page_title: Houston Independent School District
section_title: Bilingual education, Magnet, and Vanguard schools
hierarchical_section_title: Houston Independent School District / Bilingual education, Magnet, and Vanguard schools
caption_attribution_description: English: Rudy C. Vara Center for Technology (East Skill Center) Español: Centro de Aptitudes Técnicas Rudy Vara
context_page_description: The Houston Independent School District is the largest public school system in Texas, and the eight-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and insular municipalities in addition to some unincorporated areas. Like most districts in Texas it is independent of the city of Houston and all other municipal and county jurisdictions. The district has its headquarters in the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center in Houston.
  In 2016, the school district was rated "met standards" by the Texas Education Agency.
context_section_description: HISD focuses on bilingual education of its predominantly Hispanic student body, including recruiting about 330 teachers from Mexico, Spain, Central and South America, Puerto Rico, China, and the Philippines from 1998 to 2007. Bilingual educational services, as of 2014, are available for Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, Nepali, Urdu, and Swahili speakers. According to Texas Administrative Code BB § 89.1205 a language is eligible to have a bilingual program if 20 or more students are present in a school district who speak that language as their home language.
  Houston ISD offers three specialized programs, magnet programs, vanguard programs, and neighborhood vanguard programs. Each magnet program has a special focus and draws students throughout HISD. Each vanguard program is a gifted and talented program for students throughout HISD. A neighborhood vanguard program is a program designed for gifted and talented children zoned to a particular school. As of 2011, its 113 programs served almost 20% of the HISD student population.
  HISD, which officially first opened its magnet system in 1975, started them as a way to voluntarily racially integrate schools. The High School for Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA) was technically the first magnet school in Houston; this status was mistakenly attributed to River Oaks Elementary School. In 1984 the district had 75 magnet programs. By the mid-1990s many magnet schools no longer held the goal of integration and instead focused on improving educational quality of schools. As of 2011 magnet schools continued to be popular among HISD constituents.
  HISD's magnet (Performing Arts, Science, Health Professions, Law Enforcement, etc.) high schools are considered a model for other urban school districts as a way to provide a high quality education and keep top performing students in the inner city from fleeing to private schools or exurban school districts. Magnet schools are popular with parents and students that wish to escape low-performing schools and school violence. The members of the administration of schools losing students to higher-performing campuses, such as Bill Miller of Yates High School, complained about the effects.
  There are 55 elementary magnet schools, 30 magnet middle schools, and 27 magnet high schools.  Some magnet schools are mixed comprehensive and magnet programs, while others are solidly magnet and do not admit any "neighborhood" students.
  In April 1997 a lawsuit against HISD seeking to end race-based admissions to magnet schools was filed on behalf of two white applicants to Lanier Middle School who were denied admission because the quota for White students was filled. The lawsuit was funded by the group "Campaign for a Color-Blind America". That year, as a result of this lawsuit, HISD removed the ethnic guidelines to Vanguard enrollment.
caption: Rudy C. Vara Center for Technology
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