Sidney Lanier High School serves 9th through 12th grade students and opened in 1915 as McKinley Elementary School. In 1923, McKinley was renamed after Confederate poet
Sidney Lanier in accordance with the District's practice of naming the junior schools after American authors. Lanier was a junior-senior high school from 1929 until 1969, when Tafolla Middle School opened. The new Lanier Campus, on the site of the old school, opened in 1975. From 1967 to 1969, a group of students challenged and changed the curricular structure because of vocational tracking and insufficient academic college preparation. Student leaders, including Homer Garcia, Edgar Lozano, Stephen Castro, and Irene Ramirez, challenged the authority of the school and staged a walkout that catapulted Sidney Lanier into the limelight and forced the district to adapt to changes. Other students involved indirectly were members of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) started by Mario Compean, Jose Angel Gutierrez, and Ignacio Garcia, all students at St. Mary's University. Student leaders from Edgewood High School and even former Central Catholic High School students contributed ideas and participatory support. School administrators appointed Pablo Ortiz as Student Council President after Homer Garcia was deemed too disruptive and radical. Later, school administrators bowed to student and community pressure, conceding to demands. Even though a massive walkout was averted, some students did stage their protest march and left campus during lunch. Ultimately, the legacy benefited students so that more scholarships were awarded. The 1969 graduate, Homer Garcia, forged alliances with other campus leaders and graduated from the University of Texas and received a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. Other alumni from that year went on to author books and became professors and writers (Rafael Castillo, Ignacio Garcia, David O. Martinez and Daniel Hernandez). Rafael C. Castillo's (2023) "Dostoevsky on Guadalupe Street: Writings from the Edge" highlights some of those events and insight into the culture of social protest activity from a literary perspective. In 1970, Lanier became one of the first schools in the U.S. to offer
mariachi classes due to the efforts of education advocate Belle Ortiz. Classes spread to other districts and schools, remaining in the curriculum well into the 2020s. ==Traditions==