State-Appointed Houston ISD Board Votes to Close or Merge 12 Campuses Amid Protests

Police officers had just pulled a parent from the podium as the crowd chanted “shame” when Houston’s state-appointed school board returned to its seats, adjusted their microphones and cast a unanimous vote.

In less than five minutes on the evening of Feb. 26, the Houston Independent School District’s Board of Managers approved closing or consolidating 12 campuses for the 2026-27 school year, the district’s largest round of shuttered schools in more than a decade.

The 9-0 decision affects thousands of students—almost all from low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods—and includes several A- and B-rated schools that families and elected officials had urged the board to spare. It also underscores how far power over Houston’s schools has shifted from local voters to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which seized control of the district three years ago.

“This district has a credibility and trust issue,” state Sen. Carol Alvarado told the board before the vote. “Parents, teachers, community members are all up in arms about the school closures because of the lack of accountability.”

The scope of the shutdown

Under the plan, eight campuses will close and send students to other schools, while four will be “co-located” or merged into different buildings.

Alcott, Briscoe, Burrus, Franklin, N.Q. Henderson, Port Houston and Ross elementary schools will all close. Their students will be reassigned to nearby campuses:

• Alcott → Mading
• Briscoe → Carrillo
• Burrus → Kennedy
• Franklin → Gallegos
• Henderson → Bruce
• Port Houston → Pleasantville
• Ross → Roosevelt or C. Martinez (family choice)

Middle College High School at HCC Gulfton, a small alternative program housed on a Houston Community College campus, will be relocated to another site that has not yet been publicly identified.

Four other schools will be consolidated into other buildings:

• Cage Elementary will share a campus with Lantrip Elementary.
• Hobby Elementary’s program will move into Lawson Middle School; its prekindergarten students will go to King Early Childhood Center.
• Fleming and McReynolds middle schools will be merged and co-located at the Mickey Leland College Preparatory Academy for Young Men campus.

District officials describe all 12 as “impacted campuses” in a broader effort to reduce the number of under-enrolled schools and address aging buildings across the 185,000-student system.

Superintendent Mike Miles—appointed by Education Commissioner Mike Morath in 2023 after the state took over the district—said the plan is driven by a decade of enrollment decline and the high cost of maintaining deteriorating facilities.

“It’s not responsible to pour millions of dollars into half-empty, failing or near-failing buildings when we can provide a better school, better facility-wise, and as strong instructionally by consolidating,” Miles told the board.

Houston ISD has lost roughly 30,000 students over the past 10 years, Miles said, with more families opting for charter schools or suburban districts. Internal facility data presented to the board show dozens of campuses operating well below capacity and more than 100 with a facility condition index high enough to flag them for major replacement or repair.

Affected schools buck the “failing” label

Parents and local lawmakers counter that many of the schools on the closure list do not fit the picture of failing, half-empty campuses.

According to recent accountability data, Burrus and Franklin elementary schools both earned A ratings from the state. Port Houston, Briscoe, Cage and several others are rated B. Only Henderson and Ross elementary schools were labeled low-performing in recent years, and both improved from D or F ratings to B in the most recent cycle.

At each of the 12 schools, more than 89% of students are classified as economically disadvantaged, a higher share than the district overall. All serve majority Black or Hispanic enrollments, and several—including Briscoe, Cage, Franklin and Port Houston—are more than 90% Hispanic.

Port Houston parent Vianey Torres said the reassignment would send students from a B-rated campus to a lower-rated one.

“Our school is improving. We are a B school,” Torres told the board. “Y’all are wanting to transfer students to Pleasantville, which will be a C-rated school.”

Parents at Port Houston, a small elementary school near the Houston Ship Channel, organized an absence of about 70 students the day after the vote. They argue the campus is not just a school but the neighborhood’s only public building—providing food distribution, special education services and a gathering place in an industrial corridor with few other resources.

Families also said they worry their children will face longer, less safe walks to Pleasantville Elementary, 1.3 miles away along roads crowded with industrial traffic and limited sidewalks.

In north Houston, residents described Burrus Elementary—an A-rated, majority Black school—as an anchor for the neighborhood.

