Jesse H. Jones High School

Jones High School

Jesse H. Jones High School is a public secondary school in South Park, Houston, Texas, United States.

Jones, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Houston School District. Jones was named after Jesse Holman Jones.

The principal administrator as of 2010 is Tracey Lewis.

As of 2010 Empowerment South Early College High School is located on the Jones campus.^[1]

History

Jones was established as an all-white high school. Starting with its desegregation by 1970, the student body increasingly became mostly African-American.^{[citation needed]}

According to police reports, on September 21, 1990, during a class at Jones, a 16-year-old girl fatally stabbed 18-year-old Anthony Johnson in the upper back with a hunting knife; no teacher was present in the room, and a student received a cut on his hand when he tried to stop the incident. Johnson died at Ben Taub Hospital. Dianna Hunt of the Houston Chronicle reported that the boy "apparently" said a "disparaging comment about her clothing." The suspect was placed in the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department. This gave Jones a reputation as being a violent school.^[2][3]

For the 2000-2001 school year, Jones did not have a high school yearbook or senior photographs since the school administration had not been paying the bills that would have allowed those functions to occur. For the 2001-2002 school year, only Vanguard program students would appear in the school yearbook.^[4]

Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said in 2002 that the school's administration had no knowledge of whether students were in class.^[5]

On September 15, 2005, Houston natives and New Orleans Hurricane Katrina refugees fought in the school. The fight made national headlines.^[6]

A 2007 Johns Hopkins University study cited Jones as a "dropout factory" where at least 40 percent of the entering freshman class does not make it to their senior year.^[7] During that year, 55 percent of children zoned to Jones chose to attend a different Houston ISD school.^[8]

In 2010, Terry Grier, the superintendent of HISD, proposed converting Jones into an all-magnet school.^[9] During that year around 900 pupils in the Jones attendance zone, about 2/3 of the high school-aged children in that area, choose to attend an HISD school other than Jones.^[10]

Vanguard program

See also: Carnegie Vanguard High School

Jones had the Vanguard gifted and talented magnet program from fall 1977 to spring 2002.^[11]

Throughout its history, the Vanguard program of Jones had a high of 300 students.^[12] As of 2002 the Vanguard program had 187 students. Of the students, 40% were White, 30% were African American, and over 20% were Hispanic. Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said that many people, including Jones principal Lawrence Allen, had portrayed the school as being majority White when it was majority minority.^[13] At the time, the overall school had 1,277 students. It had an African American and Hispanic majority student body.^[14] The program had class sizes of 7 to 19 students. The teachers did not use rote teaching styles. Students knew each other very well.^[12] Downing said that many students did not want to attend Bellaire High School and Lamar High School, even though they were very well renowned, because they perceived them "as too big, too impersonal, too preppy and too concentrated on rote learning."^[15] Many White students wanted to attend Jones Vanguard because they would be a racial minority at Jones and wanted to learn about another culture.^[15]

Parents of children in the program clashed with the administration of the school over various matters. Members of the Vanguard community accused various administrators, receptionists, and teachers of expressing a disdain for the Vanguard program because of a belief that the Vanguard program expressed elitism. Parents also criticized the school for not properly marking attendance sheets, forcing parents to examine attendance records and question the Jones administration about attendance. In the northern hemisphere fall of 2001, the Vanguard program got Dr. James Simpson as a principal of a separate school.^[11]

The move that prompted the program's separation from Jones High School altogether was the reinstatement of Allen, a fired Jones principal who was reinstated several days later after protests from neighborhood residents, African-American Vanguard parents and Jones alumni.^[11] Craig Beverly, a 1979 graduate of Jones Vanguard,^[11] restarted the Jones Alumni Association when his son informed him that Allen was being removed from his post. Beverly argued that Allen needed to be reinstated.^[13] Kaye Stripling, the interim superintendent, said that the reinstatement had nothing to do with Quanell X's protests for local Houston-area news stations, and that it had nothing to do with the fact that Allen's mother, Alma Allen, was a member of the Texas State Board of Education.^[4] When reinstated he only was in charge of the comprehensive program at Jones. Stripling decided to let Allen keep his job, but she allowed the Vanguard program to move to the former Carnegie Elementary School. Beverly said that he was going to sue the district to try to stop the Vanguard program from leaving Jones.^[11]

By fall 2002, the program was moved to a separate school, Carnegie Vanguard High School. As of 2008, Jones does not have a magnet program. Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said that some parents told her that school administration officials asked African-American students to stay at Jones and take Advanced Placement classes instead of moving to Carnegie Vanguard. School officials said that they did not ask students to stay at Jones.^[16][17]

Student body

As of 2006, Jones High School had 1,077 students, and is majority African American (58%) with a large Hispanic American minority (40%). White Americans and Asian Americans each make up 1% of the student body. Approximately 83% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch programs.^[18]

Facility

Jones is located in the middle of South Park, a neighborhood described by Margaret Downing of the Houston Press as "run down."^[14] Downing said in 2002 that Jones was an "eyesore with sewer backups, graffiti, nasty restrooms and moldy locker rooms."^[19] Around the year 2002, the school bathrooms did not have toilet paper. Raw sewage backed up to the school courtyard.^[4]

Dress code

Jones students are required to wear school uniforms. Permitted shirts are polo shirts colored black, white, and yellow. Bottoms may be black or khaki.^[20]

As principal, Lawrence Allen installed standardized dress to, in his words, "to remove competition in clothing."^[21]

Neighborhoods zoned to Jones

Neighborhoods zoned to Jones^[22] include South Park, Golfcrest, Greenway, Lum Terrace, and a portion of Santa Rosa.

