Houston Community Newspapers has details of Klein ISD’s newly approved fifth high school:
Director of Capital Projects for KISD Don Blue said, “Klein ISD, in our Conceptual Design Competition for the new high school, stipulated that the campus should be a place of learning, where we would indeed find the opportunity for excellence in all aspects of education. The school will be organized into small, learning communities and will reflect the German heritage and agricultural history of the Klein community.”
Each small learning community will have its own distinct identity and administrative area. Students will only leave their communities for fine arts, athletics or certain elective courses.
Blue said the architects were directed to incorporate the concepts of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools into their design.
“We wanted the campus to be open to the Klein community, yet secure,” he said. “We also asked the architects to give us a campus that is adaptable to changes, is durable, a good value and a building that is attractive — a building that (actually) looks like it is a place of education.“
Construction on High School #5 is expected to begin in January of 2009 and be completed in April of 2011.
“When the school opens in August of 2011, it will open as a temporary Klein High School for two years, while the existing Klein High School is being substantially renovated and reconstructed,” Blue said. “It will house the entire Klein High School population, approximately 3,500 students.”
As we have discussed repeatedly, this high school will do NOTHING to relieve district overcrowding until 2013 at the earliest, thanks to the Klein ISD board’s shortsighted decision to rebuild Klein High. By then, district residents will have already voted on another bond to fund construction of at least one more high school, to make up for their incredibly poor planning.
