THIRD WARD’S RYAN MIDDLE SCHOOL TO BECOME MEDICINE MAGNET HISD voted on Thursday night to reopen the closing Ryan Middle School next year as a magnet for students interested in the medical field. Though community protests have tried to move HISD to keep the Third Ward school open, a vote a month ago decided that the 263 Ryan students — the fewest at any HISD middle school, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon — would be consolidated at Cullen Middle School, about 4 miles away on Scott St. The 1926 Elgin St. building that was the original Yates Colored High School, reports abc13, will be reopened as the Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan to “allow more students to compete for admission into the highly selective DeBakey High School for the Health Professions.” Also approved in Thursday’s vote is a second magnet, the Energy Institute High School, though HISD has not yet chosen where that will be. [Houston Chronicle; abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
I think this is a win for the neighborhood, students, and HISD. the campus isn’t that far from the medical center–another plus.
OK help me out here…they are opening another medical magnet school to “compete for admission into” the other school? I don’t understand how opening a competing school will get more students into the already full school. Will this be a middle school instead of a high school?
@greg – I completely agree that this is appropriately close to TMC. That’s why it’s a waste of our taxpayer money to move the current Debakey school 1 mile west into TMC proper. It’s already within walking distance from TMC. There was a previous discussion on Swamplot about this where I was quite vocal.