Kingwood High School

Kingwood High School sits at 2701 Kingwood Drive in the heart of one of northeast Houston’s most established communities. Opened in the fall of 1979 under Principal Andy Wells, the school has spent more than four decades shaping students in the Humble Independent School District. The Mustangs – as the school’s teams are known – have built one of the strongest athletic and academic traditions in the state, earning the Lone Star Cup, UIL’s top award for overall athletic and academic excellence, five times and a National Blue Ribbon School designation in 1984. With roughly 2,900 students in grades 9 through 12, the campus is one of six high schools in Humble ISD and draws from feeder schools including Creekwood Middle School, Riverwood Middle School, and Atascocita Middle School.

A Campus Shaped by Community and Competition

The Kingwood community was annexed into the City of Houston in 1996, but the area has always maintained a distinct identity rooted in its tree-lined neighborhoods and proximity to the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston. That identity shows up at the high school. The Mustangs have claimed 32 team state championships across multiple sports, with particular dominance in swimming and diving, cross country, and baseball. Notable alumni include Lance Pendleton, who pitched for the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, and Masyn Winn, who plays for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2025, the Mustang baseball program captured the UIL 6A Division II State Championship, and the softball team brought home a state title the same year. The school was named a 2024-2025 UIL Lone Star Cup 6A Division Finalist, finishing sixth in the state for its combined strength across academics, athletics, and extracurricular programs.

Academically, Kingwood holds its own. The Class of 2023 posted a 97.3% on-time graduation rate, with an average SAT score of 1120 and an average ACT score of 25. The school offers Advanced Placement coursework with a 55% AP participation rate, and programs like HOSA, DECA, and a Career and Technical Education Health Science pathway give students hands-on preparation for professional careers. The school motto – Knowledge, Honor, Success – is not just something printed on a wall. It runs through the way the campus operates.

Hurricane Harvey and the Road Back

No conversation about Kingwood High School is complete without addressing what happened in August 2017. Hurricane Harvey dropped 30 to 40 inches of rain on the Kingwood area, and the school’s 50-acre campus – situated within the 100-year and 500-year floodplains near the San Jacinto River – took a direct hit. Several feet of water pushed through the building, destroying classrooms, athletic facilities, instruments, equipment, and years of accumulated materials. It was the third major flood to damage the campus in just four years, following the 2016 Tax Day Flood and preceding Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019.

The school shut down entirely. All 2,800 students were displaced to Summer Creek High School on the opposite side of the district, commuting 30 to 40 minutes each way and attending classes on a split schedule – Summer Creek students in the morning, Kingwood students in the afternoon. The orchestra practiced in a church. The cross country team trained on whatever dry ground they could find. Five seniors who had planned to launch the district’s first Rho Kappa chapter held their officer meetings at Starbucks and their induction ceremony at a local Methodist church. It cost more than $70 million to restore the campus, and the school finally reopened on March 19, 2018.

But the story did not end there. FEMA granted Humble ISD $28 million specifically for flood mitigation, funding automatic flood gates at building entrances, flood walls ranging from four to eight feet, and the replacement of front-facing windows with aquarium-grade glass. The system was tested during severe rain in May 2024 and again during Hurricane Beryl in July 2024, and it held. That comprehensive upgrade now serves as a model for other Gulf Coast school campuses dealing with similar flood exposure.

Building Age, Campus Size, and Nuisance Wildlife 

A campus as large and as old as Kingwood High School carries maintenance challenges that go well beyond flood protection. The original structure dates to 1979, with major additions and renovations completed over the decades – including a $50 million project finished in 2008. Older sections of the building have experienced the same settling, material fatigue, and envelope deterioration that affects any structure pushing past 40 years in the Houston-area climate. High humidity, seasonal temperature swings, and heavy rainfall all accelerate wear on roofing materials, soffit connections, fascia boards, and ventilation systems. These are exactly the conditions that create entry points for wildlife – and in Kingwood’s heavily wooded environment along the San Jacinto River corridor, bats are among the most common animals to take advantage of structural gaps in commercial buildings and schools.

This is not a hypothetical concern. Texas is home to 32 documented bat species, more than any other state, and the Houston metro area sees regular activity from Mexican free-tailed bats, big brown bats, evening bats, and eastern red bats. According to TPWD’s statewide bat species profiles and public viewing site directory, the agricultural value of insect control provided by bats in Texas alone is estimated at $1.4 billion annually. They are ecologically important animals. But inside a school building, they represent a serious health and safety concern that requires a structured response – not a reaction.

