Hawks start new school year together

HOUSTON — Houston Junior/Senior High School began its 2019 school year on Thursday as a school united once again. With two new portable classrooms built by students over the summer, over 700 students began a new legacy as Houston.

The students attended their first classes on Thursday, but staff had been preparing for the first day of school since late July.

“You come to work every day in an empty building and when the kids come back things come back to life,” said principal Ben Howard.

Howard served as the principal at Houston Middle School until the Nov. 30, 2018, earthquake rendered Houston Middle unsafe, uniting the Houston school community under one roof for the first time since Houston High School was built in 2003. The scramble to combine the schools required the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District to relocate all available portables to Houston. Howard was promoted as principal of Houston and noticed a barrier between middle and high school students during the second semester of the last school year. With a close-knit community featuring many parents who graduated from the old school that had been used as HMS since 2003, the combination of the schools has been welcomed by the community.

“Since we’ve started up this year I haven’t heard any of that and so that’s the first sign to me that people realize that we’re one school now. That’s an important piece because you have to break down that wall for staff and kids and so that is probably one of the first things I noticed right away is that people are referring to us as HJHS,” said Howard.

MSBSD hired crews of student labor to maintain it’s facilities over the summer, two of which worked on portables outside Houston. The majority of the students rebuilding the existing portables and constructing two new portables from the ground up were local Houston students.

Courtney Williamson welcomed students into her classroom portable on not only their first day of school, but her first day as a Houston teacher.

“It is night and day from where we came so this is positive, it’s supportive. Everybody here is like a family,” said Williamson.

Howard raved about how nice the work the students put in to repair and paint each ramp. Howard believes that the students’ investment in their own school buildings will help foster a respect for the school itself. The two additional portable classrooms also eased congestion between middle and high school students throughout the building. Howard walked in between the portables during passing periods, each student and sharing fishing stories from the summer. He stopped to help new students find their classrooms when they were lost.

“The other nice thing that’s special for me and Mr. Wear are is that this year’s seniors are the first group of 6th graders we’ve had, so we’ve been with them through their middle school, then we’ve been with them through their eighth grade promotion, and now we’re going to be part of their graduation,” said Howard. “We know every single kid in the building except the new 6th graders coming in the building and to me that’s kind of special.”

Howard said that 704 students were registered as of the night before the first day of school, but that the final number may be closer to 740 with registrations that day. Howard even had a student transfer to HJHS to take part in one of new Career and Technical Education offerings. One of the new portables is being dedicated to EMT training. As the Hawks at HJHS move forward into the 2019 school year, the fate of the Houston Middle building is yet to be determined. Howard hopes that a new building is built, but has been happy with the involvement of the Houston community in discussions with the school district. Ideally, Howard would like to see the old HMS building house various CTE offerings with the academic courses at the Houston High building.

“The community and the staff and students have some kind of voice in what the new school is going to be like,” said Howard.