School’s construction came in below budget
year. The school’s magnet aviation programs are available to students districtwide.
The new Sterling school, which opened Jan. 4, is the first comprehensive high school financed by Houston ISD’s 2012 bond and the first built in the district in nearly 16 years. The bond calls for the renovation or rebuilding of 40 schools, including 29 high schools. Sterling’s new 237,000-square-foot campus, which can serve about 1,800 students, will replace the original brick school built in 1965.
The school’s price tag — $67.5 million — came in below the district’s $72 million budget for construction and furnishing it with equipment and technology. The construction cost alone was about $49 million. According to a 2014 Texas Comptroller study, a high school that serves about 2,000 students should cost about $53.4 million to build, adjusting for inflation and regional price differences.
“I think it’s important; the neighborhood needs something great,” Fuentes said. “Former bonds have come and gone, and not much has changed around here. We’re the farthestsouth school in HISD, and you get the assumption that it’s forgotten. But this proves HISD and the city care. Now, this is a showpiece in the neighborhood that elevates the whole area.”
The Rev. A.L. Hickman, pastor of the nearby New Commandment Christian Fellowship Church, agreed.
“It’s like a rose sticking out of a garden,” Hickman, a special education co-teacher at the school, said of it. “Every week my parishioners would ask about it. No one in this community doesn’t know the school is here now, and they’re so grateful to have it.”
He saw dozens of alumni and curious community members driving around the new campus last week.
On the day the school opened, a teacher walked four students through issues that could arise on one of the hangar’s 17 engines. Older students will be tasked with studying the engines, breaking them down and rebuilding them.
Armonnie Neal, a 16-year-old sophomore at the school, said she was eager to enroll in the aviation program even though she hopes to eventually become a nurse.
“I’ve never seen some of these engines before,” she said, looking around the hangar. “It’s important for the school to have this. People want to be pilots and mechanics, and having this space will show us more about airplanes. It’s so big, and it looks so much more professional.”