal noted. “JG Johnson and RCMS have rubber floors, so they follow a different maintenance process involving scrubbing and sealing, but the overall goal is the same—preserve the investment and ensure these surfaces are safe and presentable.”
Once trained, school teams are expected to maintain their floors independently, but the vendor partners remain available for support. “Rich will come out any time, and we like to have both reps here for the initial training to make sure all questions are answered,” Cardinal said.
The district has also invested in the right tools for ongoing upkeep. “We don’t use heavy scrubbers anymore,” Cardinal explained. “Now it’s all about using the proper chemicals and tow-behind cleaning systems that rely on weight and absorbent pads instead of abrasion.”
As staff changes, all new custodial staff will be trained to ensure consistency across all sites. According to Anderson, the partnership is long-term. “We have a plan to be working with these guys for three or four more years to keep bringing the floors up and maintaining them.”
Cardinal said the cost of the original sanding projects for Pathways and PVHS was approximately $101,000. The cost of the supplies for the recoat this year was $7859.48 for both gyms. He also reiterated that neither company was charging anything to come to Nye County and train the staff.
“Our goal is to maintain high-quality facilities for students, staff, and the community—and this is a great example of how we’re doing that,” he said. “It’s a smart investment, and we’re grateful to have vendors like Tahoe and Buckeye who truly care about our schools.”
