Sierra Vista Elementary Unveils New Classroom Building

Students, staff and families celebrate the opening of a modern 24-classroom facility, marking the latest completed capital project for APS.

Sierra Vista Elementary families showed up in droves on Wednesday evening to celebrate the formal unveiling of the school’s beautiful new classroom building and to get to know one another at the PTA Ice Cream Social. 

The two-story, 28,800 square-foot building houses 24 general education classrooms. The modern building features large windows with sweeping views of the Sandias and an upstairs collaboration space for students and staff.

The $22.2 million project, which voters approved in a previous capital election, also included infrastructure and landscaping improvements and a new loop access road to improve the school's circulation patterns.

“Thank you to all APS taxpayers for making this possible,” Deputy Superintendent for Operations Antonio Gonzales told the crowd. “Thank you to the neighborhood for working with us during the construction period.”

Gonzales noted that Sierra Vista opened its doors 59 years ago, before Rio Rancho and most of Albuquerque’s west side were built. He said the school is expected to grow steadily over the next five years.

More than 700 people attended the grand opening. The school’s fifth-grade ambassadors guided attendees throughout the night and led tours of the new space.

“It’s beautiful; it’s long overdue,” Principal Delilah Lopez said of the new building, noting that the school has been part of the community since 1966. “Everybody is excited about it. Our students are excited. We appreciate it.”

This is the latest in a string of grand openings that APS has hosted in recent weeks for completed projects:

• The Monte Vista Elementary School community celebrated its new 15,600 square-foot classroom building on Sept. 5. The building includes kindergarten classrooms, general education classrooms, an art classroom, a music classroom and associated support spaces. Exterior improvements include an outdoor learning area, a kindergarten playground, landscape and drainage updates and parking lot modifications. Voters approved the project in 2021. 

• The Truman Middle School community held a grand opening for its new 62,100 square-foot building on Aug. 27. The building houses the school’s administrative offices, media center, computer lab, cafeteria and kitchen, fine arts facilities and instructional support spaces. It has an inner courtyard and is now Truman’s more accessible and welcoming public face to the community. The project was approved by voters in 2021.

• The Coronado Dual Language Magnet School hosted an open house on Aug. 21 to showcase its new campus. The school recently moved to what had been the Taft Middle School campus in the North Valley and welcomed its first sixth-grade class. Next year, it will add a seventh-grade class, and the following year it will add an eighth-grade class, completing its transition to a K-8 school. Coronado offers a dual-language curriculum that emphasizes service and project-based learning. While the program is popular, the school had not been able to expand due to its small campus size. The recent move to a new campus allows the school to transition to a K-8 school.

APS will be hosting two additional open houses in the coming weeks:

• The district’s newest school, APS International High School, will host an open house beginning at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25.

• And Sandia Base Elementary will host a grand opening for its new facility at 6 p.m. on Oct. 16.

School projects like these are made possible by taxpayers, who will have an opportunity to decide whether to move forward with another batch of construction projects during the Nov. 5 General Election. 

APS is proposing a $350 million General Obligation Bond that would pay for a host of projects. 

Those projects include: converting 20 schools from evaporative coolers to refrigerated air and construction projects at 13 schools. The funding would also pay for a new career technical educational student training facility, a Taylor Middle School classroom block and a west side student special needs education facility.

Approval of the bond would not increase the current tax rate.