HISD’s Baylor Academy opens to neighborhood kids
Campus at Ryan Middle School will accept nearby students outside the magnet lottery
Students who live near the Baylor Academy at Ryan Middle School now will be able to attend the medical-science magnet campus without going through the magnet lottery.
Houston ISD’s board of trustees voted unanimously Thursday to create a boundary option for the Third Ward campus, meaning students from the neighborhood can bypass the magnet school application to seek admission to the school.
Trustee Jolanda Jones, who represents Third Ward and had relatives who attended Ryan before it became a magnet school, said of the change: “It’s not as far reaching as I would like yet, but it’s the first step toward making it a neighborhood school.”
Ryan Middle School was closed in 2013 after trustees cited low and declining enrollment. Months later, trustees opted to make the campus into an openenrollment magnet school through a partnership with the Baylor University College of Medicine.
At the time, Third Ward parents asked the board to give students in the neighborhood priority. Trustees refused and said doing so would make Houston ISD less likely to win a multimillion-dollar federal grant because the grant discouraged preferential treatment.
Delores Rodgers, a speaker at Thursday’s board meeting, said not saving seats for neighborhood students at Ryan is emblematic of issues with Houston ISD’s school choice system. She said while Houston ISD’s promotion of magnet programs appears to be a good thing, the school choice system discriminates against students who are poor, black and Hispanic.
“Even when these schools are built in our community, neighborhood kids can’t attend,” Rodgers said. “You increase parents’ burdens and make their lives more difficult.”
Trustee Sergio Lira said the district’s school choice system perpetuates inequities by developing schools with excellent programs in some neighborhoods but not in others.
“This is a first step to turn around this system,” Lira said. “I hope this is the beginning and sets a trend for unique schools where students in those neighborhoods don’t always have the opportunity to attend.