The Long Drive Townhomes, a unit of public housing, is zoned to Jones.

Notable alumni

• Ron Franklin - Former Houston ISD board member and founding member of Franklin, Cardwell & Jones, P.C.^[23]
• Daniel Gibson - NBA Basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers.^[23]
• Darrell Green - Former Professional American football player for the Washington Redskins^[23] and Pro Football Hall of Famer.
• Rosiland A. Jordan - White house correspondent for NBC News - Reporter for the NBC Nightly News and The Today Show^[23]
• Gene Phillips - Former professional basketball player for the Dallas Chaparrals
• Alfred Williams - Professional American football player, drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1991^[23]
• Jo Beth Williams - Actress^[23]

Notable staff members

• Lawrence Allen - Served as principal (member of the Texas Board of Education, son of Texas House of Representatives member Alma Allen)^[24]

Feeder patterns

Elementary schools that feed into Jones^[22] include:

• Golfcrest^[25]
• Kelso^[26]

Partial

• Alcott^[27]
• Bastian^[28]
• Brookline^[29]
• Cornelius^[30]
• Gregg^[31]
• Seguín^[32]

Portions of the attendance zones of Attucks Middle School^[33] and Hartman Middle School^[34] feed into Jones.

References

1. ^ "2010–2011 Budget Maintains Per-Student Allocation and Current Tax Rate." Informed Source. Houston Independent School District. June 25, 2010. Retrieved on November 21, 2010.
2. ^ Markley, Melanie. "Studying our Schools: Challenges/Safety matters: Issue is No. 1 concern with parents." Houston Chronicle. Sunday October 13, 1996. Special 8. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
3. ^ Hanson, Eric. "Teen fatally stabbed in classroom/Victim pays for insult to girl's shorts with life." Houston Chronicle. Saturday September 22, 1990. A1. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
4. ^ ^{a b c} Downing, Margaret. "The Great Divide." Houston Press. Thursday March 7, 2002. 1. Retrieved on March 26, 2010.
5. ^ Downing, Margaret. "A Fixer-Upper." Houston Press. May 30, 2002. 1. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
6. ^ Radcliffe, Jennifer. "Tensions Overflow at Jones High School." Houston Chronicle. September 15, 2005. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
7. ^ "Report points to 'dropout factories'," Houston Chronicle, October 31, 2007
8. ^ Radcliffe, Jennifer. "Critics: In HISD, too many don't go where zoned / Black leaders argue bond has no fix to get kids back to schools in their neighborhoods." Houston Chronicle. Sunday October 14, 2007. B1 MetFront. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
9. ^ Mellon, Ericka. "Grier proposes new magnet schools in HISD." Houston Independent School District. March 25, 2010. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
10. ^ Mellon, Ericka. "Closing schools going to be tough." Houston Chronicle. December 20, 2010. Retrieved on December 21, 2010.
11. ^ ^{a b c d e} Downing, Margaret. "A Split Decision." Houston Press. April 18, 2002. 1. Retrieved on March 26, 2010.
12. ^ ^{a b} Downing, Margaret. "The Great Divide." Houston Press. Thursday March 7, 2002. 6. Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
13. ^ ^{a b} Downing, Margaret. "The Great Divide." Houston Press. Thursday March 7, 2002. 3. Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
14. ^ ^{a b} Downing, Margaret. "The Great Divide." Houston Press. Thursday March 7, 2002. 4. Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
15. ^ ^{a b} Downing, Margaret. "The Great Divide." Houston Press. Thursday March 7, 2002. 7. Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
16. ^ Downing, Margaret. "A Fixer-Upper." Houston Press. Thursday May 30, 2002. 2. Retrieved on March 26, 2010.
17. ^ Hunt, Dianna. "When youths go wrong/TENDER AGES, TOUGH CRIMES/Violent acts by juveniles up sharply in city, state." Houston Chronicle. Sunday September 23, 1990. Section A, Page 1. Retrieved on March 26, 2010.
18. ^ "Jones High School" Profile. Houston Independent School District.
19. ^ Downing, Margaret. "A Fixer-Upper." Houston Press. May 30, 2002. 1. Retrieved on March 25, 2010.
20. ^ "Student Dress Code 2010-2011." Jones High School. Retrieved on November 17, 2010.
21. ^ Downing, Margaret. "A Fixer-Upper." Houston Press. May 30, 2002. 2. Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
22. ^ ^{a b} "Jones High School Attendance Zone," Houston Independent School District
23. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Distinguished HISD Alumni," Houston Independent School District. Retrieved on January 13, 2011.
24. ^ Markley, Melanie. "CAMPAIGN 2007 / District D council candidates share similar philosophies / Though most agree on major issues, they differ on community ties." Houston Chronicle. Tuesday October 9, 2007. B2. Retrieved on October 26, 2011.
25. ^ "Golfcrest Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
26. ^ "Kelso Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
27. ^ "Alcott Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
28. ^ "Bastian Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
29. ^ "Brookline Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
30. ^ "Cornelius Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
31. ^ "Gregg Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
32. ^ "Seguín Elementary Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
33. ^ "Attucks Middle Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.
34. ^ "Hartman Middle Attendance Zone." Houston Independent School District.

External links

	Houston portal
	Schools portal

• Jones High School
• The Great Divide - A Houston Press article about Jones Vanguard's issues with the Jones Administration prior to leaving Jones High School.
• Jones Vanguard Alumni Page