Jack Yates Senior High School is a public high school near Texas Southern University in the historic Third Ward in Houston, Texas. Yates High School handles grades nine through twelve and is part of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). It is at 3650 Alabama Street.
Yates was named after Reverend John Henry "Jack" Yates, a former slave and a minister. Jack Yates and other leading blacks established the Houston Baptist Academy. Within a decade, the success of the school prompted Reverend Yates to reorganize the Houston Baptist Academy as the Houston College, the school offered a special opportunity to the black children of the community who sought an alternative to the Colored High School of the public school system.
Yates has HISD's magnet program for communications: broadcast TV, radio, print, and photography. Yates also houses a maritime studies magnet program.
In 2010, Paul Knight of the Houston Press wrote that "the school remains a symbol of solidarity in the Third Ward."
In June 2016, members of the Jack Yates and HISD communities held a ground-breaking ceremony for the new campus. A $59.4 million campus was completed next to the old campus in summer 2018.
Contents
History
Segregation
Yates was established on February 8, 1926, as Yates Colored High School with 17 teachers and 600 students. The school, at 2610 Elgin, was the second school for African-Americans in Houston. At the time schools were segregated on the basis of race.
Previously Houston had only one secondary school for black people, Colored High School. In 1925 the school board stated that it would build a new black high school due to the increasing black population. The Houston Informer stated that the schools need to be named after prominent black people from the city and/or other successful black persons. The new high school was to be named after Jack Yates, a prominent black Houstonian, and the original colored high school was renamed Booker T. Washington High School.
The original Yates High was built from a $4 million (about $73434535.1 when accounting for inflation) bond program, which included $500,000 (about $9179316.89 when accounting for inflation) to renovate 17 existing schools and build new schools. Clifton Richardson, the editor of the Houston Informer, had felt skepticism towards this proposal but ultimately asked Houston's African-Americans to vote for the bond and endorsed it in the Informer. In 1925, HISD originally proposed to have the school built for $100,000 (about $18358633.78 when accounting for inflation), but Richardson opposed this plan, prompting the district to revise the bond. The first principal, James D. Ryan, served from the opening until his death in 1941; William S. Holland became Yates's second principal that year.
In 1927, the Yates building began housing Houston Colored Junior College, later Houston College for Negroes.
In pre-desegregation times middle and upper class black families sent their children to Yates.
By February 1951, Yates had 2,100 students. By that month Jack Yates had an addition that slightly increased student capacity and a remodeling, but the school was still overcrowded as the enlarged facility was designed for 1,600 students. By March 1954 the student body was over 3,000. As a result of the overcrowding the Southern Association of Secondary Schools pulled Yates's accreditation.
Desegregation and post-desegregation
After the 1970 desegregation resulting from the Civil Rights Movement, HISD had established magnet programs and other alternative education programs. Many upper and middle class blacks sent their children to Bellaire High School, Lamar High School, and other schools previously only for Whites; until 1970 HISD counted its Hispanic and Latino students as "white." In addition, many black people moved from the Third Ward to the suburbs. Violence became more common and the facility was defaced with graffiti. William G. Ouchi, author of Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need, wrote that due to the loss of the middle and upper class students, Yates "fell on hard times."
The Yates photography magnet school program began in fall 1978.
In 1987, a survey at Yates showed that 108 female students were pregnant and 50% of them were having their second pregnancies. In 1989 Chester Smith, the principal, prohibited the school newspaper from publishing a story about a pregnant student.
In the 1990s, superintendent Rod Paige recruited Robert Worthy, who was previously teaching in the Pasadena Independent School District, to revitalize the school. Worthy removed most of the administrators and 60 teachers, making up about half of the faculty, within a two-year period to remove any pre-existing negative cultural influences from Yates. Worthy also established additional Advanced Placement courses and removed a Cleaning and Pressing Program.
In 1997, a geographic area south of Interstate 45 was rezoned from Austin High School to Yates. After the 2000 opening of Chávez High School, portions of the Yates boundary were reassigned to Austin High School.
From 1998 through 2002, the school reported that 99% of students graduating from Yates planned to attend colleges and universities. In response a parent and alumnus of Yates quoted in a 2003 The New York Times article, Larry Blackmon, stated that "Absolutely, positively, no way. You'd get more of an accurate count asking elementary kids if they plan to go to college."
Around 2003, Yates' principal hired several uncertified teachers and substitute teachers, using them to replace experienced but more highly paid teachers who were fired by the principal. In addition around that time Yates had gone without a school library for over a year.
Served neighborhoods
Several areas inside the 610 Loop that are south of Downtown, including the Third Ward, Timbercrest, University Oaks, Oak Manor, University Woods, Scott Terrace, Lucky 7, South Union, Foster Place, Washington Terrace, MacGregor Place, and LaSalette Place, as well as most of Riverside Terrace, are zoned to Yates.
