Edgar Gregory-Abraham Lincoln Education Center (GLEC) is a

K-8 school K8 or K-8 may refer to: * K-8 (Kansas highway), two highways in Kansas, one in northern Kansas, one in southern Kansas * K-8 school, a type of school that includes kindergarten and grades one through eight * K8 telephone box, designed by Bruce M ...

located at 1101 Taft in the Fourth Ward area of

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, United States. Gregory-Lincoln is a part of the

Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest Public school (government funded), public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the ci ...

(HISD) and has a

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

magnet program that takes students in both the elementary and middle school levels. Originally built in 1966 as Lincoln Junior and Senior High School, it later operated as Lincoln Junior High School until Gregory Elementary School merged into it in 1980, forming Gregory-Lincoln. The school moved into its current building in 2008; the rebuilding was delayed due to concerns that

U.S. Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded fr ...

-era graveyards would be disturbed by the rebuilding process. One namesake is Edgar M. Gregory, an officer in the Union army in the

and the assistant commissioner of the Texas area's Freedmen's Bureau.History of the Gregory School and Freedmen's Town
" African American Library at the Gregory School. Retrieved on December 11, 2009. The other is

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

History

The first campus for the Lincoln Junior-Senior School was built in 1966.School Histories
."

. Retrieved on April 1, 2010. The original campus was a three-story brick building.Martin, Betty L.
Gregory-Lincoln replacement facility opens
" ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...

''. Wednesday January 2, 2008. Retrieved on October 20, 2011. It served as a neighborhood secondary school for a section of Montrose. The school opened just as schools were no longer legally segregated by race in the U.S. as the result of the Civil Rights Movement. Thorne Dreyer and Al Reinert of ''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. Founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, ''Texas Monthly'' chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the Natura ...

'' wrote that HISD officials at the time called it "the most successfully integrated school in the city."Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" ''

''. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Start
Page 56
Cited
Page 60
Retrieved from ''

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

'' on April 2, 2010. However some white families assigned to Lincoln avoided the school by way of private school, moving to another school zone, or renting an apartment in another school zone. A parent-teacher organization was formed despite the disadvantaged backgrounds of some families. Beginning in 1969, a desegregation program, initially funded by parishioners of the First Presbyterian Church and operated by the Emergency School Assistance Programs, a federal government initiative to support schools that racially integrated, began. The church funding paid for the first year. It was initially both a junior and senior high school, - The page is from p. 212 a

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the secretary of housing and u ...

(HUD) report embedded in the record. and also became the campus of Houston Community High School, an HISD magnet school. At a later point it was solely Lincoln Junior High School. In 1980 the district closed the Gregory School (now used as the

African American Library at the Gregory School African American Library at the Gregory School is a branch of the Houston Public Library (HPL) in the Fourth Ward, Houston. The library preserves historical information about the African American community in Houston and the surrounding regions. ...

) and consolidated its students, including elementary ones, into Lincoln. - - From page III-2 of a report - Also seen i
search result
/ref> A document quoted in a U.S. Congressional report stated that area residents perceived the move as trying to destabilize the Fourth Ward and "The closing of Gregory and the shifting of its students to Lincoln was met with intense opposition from Fourth Ward residents." - From page III-3 of a report In 2000, the district announced that the Gregory-Lincoln would receive a new campus that would be on the site of the old campus. Initially HISD planned to locate the a new campus for the

High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Kinder HSPVA, HSPVA or PVA) is a secondary school located at 790 Austin Street in the downtown district of Houston, Texas. The school is a part of the Houston Independent School District ...

(HSPVA) on the same site. In 2002 the

Texas Historical Commission The Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the U.S. state of Texas. It administers the National Register of Historic Places for sites in Texas. The commission also identifies Recorded Texas Histor ...

(THC) told HISD that there were properties eligible to the placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP) in the area which HISD wished to demolish houses for the new Gregory-Lincoln campus: Genesee Street to the north, Taft Street to the West, West Gray Street to the south, and Andrews street to the east. HISD began demolishing houses anyway. The development attracted controversy since it used

eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...

to seize property owned by existing residents, even though some residents expressed a reluctance to have their property seized. Betty L. Martin of the ''

'' said that some of the properties were "reputed to be of historical significance." A homeowner named Anthony Pizzitola, who was resident in the Braeswood area, unsuccessfully sued HISD to stop the demolition of his house and asked historian Janet Wagner to determine the probability of historic artifacts at Gregory-Lincoln because there were rumors that there was a grave site from the

American Reconstruction The Reconstruction era was a period in US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and reintegration of the former Confederate Stat ...

era. These rumors of prevented any development for several years. In 2006 Houston ISD did not find any new grave sites and started development of Gregory-Lincoln. The new Gregory-Lincoln campus was scheduled to be completed by 2008. The current $13.5 million, school building was financed by the $808.6 million 2002 Rebuild HISD bond. On Monday, December 31, 2007, the two story current Gregory Lincoln building opened. As of January 2008 it has about 500 students. The demolition of the original campus was scheduled to begin in January 2008. The district planned to grade the land and place an athletic field for middle school students and a playground for elementary school students. The new school building includes digital ceiling-mounted projectors in the classrooms. As a result of the May 2009 closing of J. Will Jones Elementary School, Gregory-Lincoln's elementary boundary had an increase in territory in Midtown. As the result of the 2011 closing of

E.O. Smith Education Center This is a list of schools operated by the Houston Independent School District. In the district, grades kindergarten through 5 are considered to be elementary school, grades 6 through 8 are considered to be middle school, and grades 9 through ...

