Area HISD high schools count off building problems

By Flori Meeks | Tuesday, October 9, 2012 – Houston Chronicle

 

Several area high schools could receive new buildings if voters approve the latest bond package proposed by the Houston Independent School District this November.

The district’s $1.89 billion bond proposal including approximately $46.7 million for a new Jefferson Davis High School building, $80.1 million to build a new High School for Performing and Visual Arts and $107.9 million to build a new Lamar High School building.

If the construction projects move forward, they will be guided at the campus level by project advisory teams comprising community members, teachers, parents, students, administrators and other stakeholders, saidOrlando Riddick, HISD’s Chief High School Officer. Each participant would contribute feedback from the communities they represent.

“They’ll help advise the principal on the best way to build a building,” Riddick said.

Davis High School

Davis’ new building would be designed for 1,500 to 1,700 students. Enrollment at the building at 1101 Quitman is 1,611.

The school’s last building project took when a classroom wing was added in 1978.

“Over three-quarters of the building used was built in 1926,” Principal Jaime Castaneda said. “Some of the chalkboards I used as a student – I graduated in 1975 – are here.”

The building also has its original swimming pool. Heavily layered paint peels off the walls. The air-conditioning unit and bathroom facilities have problems. The front pavers are sinking, and benches are coming apart. Davis’ first graduated class comprised 12 seniors, Castaneda said. Classrooms were designed with small classes in mind. Today, the school has a student-teacher ratio of 35 to one.

“Basically, you’re looking at a very outdated building that needs a lot of help,” Castaneda said.

There is a possibility, he said, of keeping the school’s original façade and gutting the remainder of the building.

Before the current project was proposed, HISD was considering $7 million in improvements for Davis, said Hugo Mojica, second vice president of the Jefferson Davis Hispanic Alumni Association.

Earlier this year, Mojica joined with the president of the North Central Civic Club, two representatives from Davis’ PTA and the school’s other alumni group, Davis & Friends, to form the David Bond Committee.

The group shared concerns about the building with the district.

Mojica said he appreciates the district’s decision to propose a new building altogether for Davis.

“This school is part of the community, and we take pride in it,” Mojica said.

HSPVA

A new High School for Performing and Visual Arts building would accommodate 750 students. Current enrollment is 693.

The new building would be in downtown Houston, a couple of blocks from the city’s theater district on a block bounded by Austin, Capitol, Caroline and Rusk. The former Central High School site is owned by the school district and has been functioning as a surface parking lot.

“Just the performing and partnership opportunities are so amazing,” Principal R. Scott Allen said.

The school’s current home at 4001 Stanford St. was built in 1981 for 500 students in grades 10-12, Allen said. That school year, the campus started serving ninth-graders, too, and needed room for approximately 650 students.

“So, even when it opened, the school was not big enough for the student body,” he said.

“If you come to the school, you’ll see students rehearsing in the hallways.”

The school lacks adequate classroom space, too, and teachers float from room to room, Allen said. A bigger facility would allow for a larger music program, he said, and enable the school to expand its creative writing program.

Lamar High School

The district estimates enrollment in the proposed new Lamar building would range 2,800 to 3,100. Enrollment now is 3,260.

Lamar, constructed in 1936 at 3325 Westheimer Road, has four main buildings and several smaller structures. Its last building addition took place in 1987, though infrastructure work funded by a 2007 bond issue has been under way since last summer in the 1936 north building.

That building would remain, Principal James McSwain said, adding that the older building has held up better than the school’s newer, 1980s-era buildings. But that’s not to say the building is adequate to meet the students’ needs as is, he said.

“The principle issue is the Depression-era classrooms. They are one-half to one-third as large as modern classrooms. We have the smallest furniture we can get, and it’s just crammed in there,” McSwain said.

The school’s science rooms were designed for when students only were required to complete two years of science to graduate, he said. Today, most Lamar students take at least four years of science.

“We have two chemistry labs; we need 10,” McSwain said. “It’s the same with biology. We’re rotating in and out of the labs.”

The existing science rooms fail to meet safety requirements for size and dimensions, he said.

Lamar also needs more facilities for extracurricular activities.

“Lamar High School is the largest International Baccalaureate school in the world,” McSwain said. “Our clientele also wants a full high school experience with the arts and athletics, the things that make students more well-rounded people. Those are facilities we are seriously lacking.”

McSwain anticipates a building project modeled after the work done at Reagan High School in the Heights, a project that retained elements of its original 1920s-era building and added new elements.

Daniel Woodson, who graduated from Lamar High School in 1983, is enthusiastic about the proposed improvements.

“I believe it would be quite uplifting for the current student body, the Lamar High School Alumni as well as the River Oaks Community, especially on the heels of our 75th anniversary celebration,” he said.

The bond proposal would include new campuses for 20 high schools, partial replacement of four and renovations at four others.

It also includes conversion of five elementary schools into kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campuses and construction, replacement or completions of other schools.

The plan calls for phasing in a tax rate increase expected to cost the owner of a $200,000 home an extra $70 a year in 2017.