Why Bats in Schools Are a Serious Health Concern

The CDC’s rabies prevention guidelines for bat exposure identify bats as the most commonly reported rabid animal in the United States, and the primary source of human rabies deaths domestically. That alone changes the conversation when a bat is spotted inside a classroom, gymnasium, or hallway. A bat bite can be so small that a person may not realize they have been bitten, which is why the CDC recommends medical evaluation any time a bat is found in a room with a sleeping person, a young child, or anyone who may not be able to report contact.

Beyond rabies, bat guano that accumulates in attic spaces, wall cavities, or ceiling voids can harbor the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. When dried guano is disturbed – during maintenance work, HVAC cycling, or even normal air movement – the fungal spores become airborne and can cause histoplasmosis, a respiratory illness that ranges from mild flu-like symptoms to serious lung infection. In a school environment with centralized HVAC systems, contaminated air from a ceiling or attic space can circulate through ductwork and into occupied classrooms. The Texas A&M AgriLife bat-in-schools program, with downloadable management plans and colony removal guides, gives school districts free access to species identification resources, exclusion protocols, and response plan templates.

What Schools Should Do When a Bat Is Found Inside a Building

When a bat is spotted flying through a hallway, sitting on a classroom wall, or found on the floor of a gymnasium, the immediate priority is separation. Students, teachers, and staff should leave the room. The door should be closed to isolate the bat and prevent it from moving into other parts of the building. Windows in the room can be opened to give the bat a potential exit route, but no one should attempt to catch, handle, or chase the bat. Bat bites often go unnoticed, and an animal in flight inside an enclosed space is unpredictable. Untrained staff handling a bat also risk injuring the animal, which can complicate rabies testing if it becomes necessary.

The school’s facilities manager or designated administrator should contact a licensed wildlife removal operator or local animal control immediately. If anyone in the room may have had direct contact with the bat – including scenarios where a bat was found near a sleeping or unresponsive person – that individual should wash any potential contact area with soap and water and seek medical attention. The bat should be captured by a trained professional for rabies testing. The DSHS county-level rabies case reports and post-exposure treatment guidance are published monthly, and local health departments can advise schools on post-exposure protocols and whether prophylaxis treatment is recommended.

Federal law prohibits the use of insecticides, rodenticides, or chemical agents to kill bats. In Texas, bats are protected and exclusion must be performed through humane methods – typically one-way eviction devices that allow bats to leave but prevent re-entry, followed by permanent sealing of all entry points. This work must also account for the state’s bat maternity season. The TPWD bat species guide, including legal protections and seasonal restrictions, advises against performing exclusion work between May 1 and August 15, when flightless pups may be present in roosts. Sealing entry points during this window traps juvenile bats inside the structure, creating a worse situation than the one the school started with.

Prevention Starts with the Building Envelope

A single bat sighting inside a school might be a stray animal that entered through a propped-open door. But it can also be the first visible sign of a colony roosting somewhere in the building’s structure. Bats can squeeze through gaps as small as a quarter of an inch, which means deteriorating soffit connections, unsealed roof penetrations, gaps around utility conduits, and aging vent screens are all potential entry points. In older school buildings with flat roof sections, parapet walls, and multiple HVAC penetrations, the number of vulnerable spots can be significant.

A proper bat management plan for any school campus starts with a thorough exterior inspection of the building envelope – every fascia board, soffit-to-roof connection, vent cover, chimney cap, and utility penetration from the foundation to the roofline. Entry points need to be identified, documented, and sealed with materials that hold up to Houston’s heat, humidity, and seasonal storms. Spray foam, steel wool, and hardware cloth are common shortcuts that fail within a year or two in this climate. Professional-grade exclusion uses galvanized metal, copper mesh, stainless steel screening, and clear sealants – materials chosen specifically because they resist corrosion, maintain a seal under thermal cycling, and do not degrade in prolonged UV exposure.

Schools that partner with a licensed wildlife removal operator like The Critter Team’s Kingwood wildlife removal and exclusion service for annual inspections and ongoing exclusion maintenance are far better positioned than those that react only after a bat shows up in a classroom. A proactive relationship with a qualified operator means the building gets evaluated on a regular cycle, vulnerable areas are addressed before they become active entry points, and the school has an established response protocol when an incident does occur. The Critter Team provides NWCOA-certified bat exclusion and guano cleanup services in the Humble and Kingwood area, backed by field experience covering hundreds of bat exclusion projects on both residential and commercial structures.

Kingwood High School has already demonstrated what it takes to come back from serious adversity. The community rebuilt after Harvey, invested in flood infrastructure that protects the campus for the future, and continued producing one of the strongest academic and athletic programs in Texas. The same forward-thinking approach applies to wildlife management. A bat inside a school is not just a nuisance – it is a health and liability concern that demands a professional response and a long-term prevention plan. The campus, the students, and the families who depend on that building every day deserve nothing less.