Angelina Torres, a graduating fifth grader at Port Houston Elementary School is comforted by a classmate during a gathering on the last day of the school in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. Torres read a letter for the event she wrote in honor of the school and what it ment to her over the years. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Port Houston Elementary School teacher Belen Rivas hugs a fellow teacher during the school’s last day in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. Rivas has been teaching at the school for six years.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Port Houston Elementary School in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Port Houston Elementary School teacher Belen Rivas hugs a student during the school’s last day in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. Rivas has been teaching at the school for six years.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
The marquis for Port Houston Elementary School in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Alumni, students, parents and teachers become emotional during Port Houston Elementary School’s gathering on the last day of the school in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Iliana Delcid, 8, right, is comforted by a classmate during Port Houston Elementary School’s gathering on the last day of the school in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Port Houston Elementary School principal Jenn Martinez addresses parents, alumni and students during the school’s gathering on the last day in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Hundreds of Black families moved to Independence Heights, the first incorporated African American municipality in Texas, in the early 1900s, and by 1911 a two-room school opened on East 39th to educate their children.
That eventually became Burrus Elementary, which received a state historical marker in 2023 during a major community celebration. This June, however, the historic campus closed for good alongside 11 other schools in the largest mass closure of HISD campuses in the last 20 years.
“And they feel like that is definitely a slap in the face to the community — a disrespect to the community,” said State Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson, a Democrat whose district includes the school.
Article continues below this ad
Each school has rich histories and unique identities, which their communities scrambled to honor at farewell celebrations before the last day of school. With Spark Parks and decades of memories, communities felt the schools served as more than just buildings for generations.
In February, community members said they felt blindsided when HISD’s state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles announced the district would close 12 schools due to aging facilities and declining enrollment — months after he pledged not to close any campuses for the upcoming school year. The district created legacy committees intended to honor and preserve the history and culture at each closing school.
TIMELINE: See HISD’s major school closures over the past 20 years as more campuses face shutdowns
Article continues below this ad
In Independence Heights, the historical marker did not save Burrus because markers recognize the school’s history “but (do) not protect the building or its current use,” according to the Texas Historical Commission.
“I think that it’s a legacy … it has a lot of people who have come through there,” said Burrus alumna Valiree Tates, 69. “You have a lot of successful people that have gone on to really excel in life.”
‘It kind of snuck up on us’
Burrus’ history goes back to 1911, when a petition to Harris County Commissioners Court led to the opening of a two-room schoolhouse on East 39th Street.
After the city’s population reached over 600 people by 1915, community leaders built a new campus nearby on East 33rd Street in 1928.
Article continues below this ad
Burrus Elementary School in Independence Heights is shown in Houston, Tuesday, March 17, 2026.
Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle
Mardie Paige, 70, the area’s super-neighborhood president, said she encouraged people to speak at HISD board meetings to try and save the campus.
She knew HISD had considered closing Burrus in the early 2010s. This year, HISD’s state-appointed board of managers took only two weeks to approve the proposed closure, leaving little time for the community to oppose the plan. Paige thinks if Burrus hadn’t been part of a mass closure, it could have been saved.
“It kind of snuck up on us,” Paige said. “No one told us that Burrus was closing until the last minute, so we couldn’t work toward saving Burrus.”
Article continues below this ad
In August, students from Burrus and the 11 other closing campuses will be reassigned to new schools — most of which are located farther from their homes, with distinct identities and often lower academic ratings than their original school.
New roots
Like Burrus, Franklin Elementary traces its roots to the early 1910s. Originally named Magnolia Park Public School, the campus has served the broader East End community ever since.
Every time Mireya Aguirre dropped her daughter off at Franklin, she remembered her own years as a student there. Aguirre said the campus’ staff inspired her to volunteer there even after her daughter left for middle school. The school’s playground often fills with families in the evenings and on weekends, serving as the community’s unofficial hub.
HISD Franklin Elementary School is visible Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024 in Houston.
Kirk Sides/Staff photographer
Franklin was A-rated in 2025. Next school year, students will be sent to Gallegos Elementary, which received a B in the state’s accountability ratings.
Article continues below this ad
“That’s the sad part as well,” Aguirre said. “The school is an A-rated school. Why choose that one to close down instead of one that’s maybe not doing so well? … It still doesn’t make sense to me.”
Neighborhood changes
The Magnolia Park neighborhood will lose a second school, Briscoe Elementary, and its nearby Spark Park.
Like other closing campuses and the district as a whole, it has lost enrollment — one-third of its student body since 2019 — and had just 178 students in 2025-26.
Briscoe Elementary School is photographed in Houston, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
One group contracted by HISD knocked door-to-door last summer to recruit pre-K students, but many families had already chosen nearby charter school options instead.
“When enrollment decreases, they usually have to make some changes. I hate that they’re doing it with a building that they said is two years away from turning 100,” said Laurie Pitzer, who taught at Briscoe in the 1990s and still volunteers there. “It’s all just heartbreaking.”
Since 2010, Magnolia Park has lost housing and residents, who are, on average, older and wealthier. Every time Erik Cardenas visits his old elementary campus, he notices a new development nearby. Cardenas worries the closures will create instability in the community, especially since three of the closing schools are in Houston’s East End.
MAP: Houston-area districts closed 26 schools over the past year.
“They were stability in the community, places of safety and refuge for entire communities. I think that if you remove those relationships, that will compound over time,” Cardenas said. “Without that, there will be ripple effects for some of these kids growing up in similar environments to what I grew up with. I think that there will likely be some disengagement, some momentum will be lost in how kids are thinking.”
For weeks before the school year ended, alumni, families and staff met at Briscoe to search for a time capsule buried in 1989. They never found it.
It’s unclear what will happen to the Briscoe time capsule, its Spark Park sculptures or its nearly 100-year-old campus.
Cardenas said his time at the school inspired him to create a nonprofit focused on underserved communities. He hopes people will remember it as a place that “gave a lot of kids like me an opportunity.”
“I hope that we can preserve what it meant for communities like that to come together and do good,” Cardenas said.
Final farewells
Iliana Delcid, 8, center, is comforted by a classmate during Port Houston Elementary School’s gathering on the last day of the school in Houston on Thursday, June 4, 2026. The school has been open since 1901 and HISD decided to close the school after this school year.
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Throughout May and early June, community members held picnics, performances and final celebrations at Briscoe, Franklin, Port Houston and Ross elementaries to say goodbye.
At Port Houston’s Día de los Niños in May, longtime staff and alumni introduced students from each grade as they performed plays, dances and songs for a packed crowd. Alumni from as far back as the 1940s watched in the cafeteria where they had once eaten as students, their eyes crinkled into smiles.
Then teacher Laura Esparza took to the stage to sing “Amor Eterno” — “Eternal Love,” a Mexican ballad about a lost loved one.
She paused, her eyes welling into tears, as the crowd substituted the school’s name into the song with her, in Spanish: “ … memories of Port Houston.”