Pershing Middle School (Houston)

Pershing Middle School
Address
3838 Bluebonnet Houston, Texas, 77025 United States
Information
Type	Public
Established	1928
Principal	Kim Heckman
Grades	6-8
Enrollment	1,724  (2006-2007)
Color(s)	Red, black, and white
Mascot	Panda
Website	Pershing Middle School

John J. Pershing Middle School is a secondary school located at 3838 Bluebonnet in Houston, Texas with a zip code of 77025.

Pershing, located in the Braeswood Place neighborhood, serves grades 6 through 8 and is a part of the Houston Independent School District.

Pershing has a neighborhood program, a Pre-AP Gifted and Talented program, and a fine arts program.

History

West University Place Pershing Junior High School, which was named after John J. Pershing, was established in 1928. Pershing originally was connected to West University Elementary School (which was located in the city of West University Place after the city incorporated in 1938); the school moved to its own campus at 7000 Braes Boulevard in Houston in 1949. The campus was worth $2 million. This relieved West University Elementary. An arson incident occurred in August 1958.

In September 1991 Pershing was one of 32 HISD schools that had capped enrollments; in other words the school was filled to capacity and excess students had to attend other schools.

Originally, Houston ISD planned to remodel Pershing's 1949 campus. When HISD found that building a new campus from scratch would be more cost-effective, HISD decided to pursue that goal. Construction started on Pershing's brand new two-story 216,000-square-foot (20,100 m²) campus at 3838 Bluebonnet (on the same site as the old campus) during the summer of 2005. Construction was expected to end in Summer 2007, and the new campus was originally expected to open in Fall 2007 [1]. The lead architect for the campus was PGAL, with Gilbane as the lead project manager. The original budget was $16,900,000 United States dollars. The construction costs totaled $24.4 million, and the final costs, including books, computers, and architect engineers, totaled $31 million.

The new building opened on Thursday, January 18, 2007; originally the building was slated to open the previous day, but weather conditions lead to the temporary closing of all HISD schools for January 17.

Pershing Middle School's campus prior to the addition of lettering

Portions of the former Pershing building remain because many chimney swift birds appeared in the chimney. The Migratory Bird Act makes the act of tearing down the Pershing chimney illegal.

Campus as seen from Stella Link

back of the campus

Neighborhoods served by Pershing

Pershing, which is located in the Braeswood Place neighborhood, serves several areas of Houston that are in and out of the 610 Loop, including Braeswood Place, Linkwood, Knollwood Village, Woodshire, Woodside, Westridge, Southgate, Old Braeswood, Morningside Place, Westwood, Link Valley, a portion of Meyerland, a portion of Maplewood, and Sunset Terrace/Montclair. In addition to portions of Houston, Pershing also serves the cities of Bellaire, Southside Place, and West University Place.

Rice Village Apartments and Morningside Square, two Rice University graduate housing complexes that admit families, are zoned to this school. are within the Houston Independent School District.

Academics

As of 2010, teacher Charles Coursey requires students to do gardening before their instructional time and during afternoons. During class he allows students to eat portions of the vegetables that were harvested in the garden. On Saturdays the organizers sell the rest of the produce at the Rice University farmers' market. The proceeds go to purchasing supplies for the gardening program.

Student body

During the 2006-2007 school year, Pershing had 1,732 students.

• 35% were White American
• 30% were African American
• 26% were Hispanic American
• 10% were Asian American
• Less than 1% were Native American

Approximately 39% of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch.

In 2008 Pershing had a large number of immigrant students.

Feeder patterns

Elementary schools that feed into Pershing include:

• Condit
• Mark Twain
• West University

(partial)

• Horn
• Longfellow
• Lovett
• Red
• Roberts
• Shearn

The majority of students who are zoned to Pershing either go to Bellaire High School or Lamar High School. A few areas zoned to Pershing feed into Madison High School, Westbury High School, and Lee High School (all pupils zoned to Lee may also choose to go to Lamar or Westside High School).

All students zoned to Pershing have the option to attend Pin Oak Middle School.

Notable alumni

• Dennis Quaid, actor
• Randy Quaid, actor
• Farrah Fawcett
• Phylicia Rashād,actor
• Thomas Schlamme,^{[citation needed]} Emmy award-winning TV director
• Debbie Allen,American actress, dancer, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
• A. J. Foyt, Jr. (also attended Hamilton Middle School and Lamar and San Jacinto high schools)
• Marvin Zindler, KTRK-TV ABC-13 news reporter who ended the Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas. He appeared at the school's 75th anniversary in 2003.

External links

• Pershing Middle School home page

Preceded by Condit, Mark Twain, West University, Horn, Longfellow, Lovett, Red, Roberts, Shearn

Houston Independent School District Grades 6-8

Succeeded by Bellaire, Lamar, Madison, Westbury, Lee, Westside