Community rallies to keep 2 HISD schools open

HOUSTON – Community leaders have joined forces together to fight a proposal to close two schools within the Houston Independent School District.

Jones High and Dodson Elementary are both on the chopping block.

With 283 campuses, HISD's school board has planned to vote on whether the two schools will close for good.

Earlier in the year, the district proposed to close five schools citing that enrollments were down, according to superintendent Terry Grier.

After several weeks of meetings, the district announced on March 5 that three of those schools, Nathaniel Q. Henderson Elementary, Port Houston Elementary, and Fleming Middle, had been removed from the possible closure list; while Jones High and Dodson Elementary remained in the danger zone and could close later this year.

Community leaders, activists and parents joined together Tuesday saying they will say they will continue to fight for their neighborhood schools. They planned to spend the day passing out information on other programs and resources that, if implemented, could help the schools and the students flourish.

"They came out with a plan that they are going to close five schools, but then they adjusted that and said we're not gonna (sic) close five, we're gonna close two. And that's like giving a baby a pacifier. We want Terry Grier fired and the board to do their job," said Kofi Taharka with the National Black United Front.

The school board is set to vote on the proposed closures on Thursday.

The board will also vote on a proposal to redraw the boundaries for the Billy Reagan K-8 Education Center.