WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018, THE ALVIN ADVERTISER
Education d Healthcare d Religion
At Alvin ISD, growth leads to more opportunities to learn By David Rupkalvis Publisher For decades Alvin Independent School District was a small, lazy district with just a handful of schools. That is certainly no longer the case. With rapid growth in the district, especially along the Highway 288 corridor in Manvel, Pearland and Iowa Colony, the district is now among the fastest growing in the state. With approximately 1,200 new students entering the district every year, the biggest change has been a nonstop need for new schools. Since 2000, voters have approved six bonds, and the district has built 22 new schools. The building boom includes Manvel High School, Shadow Creek High School and the JB Hensler College and Career Academy for high school students. At the junior high level, five news schools — Ryan, Fairview, Manvel, Rodeo Palms and McNair — have been built. The fastest growth has been at the elementary school level as the following schools have been opened — Jeter, Marek, Wilder, Savannah Lakes, Hasse, Meridiana, Brothers, York, Mark Twain, Duke and Pomona. In addition, two schools are slated to open next year, Nelson and Sanchez. Alvin ISD Superintendent Buck Gilcrease recently put the growth into figures easier to understand. Gilcrease explained when he was hired five years ago there were 20,195 students. In those
five years, close to 6,000 students have been added to the district. “To put that into perspective, we’ve grown Angleton ISD in five school years,” Gilcrease said. “We’ve grown Friendswood ISD in five school years.” While new students are coming every year, Gilcrease said the district has deliberately been slow to build. He explained the goal is to open every new school near capacity. Gilcrease explained the district opened McNair Junior High this year, and it is already at capacity. “Our philosophy is we build just in time,” Gilcrease said. “We don’t build a school so it will sit there a quarter full. We want to open it at or near capacity.” While the growth has led to new schools, it has also led to new opportunities for students. One of the biggest changes over the last few years was the opening of the J.B. Hensler Academy. At the Hensler Academy, high school students from either Alvin, Manvel or Shadow Creek can go much further in education. With classes in specialized fields ranging from auto mechanics and welders to nursing and vet techs, students can graduate with a high school diploma and a certificate that could help them immediately get a job in dozens of industries. One student was recently hired as a nurse at 18 after graduation and another received a job paying $60,000 a year as a welder. “It was always the priority of
Students learn how to work on air conditioners at the JB Hensler Academy. Students who complete the HVAC program will graduate from high school with a certificate that could get them hired quickly. (Photo by David Rupkalvis) the Alvin ISD board to expand career and technology opportunities, but it was constrained,” Assistant Superintendent Daniel Combs said. He explained state law requirements made it difficult for districts to offer much more than the core subjects. But when House Bill 5 passed in 2013, it
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gave districts more freedom to incorporate career and technology classes, and Alvin ISD moved quickly. Immediately, the district turned the old Manvel Junior High annex into a career and technology center, and when voters approved bonds in 2013 and 2015, the Hensler Academy was built.
“The focus of the district is to meet the needs of each individual student,” Combs said. “This provides a pathway for students to explore a career field and to gain a valuable skillset.” Combs said the vision of the Hensler Academy is twofold — to provide a way for students to start a career immediately upon graduation, but also to provide
basics for students who might want to move on to more advanced training after high school. “We have seen a great interest in career and technology courses,” he said. “We’ve also been excited as a district to offer new offerings.”
See LEARNING, page 2A