342A “Throwaway” School
No More
Bertie Simmons20
I should have known what to expect when I was asked to come out of
retirement to become the principal of a troubled high school in Hous-
ton, Texas. After all, I served as district superintendent from 1969 to 1982,
and E. L. Furr High School had been one of my schools. Still, I had been
retired five years, and although it is common knowledge that the cogs of
change move slowly in education, in some respects, things can change at
breakneck speed. Such had been the case at Furr High School.
I awoke feeling exhilarated the first day I was to report to Furr,
only to be faced with a fierce thunderstorm as I made my way to the school.
Sharp daggers of lightning crackled across the sky like huge buzz saws out
of control. Each light show was followed by an eardrum-shatteringboom
of thunder that then rumbled off into the distance, leaving me terrified.
I slowed to a pace that angered other drivers on the ship channel bridge,
and they honked loudly at me as they slap-washed my car with grimy
water. This trip was a foretaste of what I was to experience at Furr High
School.
The Furr that I encountered this time had little resemblance to the
school I had known five years earlier. Minorities had moved into the areas
feeding the school, and whites had mostly scampered to the suburbs,
taking with them their fancy hairdos. Nineteen buses transported the