Littlefield breaks ground on new high school, Career and Technical Education Center

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Littlefield ISD broke ground on a new high school Wednesday afternoon, after voters approved the project in a bond election last May.

Taxpayers approved the $41.5 million price tag to build a new high school where the softball field once was, a new Career and Technical Education Center and plans to renovate the current high school to become the new junior high.

High School Principal Amber Hays says while Littlefield is constructing new facilities, it’s also creating more career options for its future community.

“This is the first step in knowing what we’re fixing to be able to give kids, and looking at this 8th grade class and 7th grade class coming in that will get to benefit from all the programs and knowing that we’re going to be able to offer our kids a true diverse education,” she said.

Hays says the facilities will help the district balance college readiness and career readiness.

“We don’t want to just educate our kids to leave. We want it to be for everybody. If we’re just educating them and going okay, we got you college ready we’re sending you off and just kind of waving bye, we’re not filling that full circle of life. And so, we want to be able to turn around and also feed these kids back into our community with great skills,” Hays said.

Currently, Hays says a lot of the hands-on learning happens at an ag barn behind the high school; but with this project, she says the new Career and Technical Education Center will allow these programs to grow.

“The kids will have more space, and it will be designed for more of what our projects look like now, versus when this building was built in the 70s,” she said.

Along with updating 70-year-old hallways and classrooms, Hays says the project will meet the need for more space.

“We’d like to see growth, and we anticipated growth. We anticipated growth in how we built this school and that we’re ready for more kids. And we’d like to see the growth in our community, and with us offering so much, I feel like we can,” Hays said.

Administrators project the high school will be finished by Christmas 2024, so sophomores like Chip Green will get to spend some time there before graduating in 2025.

“It’s awesome, pretty cool ‘cause your name will be there forever,” Green said.

Green says he hopes to come back to Littlefield after college and maybe one day his kids will walk the same halls.

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