Cuney Homes, a unit of Houston Housing Authority (HHA) public housing, is zoned to Yates.
In addition, Cambridge Oaks, a university housing complex, is zoned to Yates. Cambridge Oaks houses University of Houston students who have dependent children and is the institution's designated family housing unit.
Campus
The current Yates campus has the Crimson & Gold Café as its cafeteria, and it has eight science laboratories. The campus is located between Texas Southern University and the University of Houston.
In 2012, Richard Connelly of the Houston Press ranked the previous 1958 Yates campus as the second most architecturally beautiful high school campus in Greater Houston. Connelly said that "Some would call this generic, but we like the proud `60s style."
Demographics
In 2018, the school had approximately 900 students. About 90% African-American and 10% Hispanic,
In 2010, the school had about 1,200 students. Most of them were African-American. Of the remainder, 88 were Hispanic, 7 were Asian, and 3 were White.
In the 2015–2016 school year, Yates gained over 110 students who moved from other HISD schools, while 738 high school students previously attending Yates moved to other HISD schools.
Yates had 3,600 students in the mid-1980s. In 2001, by a margin of 700 votes, the student body voted for an Asian American as Mr. Yates, reflecting an increase in non-black students in majority black schools in the Houston area.
School uniform
Students at Yates are required to wear a school uniform. The Texas Education Agency specifies 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" reasons, such as religious reasons or philosophical objections.
Academics and programs
In 2020, Yates became the fifth HISD high school to become an International Baccalaureate school.
Yates has HISD's magnet program for communications: broadcast TV, radio, print, and photography. Yates also houses a maritime studies magnet program.
Prior to 2015, the school allowed students who missed too many classes to pass a course but otherwise had passing grades to do cleaning work to make up for the absences. HISD asked Yates to change its policy.
Extracurricular activities
Athletics
Yates competes in several sports, but the most prominent and successful sport on campus is boys' basketball. In 1994 Andrew W. Miracle, the author of Lessons of the Locker Room: The Myth of School Sports, wrote that the athletics programs at Yates High School have the same kind of importance in the Third Ward as the athletics programs at rural Texas high schools do for their respective small town and rural communities.
In the segregation era, Yates did not play games against white high schools. It was a part of the Prairie View Interscholastic League, an all-black sports league, from 1940 until 1968. In 1969 the Prairie View League was dissolved and Yates joined the University Interscholastic League (UIL).
In February 2012, Yates was reclassified as a UIL 3A school, down from the 4A level.
In 2010, Paul Knight of the Houston Press reported that, "no high school basketball team in the state and perhaps the country has played better than Yates." As of 2010, only two of the players on the basketball team were not from the Third Ward.
In March 2010, Yates' boys basketball team was ranked number one in the nation by USA Today having defeated their opponents by margins of 135, 115, 99 (twice), 98, 90 and 88 points. On January 6, 2010, the basketball team defeated Class 4A District 21 opponent Lee High School (now Wisdom High School) 170–35, setting the state record for points in a game and sparking a debate in the process. Despite a 100-12 halftime lead, the Lions stayed true to their pressing and trapping style, which did not sit well with Lee head coach Jacques Armant.
Jacques Armant, the basketball coach at Lee High, criticized the mass scoring, saying that it could cause violence. ESPN writer Rick Reilly criticized Yates basketball Coach Greg Wise and stated "At the very least, USA Today ought to remove Yates from its national rankings—the school is No. 1—as a statement about basic sports decency."
As of 2015, Jack Yates boys' basketball program has won four state titles since the 2009 season.
Feeder patterns
Elementary schools that feed into Yates include:
Blackshear
Foster
Hartsfield
Lockhart
(partial)
J. P. Henderson
Peck
Thompson
Whidby
Portions of Cullen Middle School's attendance zone, including portions formerly zoned to Ryan Middle School, feed into Yates.
Notable alumni
Debbie Allen – Class of 1967; actress
Harold Bailey – former NFL football player for the Houston Oilers
Johnny Bailey – Class of 1986; former NFL football player for the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, and St. Louis Rams.
Michelle Barnes – artist and arts administrator
Aubrey Beavers – former NFL football player for the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets.
Jewel Brown – jazz singer with Louis Armstrong in the 1960s.
Grady Cavness – former NFL football player for the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons.
Garnet Coleman – Class of 1979; state representative for District 147 in Houston.
Albert Collins – Blues guitarist and singer.
Alex Davis – basketball player
Alphonse Dotson – former NFL football player for the Kansas City Chief, Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins.
Damyean Dotson – NBA player
Santana Dotson – Class of 1987; former NFL football player and member of the 1996 Super Bowl Champion (XXXI) Green Bay Packers.
Bo Farrington – former NFL football player for the Chicago Bears.
George Floyd – Class of 1993; African-American man killed on May 25, 2020, by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, sparking national outrage and large protests