“Burrus Elementary has maintained its status as an A-rated school and produced outstanding graduates, and you thank it by closing it,” said state Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson, who represents the area. “To close it during Black History Month is a slap in the face and a direct attack on the Black community.”

At Ross Elementary, where many students receive special education services, eighth-grader Aubrie Barr described the impact on her autistic brother.

“When you close a school serving special education students, you are not reassigning them. You are destabilizing it,” she said. “My brother is not a statistic. He is not an efficiency problem.”

Process under scrutiny

Beyond the closures themselves, much of the anger at the meeting focused on how the decision was made.

The TEA ordered the Houston takeover in 2023, citing years of low performance at Phillis Wheatley High School and concerns about district governance and special education services. Morath dissolved the elected school board and installed a nine-member Board of Managers. The agency has extended state control through at least June 2027.

In late 2025, district leaders publicly said they did not plan to propose school closures for 2026-27, according to public statements cited by lawmakers. That changed in February, when the list of 12 campuses was released, giving families about two weeks to organize responses before the vote.

During that window, HISD held meetings at each affected campus. The district labeled them “parents-only” sessions, did not consistently post dates and times online and barred media from entering—an arrangement that frustrated parents and some elected leaders.

Trustee Dani Hernandez, one of the few remaining elected Houston school board members whose powers have been largely suspended during the takeover, said she was initially turned away from one campus meeting and had to call district officials to be allowed in.

“This is not what meaningful engagement looks like,” Hernandez told the managers at the public hearing.

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, whose congressional district includes Franklin and Briscoe elementary schools, urged the board to delay its decision.

“Decisions like that require real partnership—real partnership—with parents, teachers, and stakeholders,” Garcia said. “That did not happen here.”

There were no delays. After more than four hours of testimony from parents, students, teachers and state and federal lawmakers, the managers recessed briefly when a speaker refused to leave the podium and was escorted out by police. When they returned, they approved the closures and consolidations without further discussion.

Promises and unanswered questions

HISD has pledged that students who want to remain in the district will have a place at their new schools and that key programs will follow them.

The district says students with special education plans or Section 504 accommodations will continue receiving services and specialized transportation at receiving campuses. It has promised shuttle buses from each closing school to its designated receiving campus for at least the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years, regardless of the usual two-mile eligibility rule for bus service.

Teachers at impacted schools are expected to learn their new assignments by April 17. District leaders say they will develop projects to preserve the “culture and identity” of closed campuses, though details remain limited.

Critics question whether the changes will ultimately strengthen HISD or accelerate existing trends. The district has already seen enrollment slide as charter networks and suburban districts expand nearby. Educator groups argue that Miles’ “New Education System”—a package of reforms that restructured dozens of campuses, required staff to reapply for jobs and introduced tightly scripted lesson plans—has driven away teachers and alienated parents.

On the same day the closures were being weighed, an independent hearing examiner ruled that HISD lacked credible evidence for trying to fire Michelle Williams, president of the Houston Education Association, over alleged failures to follow NES instructional directives. The decision bolstered union claims that dissent against takeover policies is being punished.

Research on state takeovers nationally has found mixed results for student achievement and raised concerns about disenfranchising communities of color by removing locally elected school boards. In Houston, many school closures over the past decade—from the 2013 shutdown of Ryan Middle School in Third Ward to the absorption of North Forest ISD—have fallen on historically Black neighborhoods.

What comes next

For now, the district is moving ahead. Families at closing campuses will receive transfer information this spring, and transportation routes are expected before the start of the next school year.

Some parents, like those at Port Houston and Burrus, say they are considering leaving the district rather than follow the plan. Others are preparing to send their children to new campuses while organizing to monitor class sizes, special education services and safety.

State officials have said HISD must demonstrate sustained academic improvement to regain local control. Closing or merging schools that have struggled in the past could help the district meet certain accountability benchmarks. Whether those moves will translate into better outcomes for the students now being moved remains an open question.

As the Feb. 26 meeting ended, the board members gathered their papers and left the dais as quietly as they had cast their votes. Parents lingered in the lobby of the Hattie Mae White building—some in tears, others on their phones arranging carpools and contingency plans.

“Our children are the ones who will live with this,” Barr said after the vote. “We’re the ones getting moved around. We’re just asking to be heard.”