Driven up there and man what a difference a little elevation makes. Couldn’t believe LAS was so close and so different. Unfortunately the closest schools are 20mi away and pretty bad at that. It’s also a little more rural than we’d like. More interested a smallish town and less in the sticks but not busy metro.

St George would be your only option, 2hrs away. Still gets 100+ but it’s 5-7 degrees cooler than Vegas usually.

Push it to 2.5 hours and you can live in the hills above St. George. Anywhere from 4000 to 6500ft elevation, so nice and cool and only 15-30min from town depending on where you’re at.

Commute to Vegas isn’t bad, all freeway and traffic is pretty non-existent unless there’s construction.

Do the Las Vegas suburbs have good public schools?

No. The suburbs of vegas are still mostly vegas. You can go to Henderson and that's one of the only 'suburbs of vegas that might be worth it. Vegas has one of the worst school districts in the country. I think it's ranked second to last. No clue about Boulder City. Henderson is probably better.

Mt. Charleston is your only hope with the OP’s criteria. However, schools are limited, as are housing options. Brian Head, UT and Pine Valley, UT come to mind but are 3+ hours away, depending on traffic. St. George isn’t much cooler in the summer.

The entire Vegas area (Henderson, LV, North LV, Boulder City and more - all of Clark County, NV) is all one school district and it is really awful. Private school or bust if you live in Vegas with kids.

Apparently if you live in Vegas you never have to pay for groceries again. 2/2 visits to stores during my last recurrent stint I watched people meander (not run, just walk casually despite it being known what they were doing) out of grocery stores casually and in plain view of employees who could do nothing about it. The cashier at the first one told me they rang up and then walked out with over $300 in "Diapers and alcohol."

I'd be very wary of living in a place where this is allowed to thrive.

No, but you will find plenty of weathered over dug graves. Sometimes the person in them dug it themselves.

A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all *******in' night.

Lake Mead water level get down to Jimmy Hoffa yet?