Pin Oak Middle School

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Pin Oak Middle School

Pin Oak Middle School is a Title I secondary school that is located in Bellaire, Texas, United States.

Pin Oak, which serves grades 6 through 8, is a part of the Houston Independent School District.

Pin Oak Middle School, which was built in 2002 to relieve nearby middle schools, is an "application-only" school that accepts students by application. Anyone living in Houston ISD may apply for the Foreign Languages magnet program, while pupils who are zoned to Johnston, Long, or Pershing middle schools may apply to Pin Oak's regular program.^[1] The 174,500 square foot building sits on an 18 acre campus. ^[2]

Pin Oak Middle School has the foreign language magnet program. Languages offered at Pin Oak include Spanish, Latin, French, Italian and Hebrew.

A contest called "Pin Oak Idol", a spinoff of American Idol, is held annually at Pin Oak Middle School.

Pin Oak is across the street from the Houston Community College System's West Loop Center and the Challenge Early College High School (which is located inside HCC's West Loop Center), both of which are located in the city of Houston (Glenmont Street is on the border of Houston and Bellaire).

[edit] History

Pin Oak opened in August 2002. Pin Oak's campus was designed by PBK [1] and built for 25 million United States dollars. The school was paid for by the $678 million USD bond approved in 1998.

Before Pin Oak was built, the land that has the campus had horse stables; [2]^[3]. The stables were removed before construction began.

Pin Oak's 2003 8th grade eCyberMission team took 2nd place [3].

In 2005, the United States Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Governor of Texas Rick Perry visited Pin Oak, since Pin Oak took more than 50 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina [4] [5].

[edit] Admissions

Students, regular and magnet, apply to the magnet program or to the neighborhood school. Acceptance is determined by lottery for the neighborhood application process; magnet acceptance is based on the student’s academic history[6].

[edit] "House" systems

Pin Oak Middle School has three "house"s that students stay in throughout their years at Pin Oak.

House A focuses on Math, Science, and Technology. House B focuses on Creative Entrepreneurship. House C focuses on Language and Leadership.

All houses teach the same curriculum with the exception of electives. Students may and often do have "out of house" electives.

[edit] Electives

Pin Oak offers electives that range from choir, band, dance, theatre arts, and art, to weightlifting, bioengineering and tech applications.

[edit] Sports

Pin Oak has a lot of sports including football, soccer, basketball, and baseball. The school also includes cross country running, a paintball club, lacrosse, and a dodgeball club.

[edit] School uniforms

Pin Oak Middle School

Pin Oak has a school uniform policy. Students are allowed to wear either plain white, royal blue, or light gray polo shirts or oxford shirts, or monogrammed Pin Oak blue polo shirts. Students are allowed to wear navy blue, blue denim, khaki, or official school tartan bottoms. Sweatshirts may be blue or gray. On Fridays students are allowed to wear "Charger Day Shirts" or the regular school uniform shirts [7].

The uniform policy was revised for the 2006-2007 school year; before that year, only white or Pin Oak blue polo shirts were allowed. The only styles for trousers and skirts allowed were navy blue and blue denim. Also as part of the new dress code 'Pin Oak Plaid' skirts are allowed, which were modeled by the male principal at the new uniform fashion show.

[edit] Neighborhoods served

Several neighborhoods in Houston inside and outside of the 610 Loop (and inside of Beltway 8) are eligible for Pin Oak's regular program, as they are within the Pershing, Johnston, and/or Long zones.^[1][4][5][6]

They include Braeswood Place, Gulfton, Knollwood Village, Linkwood, Shenandoah, Meyerland, Marilyn Estates, Old Braeswood, Southgate, Morningside Place, a portion of Maplewood, Post Oak Manor, a portion of Maplewood South, Sunset Terrace, parts of Upper Kirby, most of Westbury, Westridge, Westwood, Willowbend, Willow Meadows, Woodshire, Woodside, Flack Estates, and parts of Sharpstown.

In addition anyone living in the cities of Bellaire, Southside Place, and West University Place is eligible to attend Pin Oak Middle School.

The Lakes of 610 apartment complex in Houston is served by Pin Oak.

[edit] Student body

During the 2006-2007 school year, Pin Oak had 1,160 students.^[7]

• 43% were Hispanic
• 27% were White
• 25% were African-American
• 5% were Asian
• Less than 1% were Native American

49% of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch.

[edit] Feeder patterns

The following elementary schools feed into Pin Oak Middle School's regular program:^[4][5][6]

• Benavidez^[8]
• Braeburn^[9]
• Cunningham^[10]
• Condit^[11]
• Horn^[12]
• Kolter^[13]
• Longfellow^[14]
• Lovett^[15]
• Red^[16]
• Rodriguez^[17]
• Shearn^[18]
• Sutton^[19]
• Mark Twain^[20]
• West University^[21]

(partial)

• Anderson^[22]
• Herod^[23]
• McNamara^[24]
• Roberts^[25]

Pin Oak takes students from portions of the attendance boundaries of the following high schools:

• Bellaire^[26]
• Lamar^[27]
• Lee^[28] (any student zoned to Lee may attend Lamar or Westside)
• Madison^[29]
• Sharpstown^[30]
• Westbury^[31]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Houston Portal

[edit] External links

• Pin Oak Middle School
• Pin Oak Middle School PTO
• Mathdigpub.com for Pin Oak Middle School