United Independent School District

The UISD Federal Programs Department hosted a College Workshop for Middle and High School Migrant Students from our District . Noemi Ochoa, former Migrant Director for region one in Edinburg, was the guest speaker. Ochoa paced the students through a series of confidence boosting exercises designed to help them understand that they can realize all their dreams with a good education. The workshop also addressed the importance of maintaining a high G.P.A. in preparation for college and a professional career.

The new United High School campus located at 2811 United Avenue (off Loop 20), will hold an open house for the public on Saturday, August 15, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The new campus sits on a 60 acre site and measures a total of 437,000 square feet. The price tag on the construction project is $52.9 million. The campus, designed for 3,000 students, will house students in grades 10, 11 and 12.

The main corridor of the new High School, the library, the cafeteria, and the administration areas will feature ceramic flooring. The main building’s interior and exterior walls are made of masonry. The new United High School building is two stories tall and has 159 academic classrooms. The new campus features three large covered walkways for picking up and dropping off students; it also has three main parking lots with 600 spaces.

The new campus consists of eight wings: an administration wing, four classroom wings, a cafeteria wing, a vocational wing, and an athletics wing. The administration wing will house the library, the administrative offices and support areas. Another wing will house the cafetorium with a stage, an industrial kitchen and support areas. There are four wings for classrooms. The vocational wing consists of two band halls, a choir room, a drill team lab, two Junior ROTC classrooms, an automotive tech lab, an auto shop garage, a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) lab, an agricultural lab, classrooms and support areas for teachers. The athletic wing has a gym, a concession stand, a practice gym, a weight room, offices, dressing rooms and showers.

The athletic field has a competition football field with facilities for track and field events. There is a softball field, a baseball field, and nine tennis courts. The school has a marching area for the Junior ROTC. The school band has a marching field and a storage yard. The athletic facility is looped by a three lane loading drive.

The campus was designed with energy efficiency in mind. There is a high efficiency, chilled water air conditioning system to ensure efficient use of electricity. Ninety five percent of the building’s windows face either north or south. The building has a metal seam roof; the roof insulation has a value of R 30.

“The design/build method employed by UISD was instrumental in getting a project of this magnitude to completion on time and on budget,” said Ignacio Alaniz, UISD Director of Construction. The design/build method of construction contracts with a single builder to provide design and construction. The design/build team consists of a contractor, architect, and engineer. The design/builder contracts directly with the subcontractors and is responsible for delivery of the project.

Three architectural firms designed the new campus: Humphries and Sanchez Architects PLLC, Frank Architects Inc., and Pfluger Associates Architects. Leyendecker Construction was the main contractor.

Due to space limitations, all ninth grade students will attend classes at the old United High School campus at 8800 McPherson Road. The freshman campus will offer the same opportunities, extracurricular activities and curriculum as the new high school.