The Rice School

Joan Raymond, then the superintendent of HISD, envisioned The Rice School as a way to relieve overcrowding at West University Elementary School, to stem the decrease of White and affluent students, and to gap the performance division between affluent White students and low income minority students.[9] The Rice School was originally planned as a regular zoned school with an attendance boundary. In 1989, as "Operation Renewal," a school construction program, progressed, Raymond thought about how to lure West University Elementary School-zoned parents away from West University Elementary; she decided that a partnership with Rice University would allow this to happen. Rice's education department had no experience teaching younger students, so the laboratory school was made into a K-8. Tim Fleck of the Houston Press stated that the Rice University label "sold like Lacoste."[10] The district planned to find a site for the school; plans to put the school on Brompton Road failed, and an attempt to buy land at Bissonnet Street at Newcastle Drive in the City of Bellaire failed since City of Bellaire officials and parents living in Bellaire complained when they learned that they would not be zoned to the new school while losing what Fleck described as "a prime chunk of taxable property."[10] Raymond settled on a site on North Braeswood Drive, fulfilling what Fleck described as "minimal expectations."[10]

The concept was sold to the school board. Don McAdams, an HISD school board member who had supported the development of the Rice School from the time of conception to the approval by the school board, said that the board members wanted concessions specific to their districts, and the school's racial quotas were devised so that the school served the entire school district to satisfy the demands.[11] Fleck said that The Rice School's concept "mushroomed into an incredibly complex educational experiment that aspired to be all things to all parties with an interest in its success."[9] The intention was to attract students from the West University Place area by the promotion of the school's ties to Rice University, the presence of, in Fleck's words, "more computers than a private school," [sic] and the grouping of classes into clusters;[9] in the clusters students would progress at their own rates and tutor one another. Residents of lower income inner city neighborhoods were to be attracted to Rice as a way to have their children avoid neighborhood schools with violent incidents. Rice University was to benefit from additional ties to the Houston community and having educational theories demonstrated in practice.[9] According to McAdams, many people, especially West University Place residents, believed that the school would have selected gifted and talented admissions because of the association with Rice University.[12] In 1997 McAdams retrospectively said "there were high expectations -- admittedly unreasonable expectations."[9]

The school opened on August 1994.[3] Kaye Stripling was the first principal. Circa January 1995 Stripling left her position as she received a promotion, and Sharon Koonce, previously at Oak Forest Elementary, replaced her.[13]

About 1,280 students from Kindergarten through 6th grade were enrolled when the school opened. Over 7,169 students applied for 1,275 slots, and half of the students previously attended overcrowded schools in the West University Place area. Fewer than 15 students who were offered admission declined the offer. Many teachers at Rice came from other Houston ISD schools. The elementary school grades had about 50% White Americans, and 25% each Hispanic Americans and Black Americans. The middle school grades had about 33% each of White, Black, and Hispanic students. Of all Rice students, 11% were Asian Americans. The students lived all across the City of Houston. Initially the school organized students from Kindergarten through 2nd grade into one cluster, 3rd through 5th grades in another cluster, and the middle school grades in another cluster.[14] According to McAdams, many parties felt unsatisfied by the outcome of the student placement lottery.[12] Eight student placements per grade level were reserved for dependents of Rice University employees. McAdams wrote that this caused controversy.[12] McAdams stated that because students not previously enrolled in HISD were allowed to enter into the Rice lottery if they were entering Kindergarten or the 6th grade, area private school parents were unsatisfied.[12] In addition, he stated that "Parents in an older, affluent community" immediately to the school's east had no dedicated entry into the lottery system so they were also unsatisfied.[12] Furthermore he stated that principals of area schools perceived the Rice School to receiving extra resources, making them unsatisfied.[12] Also, according to McAdams, Rice was taking more students from nearby area neighborhood schools than anticipated had angered leaders of those schools.[12] McAdams added that "there were charges that the lottery was fixed and so-and-so got in because of backroom influence."[12]

In 1994 Melanie Markley of the Houston Chronicle said that Rice, "with its distinctive architecture and its progressive curriculum -- promises to be a kind of flagship school for a district hoping to replicate many of its already apparent successes."[15] McAdams wrote that the controversies over placements dissipated after the school opened.[12]

By 1997 not very many of the teachers who were at the school during its start had remained. Many affluent parents had stopped sending their children to The Rice School, saying that the "integrated" freeform curriculum neglected basic mathematics and reading skills. In August 1997, the Texas Education Agency ranked The Rice School as the sole "Low Performing" school within the Houston Independent School District. Fleck stated that the statistic was "somewhat misleading" since it measured the performances of economically disadvantaged pupils in the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS); Fleck said that the ranking was "a major embarrassment for the school district and served to underscore the gap between the children of affluent white parents and minority students that the Rice School was designed to bridge."[9]

McAdams wrote that the divide in terms of class and neighborhood origins between the White affluent parents and the low income Black and Hispanic parents were more significant than the differences in ethnicity, and the differences contributed to the decline of the school.[16]

In June 1997 Koonce was removed as principal, and Sandra Satterwhite took her position at that time. According to Fleck, "many Rice School parents turned against her because she had not found a way to enforce consistency on the quality of teaching at the school."[13] At that time HISD replaced not only the principal but the entire management team. The district announced that the school was being moved to the alternative district, the HISD-wide district handling magnet schools.[17] In 1997 the district negotiated with Rice University to strengthen the partnership.[16] According to McAdams, HISD previously emphasized to Rice University that the Rice School was an HISD school and that the attitude damaged the relationship between the two entities.[17]

In the 2006-2007 school year, the Texas Education Agency gave the school a "recognized" rating. In December 2007 Linda Lazenby, the principal of The Rice School said, as paraphrased by Jennifer Radcliffe of the Houston Chronicle that "she's thrilled her 1,100-student campus can serve as the poster child of success for the K-8 model in Houston."[18]

In 2014 Rice had about 1,150 students, over the school's official capacity. As of 2015 it was being used to house excess students from Roberts, Twain, and West University elementary schools, which were all at capacity.[19]