, Gregory-Lincoln's middle school boundary had an increase in territory in

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

.Gregory-Lincoln Middle School Attendance Zone
." ''

''. As part of rezoning for the 2014–2015 school year, all portions of Midtown previously zoned to Blackshear Elementary School and all portions of Downtown previously zoned to Blackshear as well as many portions previously zoned to Bruce Elementary School were rezoned to Gregory-Lincoln for elementary school. From 2009 to 2019 each Gregory-Lincoln principal had a term of two years or fewer. Jacob Carpenter of the ''

'' used the school as an example of a low income urban school plagued by constant staff turnover, as in addition four tenths of the teachers from each school year are not present in the following one.

Student body

In 1972, there were 1,336 students attending Lincoln Junior-Senior High. Black students made up 63%, Mexican-origin students made up 20%, and 17% were Anglo White. As of the 1982–1983 school year the school had 836 elementary students, with 382 (45.7%) being black, 181 (33.8%) being Asian, 164 (19.6%) being Hispanic, and eight (0.9%) being white. In the school's history it received enrollment decreases, particularly when the population decreased, from 906 students in the 2000-2001 period, to about 700 students in the 2004-2005 period.

Gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

of the areas within the elementary and middle school attendance boundaries has caused enrollment to drop. it had 546 students.

School uniforms

Gregory-Lincoln requires school uniforms. All students must wear red, grey, or black

polo shirt A polo shirt, tennis shirt, golf shirt, or chukker shirt is a form of shirt with a collar. Polo shirts are usually short sleeved but can be long; they were used by Polo#Players, polo players originally in British Raj, British India in 1859 and ...

s. Students must wear khaki trousers, shorts, or skirts. The

Texas Education Agency The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is the branch of the government of Texas responsible for public education in Texas in the United States.

specified that the parents and/or guardians of students zoned to a school with uniforms may apply for a waiver to opt out of the uniform policy so their children do not have to wear the uniform; parents must specify "

bona fide In human interactions, good faith () is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case with , which is ...

" reasons, such as religious reasons or philosophical objections.

Neighborhoods served

The elementary attendance boundary includes the Fourth Ward, almost all of Midtown (all of the super neighborhood and the portion of the management district north of U.S. Highway 59), and most of

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. Small sections of the

Neartown Montrose is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Montrose is a area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, South Shepher ...

area, including parts of Avondale and East Montrose, are zoned to Gregory-Lincoln Elementary.Our Boundaries
" Neartown Association. Retrieved on March 23, 2019
PDF version with detail
- Individual subdivisions are noted The middle school attendance boundary includes: the Fourth Ward, most of Downtown, most of Midtown, and portions of

Neartown Houston Montrose is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Montrose is a area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/ U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, South Shephe ...

east of Montrose Boulevard (including Avondale, Courtlandt Place, East Montrose, First Montrose Commons, Roseland Estates, and Westmoreland,Westmoreland Historic District
." City of Houston. Retrieved on May 26, 2010. and parts of Hyde Park, and North Montrose). Four Seasons Hotel Houston residences, Houston House Apartments, One Park Place, and Sheridan Apartments are zoned to Gregory-Lincoln for grades K-8.

Isabella Court Isabella Court is a Spanish Colonial Revival style mixed-use residential and commercial complex at 3909-3917 South Main Street in the Midtown district of Houston, Texas, United States. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Is ...

, and The Rice are zoned to Gregory-Lincoln for grades 6-8.

Feeder patterns

All of the areas zoned to Gregory-Lincoln for elementary school continue on to Gregory-Lincoln Middle School. Elementary schools that feed into Gregory-Lincoln for middle school include: *Gregory-Lincoln's elementary school program * Wharton * Ella J. Baker (former Woodrow Wilson) (partial) *Crockett (partial) *MacGregor (partial) Students within the elementary school attendance zone and students within the middle school attendance zone are zoned to either Northside High School (formerly Davis High School) for the Downtown portion,Northside High School Attendance Boundary
"

. Retrieved on March 9, 2017. Lamar High School for the Neartown/Montrose portion and most of Midtown,Lamar High School Attendance Boundary
,"

. Retrieved on December 19, 2016. or

Heights High School Heights High School, formerly John H. Reagan High School, is a senior high school located in the Houston Heights in Houston, Texas. It serves students in grades nine through twelve and is a part of the Houston Independent School District. Hei ...

(formerly Reagan High School) for the Fourth Ward and small portions of Midtown.

References

External links

* * * - An article about the problems with the rebuilding {{Houston ISD Magnet schools in Houston Houston Independent School District elementary schools Houston Independent School District middle schools Public K–8 schools in Houston Fourth Ward, Houston