Ross S. Sterling High School opened as a junior/senior high school (grades 7–12) in the fall of 1965. This unique, three-building campus featured designed-in air-conditioning which was a new, yet essential, feature for HISD facilities. The Sterling campus had a mirror twin sister campus,
James Madison Jr./Senior High School, that opened at the same time as Sterling. The first principal of Sterling was A.P. (Pete) Dowling, an experienced educator and administrator with HISD. During the 1967 school year, local radio station
KILT staged an enormous promotion contest between area high schools. The contest was simple: Each school had to submit as many individual paper entries as possible with the name of the high school on each sheet. The winning school would be the one that submitted the most pounds of paper. The contest created a lot of non-value added time in many classrooms as reams of copy paper and thousands of boxes of computer punch cards were submitted. Ross Sterling was the winner. The primary prize for winning was a school dance sponsored by KILT featuring a regional band named Southwest F.O.B. Sterling became a senior high school (grades 10–12) exclusively with the 1968–1969 school year. The Blue Raider football team made its first playoff appearance during the 1970 season when it emerged as district champion. The Raiders then defeated
Robert E. Lee in bid-district play but were then victims to the
Sam Houston High juggernaut in the area round of the playoffs. Sterling's Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (
NJROTC) Detachment was first established on-campus in May 1970. Graduating NJROTC Cadets incur no military service obligation, however many have chosen to serve in every branch of the United States Armed Forces. During the 1984-1985 school year, the percentages of Fs at 23 of 26 HISD high school campuses decreased in the spring semester because of the state-implemented
No Pass No Play rule, which requires students in high school athletic programs to attain passing grades. At Sterling and
Barbara Jordan High School for Careers, the percentages of Fs remained the same. Linda Turner, the president of the Sterling High School PTO, stated that HISD promised to revamp Sterling after the 1998 and the 2007 bond elections passed, but that nothing improved. Her group accused the school of misleading the people by stating that Sterling and
Jones High School would both receive new school campuses. After the 2012 bond, the district began indicating that Jones would be consolidated into Sterling. As of 2010 about half of the HISD students zoned to Sterling did not attend that school. In 2011 the Class of 1971 was to celebrate its 40th anniversary. A 2011 report from Magnet Schools of America had recommended closing the Sterling aviation magnet, saying there was a lack of interest. In response, several graduates of the program told HISD that the program was beneficial. In January 2012 E. Dale Mitchell, who previously served as the principal of Hutto Middle School in
Hutto, Texas and worked in the
Stafford Municipal School District, became the principal of Sterling.
Houston Airport System established an aviation club at Sterling and
Carnegie Vanguard High School in the fall of 2012. As of 2013, the school had 900 students, and 1,100 HISD students living in the school's attendance zone opted not to attend Sterling. The school had its third principal in a five-year period. Mitchell stated that there were 61-66 students combined who transferred to Sterling to attend the aviation program or the Futures Academy. Margaret Downing of the
Houston Press argued that the figure was not "an impressive number". As part of the 2014-2015 rezoning, residents of
Southcrest, residents of
South Park located east of Martin Luther King Boulevard, and some residents of the
East End will be rezoned from
Jones High School to Sterling. In 2015 Mitchell became the principal of
Waltrip High School. Justin Fuentes, formerly a high school support officer, became the principal of Sterling. In the 2015-2016 school year the enrollment was 1,142. Circa 2016 over 57% of high school students living in the Sterling attendance boundary attend other high schools in the school district. In the 2016-2017 school year the school had 450 9th grade students, compared to 300 in the 2015-2016 school year. In the 2020-2021 school year the enrollment was at 1,642. By that year more students living outside of the Sterling attendance area were choosing to attend the school, while fewer students in the Sterling boundary chose to attend other schools. ==Campus==