Jones Futures Academy

High school in Houston, Texas, USA

Jones Futures Academy, previously Jesse H. Jones High School, is a public high school in South Park, Houston, Texas, United States. It has Dual Credit Magnet Program with emphasis in Health Sciences and Petroleum Engineering. Students who maintain the course of the entire program would graduate high school in May/June of their Sr. year and will have the ability to receive an associate degree in August following their graduation in one of their offered degree programs. Jones, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Houston Independent School District. Jones was named after Jesse Holman Jones. As of 2010 Empowerment South Early College High School is located on the Jones campus. As of 2014 Milby High School students in grades 10 12 were housed in this campus.

Jones opened in 1956. Jones was established as an all white high school. Starting with its desegregation by 1970, the student body increasingly became mostly African American. According to police reports, on September 21, 1990, during a class at Jones, a 16 year old girl fatally stabbed 18 year old Anthony Johnson in the upper back with a hunting knife; no teacher was present in the room, and a student received a cut on his hand when he tried to stop the incident. Johnson died at Ben Taub Hospital. Dianna Hunt of the Houston Chronicle reported that the boy "apparently" said a "disparaging comment about her clothing." The suspect was placed in the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department. This gave Jones a reputation as being a violent school. For the 2000 2001 school year, Jones did not have a high school yearbook or senior photographs since the school administration had not been paying the bills that would have allowed those functions to occur. For the 2001 2002 school year, only Vanguard program students would appear in the school yearbook. Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said in 2002 that the school's administration had no knowledge of whether students were in class. On September 15, 2005, Houston natives and New Orleans Hurricane Katrina refugees fought in the school. The fight made national headlines. A 2007 Johns Hopkins University study cited Jones as a "dropout factory" where at least 40 percent of the entering freshman class does not make it to their senior year. During that year, 55 percent of children zoned to Jones chose to attend a different Houston ISD school.

In a continuous five year period until 2010, Jones failed to meet academic standards. During that year around 900 pupils in the Jones attendance zone, about 2/3 of the high school age children in that area, choose to attend another HISD school. In 2010, the school received a science, technology, engineering and mathematics program funded by a federal grant. $2 million was allocated to teacher training, computers, and science laboratories. However, the program did not attract many students who did not live in the Jones attendance boundary. In 2010 Grier added the school to the Apollo program. This meant the school day at Jones was extended and that the school received a new principal, a new set of teachers, and new mathematics tutors. In March 2013, the HISD school board were scheduled to vote on school closures, but community members asked board member Paula Harris to stand with them against the consolidations. In 2014 HISD announced that the school board will vote on whether to close Jones and four other schools. Grier argued that Jones needs to be closed so the campus can be used to house another school as its new campus is being constructed. According to the 2010 U. S. Census, about 2,000 high school age children live in the Jones attendance zone, but fewer than 500 attend Jones. Paula Harris, an HISD board member, stated her opposition to closing Jones. In the new Jones, students may earn associates degrees. Jones will no longer be a zoned school, and its athletics programs will be discontinued. Students in its attendance boundary will be rezoned to Sterling High School and Worthing High School. In 2014 the Jones campus began housing Milby High School students in grades 10 12 while their campus is under construction. In order to accommodate the Milby students there was a portable restroom and eight trailer classrooms posted at Jones.

Jones had the Vanguard gifted and talented magnet program from fall 1977 to spring 2002. Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle wrote that the program was "prestigious". As of 2002 the Vanguard program had 187 students. Of the students, 40% were White, 30% were African American, and over 20% were Hispanic. Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said that many people, including Jones principal Lawrence Allen Jr., had portrayed the school as being majority White when it was majority minority. At the time, the overall school had 1,277 students. It had an African American and Hispanic majority student body. The program had class sizes of 7 to 19 students. The teachers did not use rote teaching styles. Students knew each other very well. Many White students wanted to attend Jones Vanguard because they would be a racial minority at Jones and wanted to learn about another culture. Andy Dewey, an HISD teacher quoted in a Houston Chronicle article, stated that the loss of the magnet program resulted in a loss of students and prestige, and that it was the beginning of the decline of Jones. As of 2006, Jones High School had 1,077 students, and is majority African American (58%) with a large Hispanic American minority (40%). White Americans and Asian Americans each make up 1% of the student body. Approximately 83% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch programs.

The nonprofit Children at Risk in 2011 ranked Jones High School the lowest in the Houston area. Students take few advanced courses and post low test scores. Roughly half drop out. This is despite higher than average funding per student of $9,257 as compared to the average of $7,355 spend per student according to the Texas Education Agency.

Jones is located in the middle of South Park, a neighborhood described by Margaret Downing of the Houston Press as "run down." As principal, Lawrence Allen installed standardized dress to, in his words, "to remove competition in clothing."