Good news for at least one previously endangered school in HISD.
Four elementary schools in the Houston Independent School District could close under a proposal Superintendent Terry Grier revealed this morning.
Under the plan, which the school board must approve, McDade Elementary would close and students would attend Paige, Cook or Kashmere Gardens; Rhoads and Grimes Elementary would close and students would attend Woodson and a few other nearby campuses; Stevenson would close and students would attend Memorial and Love.
Grier said at the start of the board meeting that he wanted to focus on the district’s four smallest elementary schools: McDade, Rhoads, Memorial and Paige, which have fewer than 350 students. The plan only would keep open Paige and Memorial and instead shut down Stevenson and Grimes.
The proposal scales back the possibility Grier raised two weeks ago of closing or consolidating up to 17 elementary and middle schools.
Grier acknowledged that his administration had “sent a lot of mixed messages to the community” about school closures.
“I personally want to apologize for that,” he said.
One of those schools that had been facing closure two weeks ago was Love Elementary, which is now being cast as a place to send students that would be displaced by a different school’s closure. The folks who have been rallying around Love are delighted by this turn of events. Congrats to them on winning their fight.