Skip To Main Content

School History

Westside Wolves

Westside High School is a public secondary school located in Houston, Texas, serving students in grades 9 through 12. It is part of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and functions as HISD’s Magnet School for Integrated Technology and Early College.

As a magnet school, Westside offers students the opportunity to explore technology through one of five specialized pathways: Fine Arts, Business, Media Relations, Applied Science/Health Science, and Computing Sciences. In their first year, all magnet students take a technology survey course that introduces them to each strand. In the second year, students select a strand to focus on for their elective coursework.

History

Westside High School opened in 2000 with a construction cost of $50 million. Its creation helped alleviate overcrowding at Lee High School (now Margaret Long Wisdom High School), with around 1,000 students transferring to the new campus. From the beginning, Westside aimed to be a top-tier school, competing with HISD's premier institutions like Bellaire and Lamar. It gained early recognition for attracting students who might otherwise attend private schools. Students living in the Lee attendance zone were allowed to transfer to Westside, although transportation was not provided.

The school began with 1,772 students, including 340 who had not previously been enrolled in HISD. Westside takes its name from its location in western Houston.

In the 2008–2009 school year, Westside launched the Westside Engineering and Geosciences Academy, a petroleum-focused program to expand its academic offerings.

As of 2007, about 6% of high school-aged students zoned to Westside chose to attend other HISD schools.

In 2010, Houston Press journalist Richard Connelly referred to Westside as “something of a success story” for HISD. 

Achievements and Extracurriculars

Westside High School has an active athletics and extracurricular program. It won the Division II State Lacrosse Championship in 2004. Its rugby team was one of the first in HISD to be integrated into a public school program. The wrestling team has dominated district competitions for over a decade and has produced four individual state champions. In 2008, Westside earned its first SECME (Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics, and Enrichment) State Competition victory.