August 9 won’t just be any ordinary first day of school for young residents of Sierra Vista — it will be the first day of a brand-new school now open in the community.

The Delbra Orum Nichols-Wilma Fountain Mock Elementary is expected to serve nearly 400 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in its first year. On an 18-acre site along Crystal View Drive, the 101,858-square-foot campus cost $28.59 million to build.

Leading Nichols-Mock Elementary is Principal Sandy Holdsclaw, a 23-year educator. She has worked 13 years in Alvin ISD and is an alumnus of Sul Ross State University and Lamar University. She and husband Casey have a daughter who is a 2023 graduate of Alvin High School.

Holdsclaw says that as she welcomes the Nichols-Mock Voyagers to their new school, she and her team will work hard to continue the legacy of the school’s namesakes, calling them “voyagers in education.”

Wilma Fountain Mock was the first black teacher in Alvin ISD. She was hired to coach gymnastics at Alvin Junior High in 1972. She then moved to Alvin High School where she taught PE and coached gymnastics, track and cross country. After four years, she began teaching at EC Mason Elementary School. She remained there for 14 years, winning the EC Mason’s Teacher of the Year award in 1992. She helped open Hood-Case Elementary in 1997 and was named Hood-Case Teacher of the Year. She took home the Alvin ISD District Teacher of the Year soon after. Mock retired in 2004 but continues to tutor elementary school students in the district.

Debra Nichols was a teacher in Alvin ISD from 1974 to 2009. Her first teaching position was at Longfellow Elementary where she also taught PE. In 1982, she began teaching ELA and social studies at EC Mason. She joined Mock in opening Hood-Case and was named Teacher of the Year there. She retired in 2009. Like Mock, she continues tutoring youth in the district.

Enjoy your new school, Voyagers! We can’t wait to see the great heights you’ll soar to!