BATON ROUGE - Thursday night, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board unanimously agreed to start the ground work of reopening Istrouma High School.

Recently, Superintendent Warren Drake said it was his goal to take control of the school back from the Recovery School District and eventually get public school students back in the classrooms on the campus.  The RSD closed the school two years ago.

Drake believes Istrouma could be a key to helping an area of the city in its revitalization.

"We have no high school in 70805. We need a high school there. It's something we need to do. It's something the board has worked on for many years to do this," Drake said ahead of the vote.

Alumni told WBRZ reporter Jessica LeBlanc earlier in the day, the idea of Istrouma opening again is exciting.

"It will be great to see different changes at Istrouma," Corey Cushingberry, a 2006 graduate, said.

The vote by the school board was to approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the Louisiana Department of Education.  Next, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will make a decision in November to move forward with transferring control of the campus back to school leaders in East Baton Rouge.

Officials estimate it will cost around $10 million to reopen Istrouma by August 2016.