Officials with the Little Rock School District are looking ahead toward an expansion project at one of the city’s newest high schools.
The district held an unveiling Thursday for a new sign on the campus of Little Rock West High School for Innovation. The school, which sits in a retrofitted office building, first opened in 2019 with just 64 students.
Principal Karen Heatherly says the new facility will triple the school’s capacity for students, growing to about 1,200.
“Being a small school, we can’t offer some of the things traditional high schools do, like some of the major sports. So us growing and being able to have a new high school that offers all the traditional experiences that high school students want is really important to us, important to our families and students,” Heatherly said.
The school will also feature new facilities for football, basketball and other sports. In addition, she says there will be a dedicated building for the school’s agriculture program, which will be the only one of its type in central Arkansas.
Little Rock School Board member Jeff Wood says the project has been long in the making in one of the fastest-growing parts of the city.
“West Little Rock has been dreaming of the day when we cut a ribbon for a west Little Rock high school for probably a decade or more," Wood said. "So for the promise that we have with the public support and the recent millage vote to fund a brand-new campus here in west Little Rock… should be exciting to every resident of the city because of the growth this will offer the school district.”
The $83 million expansion project is expected to be complete by fall of 2025. The district is also in the process of building an $87 million K-8 school on the site of the former McClellan High School in southwest Little Rock.
