Ryan Middle School (Houston)
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James D. Ryan Middle School was a secondary school located in
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,
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,
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. The
Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan (BCMAR) is a magnet middle school in Houston Independent School District (HISD), located in the Third Ward, Houston, Texas. It is located in the former Ryan Middle School. It is in association with t ...
, a magnet middle school, now occupies the campus. The school, which served grades 6 through 8, is a part of the
Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and ...
. It served much Third Ward area and a very small portion of Midtown Houston. The campus is south of
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, and in proximity to the
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.


History

After Yates High School relocated from 2610 Elgin to 3703 Sampson in 1958, Ryan Colored Junior High School opened in Yates's former location. Ryan was named after the first principal of Yates High.Kellar, William Henry. '' Make Haste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston''.
Texas A&M University Press Texas A&M University Press (also known informally as TAMU Press) is a scholarly publishing house associated with Texas A&M University. It was founded in 1974 and is located in College Station, Texas, in the United States. Overview The Texas A& ...
, 1999. , 9781603447188. p
31
(Google Books PT12).
Some older maps referred to the school as Yates Junior High School. Allan Turner of the ''
Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...
'' said that the building served as an "educational anchor" for the Third Ward as many professionals in the Third Ward community such as educators, ministers, and lawyers received education in it. Since Ryan's beginning, Turner said that the school's fortunes had risen and fallen as time passed.Turner, Allan.
UH exhibit focuses on Third Ward history, people
" ''
Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...
''. March 23, 2011. Retrieved on March 24, 2011.
The HISD school board forced Yates principal William S. Holland to stay at Ryan Middle School instead of moving onto the new Yates, and a petition from the community did not succeed in changing this. The school opened as a school only for
African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
; it was desegregated by 1970. Beginning in 1988 Chase Enterprises subsidiary Rangers Insurance Co. assigned employees to tutor Ryan students, funded school supplies and computers for Ryan, and established a scholarship/endowment fund to provide vocational training and/or university educations to Ryan alumni who abstained from recreational drugs, did not get into legal trouble, and graduated from high school; from 1992 to 1999 166 eligible Ryan alumni benefited from the scholarship. Annually the company deposited $150,000 into the scholarship/endowment fund. A 2008 ''
Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...
'' article stated that Ryan was considered to be among the lowest performing campuses in Houston ISD. HISD staff stated that the district needed signing bonuses in order to convince employees to take positions at Ryan Middle School. During that year, principal Cimberli Johnson was fired because she socially promoted 25 students and issued about $70,800 in paychecks not earned by employees. Michael McKenzie began his term as principal of Ryan in June 2010. He was previously the principal of a charter school,
WALIPP Prep The Lawson Academy, formerly WALIPP-TSU Preparatory Academy (WALIPP Prep), is a charter middle school in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. It was established as waves of single sex public schools opened in American inner city communities circ ...
, and was a part of the Apollo 20 program, used to improve under-performing schools. He stated that he was required to keep working with the same assistant principals and counselors who were there prior to the start of his term and that he was not permitted to replace them. After two employees made complaints against McKenzie, an investigation, conducted by HISD's Equal Employment Opportunity office, concluded that he acquired furniture from another employee's office to use in his own office and that he had used profane language during two staff meetings. The investigation also concluded that he made a remark stating that he did not want a homosexual male employee around children due to his sexuality and another stating that he wanted a black male to serve as the assistant principal of the school. McKenzie, a black man, disputed the findings that he made the comments of racial and sexual natures, and he added that he returned the furniture to the employee after initially believing it was HISD property. He accused those filing complaints against him of exhibiting bias towards the principal before him. He filed a complaint against that office of HISD with the federal authorities. He resigned in 2011, after one year of work.


Closure

From 2002 to 2012, the student population fell 70%, from 830 students to 265 students. A proposal to close Ryan Middle School was submitted to the HISD board. If Ryan closed at that time, its students would have been divided between Attucks, Cullen, Dowling, Lanier, and Pershing middle schools. Dallas Dance, the chief of middle schools of HISD, stated that Ryan had 570 middle school-aged students zoned to the campus, but fewer than half of those students chose to attend Ryan. Dance said that over the previous five-year period, HISD had already invested an additional $438,000 per year into Ryan. Parents and community leaders protested the proposed closure. A group of parents threatened to occupy the campus if HISD had it closed temporarily. On Monday May 7, 2012 the board removed the proposed closure of Ryan from its agenda. In its final year of operation, there were 263 students at the school,Mellon, Ericka.
HISD will close Ryan, tables plan to merge two high schools
" ''
Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and ...
''. March 7, 2013. Retrieved on March 14, 2013.
including 182 students in the 6th and 7th grades,Boney, Jeffrey L.
What’s Going On With HISD? African Americans NOT Getting the Attention They Deserve

