The school's transformation is not being accomplished without considerable inconvenience to kids. The parking lot has disappeared, buried under the weight of 25 shiny new portable buildings to go with the ten already there. That's where the tenth-, 11th- and 12th-graders will take core English, math, social studies and science. There are also portable potties. Think about that for some special senior-year memories. (Ninth-grade classes will be at the Chimney Rock building, finished in 1991. A shuttle bus to Butler Stadium is supposed to handle the parking problem.)
Plans to quickly raze the Gasmer wing had to be scuttled because wiring for the rest of the school runs through it. Taking it apart piece by piece is a much slower process and one that has left the center courtyard covered with a mini-mountain of debris, carefully cordoned off by a shiny wire fence.
Deron Neblett
No, it's not an army bivouac -- it's Westbury High's tenth-, 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms.
Deron Neblett
Principal Ivy Levingston wants to rebuild Westbury as a school for the 21st century.
Related Content
More About
There won't be any lockers until the future 100,000-square-foot wing is occupied. So students will be carrying around books and materials throughout the day. Which should get increasingly cumbersome come winter, with its heavy coats, scarves and mittens.
Reconstruction of the school is not expected to be finished for another two years. And that's on a very tight, fast-paced schedule.
HISD officials insist there has never been a lack of interest in Westbury. The school has gotten a fair share of the district wealth, says Lawrence, and its programs are fine. "Any student can get any caliber of education that any student wants. If they apply themselves, they get an education," Lawrence maintains.
As in all things -- especially schools -- there is a natural conflict between tradition and change. Talk about closing a school or changing a mascot, and the protesters come out of the woodwork. Often these aren't students but dedicated alumni and volunteers.
In Westbury's case, everyone welcomes some change. Many see the better lighting, climate control, other improvements and the new wing as the first steps to bigger changes. Westbury High has a swim team but has never had a swimming pool. Wipe out those nasty apartment complexes and build a state-of-the-art sports facility.
But there's division over other changes. Johnny Reb, the Rebel flag and the Rebelettes have been pushed into the dustbin (although bizarrely enough, the school still goes by a Fighting Rebels moniker with a Rebel cartoon figure adorning the cafeteria wall). School colors are -- appropriate for the Rebel name -- the historic blue and gray. But when Levingston had the walls repainted in the newer Chimney Rock section, she chose green. And while she is enthused about the bright "modern" colors she picked (where the blue and gray have been retained they're a "21st century blue and gray now"), others like Woodard are aghast at them.
And Woodard is frustrated by the principal's emphasis on the "New Westbury." Woodard says she told Levingston: "Here I am trying to get 19,000 alumni to give money, and you're calling it the New Westbury. Please don't do that."
But Levingston, now in her third year, makes a lot of good points in stressing her devotion to the "new."
"There may have been a time when Westbury went to sleep. Traditions are good. I love the traditions of my alma mater, Phyllis Wheatley High. But if Phyllis Wheatley is serving the students the way we were served in 1971, then that school is not meeting the needs of its students."
But when she's asked for her specific achievements at Westbury, the air around Levingston gets pretty thin. "I hope that I have brought to every student and staff member that we have a meaningful purpose here," Levingston says. "The students are to receive the best educational opportunities possible. The teachers are directly responsible for supporting that instruction. Everyone else here…supports that relationship."
Wonderful words on one hand, but a bit disappointing if you're looking for something more concrete, such as new course offerings, higher test scores or an increase in students going on to college.
It's not just change and tradition that are colliding at Westbury. It's an emphasis on academics versus discipline, optimists versus disgruntled veterans, with a tinge of racial disharmony thrown in. Everyone promises they want a better school. No one is hearing everything the other is saying. Westbury is not as good a school as Bellaire, and all the statements to the contrary won't make it so. The shame is that Westbury is not as good as it used to be, as it certainly could be and should be.
The first year that Ivy Levingston served as principal of Westbury, her daughter began her last year of high school. Well, no child wants to change schools for her senior year, so it's understandable she stayed put. Understandable, but still a bit ironic. Ivy Levingston's daughter graduated from Bellaire High.