Archive
. '' Houston Forward Times''. September 17, 2013. Retrieved on March 16, 2014.
making it the smallest middle school in HISD. In March 2013 the district board voted 5-3 to close Ryan. Plans were to rezone the students to Cullen Middle School, from Ryan. The closure occurred even though the NAACP and members of the Third Ward community opposed the closure. In 2013, Ryan Middle School's campus reopened as the
Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan (BCMAR) is a magnet middle school in Houston Independent School District (HISD), located in the Third Ward, Houston, Texas. It is located in the former Ryan Middle School. It is in association with t ...
, a magnet middle school for medical studies. The school is intended to feed into the Michael E. DeBakey High School for the Health Professions. For the 2013–2014 school year, 119 of the students who attended Ryan during the 6th or 7th grades during the 2012–2013 school year, or 65% of the total of the 2012–2013 6th and 7th grade students, started attending Cullen Middle School. The remaining students began attending other schools.


Neighborhoods served by the former Ryan Middle School

Several Third Ward area subdivisions, including
University Oaks University Oaks is a Subdivision (land), subdivision in southeast Houston with approximately 240 homes located adjacent to the University of Houston. It is bounded by Wheeler Avenue to the north, South MacGregor Way to the south, Calhoun Ro ...
,University Oaks
" ''Harris County''. Retrieved on April 5, 2009.
Oak Manor,
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, Washington Terrace, and
Riverside Terrace Riverside Terrace is a neighborhood in Houston, Texas, United States. It is along Texas State Highway 288 and north of the Texas Medical Center and located near Texas Southern University and University of Houston. There about 20 sections of Riversi ...
were previously zoned to Ryan Middle School.Wollam, Allison.
Riverside Terrace bucks housing slowdown
" ''
Houston Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor New ...
''. August 15, 2008. Retrieved on April 18, 2009.
Ryan Middle Attendance Zone
." ''
Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and ...
''
In addition, the old Ryan Middle School served a small portion of Midtown Houston (the portion south of U.S. Route 59) and a small portion of Neartown.
Cuney Homes Cuney Homes is a public housing complex in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. It is operated by the Houston Housing Authority (HHA), and was the first complex opened by the authority. there were nearly 600 people living there. Some were st ...
and Ewing Apartments, units of
public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...
, were zoned to Ryan Middle School.
Project Row Houses Project Row Houses is a development in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses includes a group of shotgun houses restored in the 1990s. Eight houses serve as studios for visiting artists. Those houses are art studios for art r ...
were zoned to Ryan. Residents of the
Texas Medical Center The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a medical district and neighborhood in south-central Houston, Texas, United States, immediately south of the Museum District and west of Texas State Highway 288. Over 60 medical institutions, largely concentrat ...
(TMC)'s Laurence H. Favrot Tower Apartments, which housed TMC employees and their dependents, were zoned to Ryan. On August 31, 2012 the complex closed.


School uniforms

For portions of its history, the school required its students to wear uniforms. Beginning in 2010 the former Ryan Middle School required male students to wear ties. Richard Connelly of the ''
Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...
'' stated that ties could be used as weapons in fights, since an assailant could grab his victim using his tie. As of 2012 the school still required male students to wear ties.


Student body

During its final school year, Ryan Middle had 272 students. 84% were black, 15% were Hispanic, and the remainder were of other races. During the 2006–2007 school year, the school had 633 pupils * 85%
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
* 14%
Hispanic American Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as ...
* Less than 1%
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
* Less than 1% Asian American * Less than 1% Native Americans About 80% of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch.


Feeder patterns

The following elementary schools fed into the former Ryan Middle School: * Lockhart * Turner (partial) *Blackshear, * Dodson * MacGregor * Peck * Poe * Roberts Three different high schools had zoning boundaries that partially coincided with the former Ryan Middle School boundary: * Yates High School * Lamar High School * Bellaire High School


Notable students

* George Floyd, a black man who was killed during an arrest that caused protests and populated
Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...


See also

*
History of the African-Americans in Houston The African American population in Houston, Texas, has been a significant part of the city's community since its establishment.Haley, John H. (University of North Carolina at Wilmington). " Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houst ...


References


External links

* (officelive.com domain) * (houstonisd.org domain) {{Authority control African-American history in Houston Public middle schools in Houston Houston Independent School District middle schools Historically segregated African-American schools in Texas Educational institutions established in 1958 1958 establishments in Texas Educational institutions disestablished in 2013 2013 disestablishments in Texas Third Ward, Houston