Probably folks heard it already, but no thread was started. Who knows if we need one. A 16 year old boy was shot and killed at Bellaire High around when school was letting out. The suspect and an accomplice were arrested. Here's an article: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...side-Houston-ISD-s-Bellaire-High-14975268.php I don't have kids there, but my kids have friends there and my friends have kids there. And not too far from me. Doesn't look like an attempt at a mass shooting, but still disturbing and sad to have it happen in my community. Very interested to understand why it happened. RIP.
Bellaire HS has a wide zone and a magnet program which covers both nice and not so nice areas. The school itself is in a nice neighborhood where the houses ranges from $500K to $2M. However there is a significant economic disadvantaged student population. About 50% of the students qualify for free/discounted lunches.
To add to what @jchu14 said, it's one of the sought-after high schools in HISD. A very big school with many programs and some very competitive students. The kind of school that impacts people's home-buying decisions. So not ghetto, but big and very diverse.
It's literally across the street from the River Oaks neighborhood. Bellaire HS is in as nice/affluent an area as you can find in Houston.
The suspect was charged with manslaughter. But it may be upgraded later. They are still looking for the gun. https://www.click2houston.com/news/...sted-in-connection-with-bellaire-hs-shooting/ According to this article, the victim was 19, not 16. And it was the shooter who is 16. Don't know if that's a correction or they got their wires crossed. Names are not released. But they report the victim was ROTC and from contextual clues I gather he was hispanic, if that matters. Saw someone on twitter said the shooting was accidental, but hard to trust the credibility of a random on twitter.
I went to Bellaire a number of years ago. It is similar now to how it was then. There is an honors program (IB/AP) that has some of the absolute best and brightest students in the city and then there is the regular kids that simply go there because it is the school they are zoned to and the law says they have to. The honors program may include 15-20% of the student body and not every student involved takes all honors classes. I did the honors program back then and there was 0 trouble makers, 0 fights, ad pretty much no outside distractions. The kids in it really wanted to learn and what was taught rivaled or surpassed what many of my classes taught in college. This group of kids is what gives BHS the reputation of being outstanding. Well that and the baseball program. We would graduate 15-25 national merit scholars each year where most HISD schools had one at most. I was one of the less smart honors kids and I went to a great college after graduation (Go Horns!). My friends... man they all went to Ivy league schools. Many went to Rice or similar caliber schools in other states or even Canada. If they went to a state school you know they were in some super elite, triple major program at UT or TAMU and they went on scholarships. Then... there is the regular classes, where do I begin? I took a few like art, health, PE, Spanish 1, etc. It was like night and day. Kids would talk smack to the teachers like calling them fat and ugly. People regularly cut class, slept the entire time and many never bothered to do home work. I was always amazed how it was in those classes. I also can't lie, it was ridiculously interesting to watch some of this stuff happen. I could never imagine in an honors class seeing a girl paint her nails, a girl get her hair braided, or a guy clean his Jordans all while we were supposed to be learning about health. It was like an alternate universe to the program I was in. This isn't even talking about how easy the work was. If you can read, you should be able to pass these classes. No one is asked to really think, just regurgitate what was read. While I had to compare and contract charters ins Tale of Two Cities in honors Freshman English, in health I had to match the organ with what it does. Why do I mention all this? To make it clear that Bellaire is a mixed bag of kids just like Houston is a mixed bag of people. Different backgrounds, different economic backgrounds, and for many, they have a different reason to be at school, that make up the student body. While we had gang graffiti in the bathrooms and a cafeteria that was self segregated by race, I never once did not feel safe there. We had 3 police officers who monitored the school. Teachers were often in the halls and generally kids were kids. I mean if you graduated around my time the worst thing that ever happened was once there was a girl fight in the cafeteria and a girl got her weave ripped out. Fights on campus happened but it was like once a month and they go squashed pretty quickly by administrators and HISDPD. People got stuff stolen when they didn't lock their gym locker. That was it and from what I hear from friends that went to other schools that seems super tame. I was really sad to hear this happen at my old school. Bellaire has and will be a great school. I hope the school, the students, and the city of Bellaire recover from this tragedy.
yeah lamar went to teh schitt like almost 2 decades ago. glad i graduated there before it went downhill. went to summer school in bellaire once. it wasn't a bad place. it's also said that alexis texas went there... so... <3<3<3
This is a pretty interesting take and reminds me of my public school experience. I was in gifted & talented classes until sixth grade, when I hit puberty and my friction with my stepfather boiled over into me not giving a F about school. They moved me into 'regular' classes and it was a night and day difference. The kids in those classes ALL didn't give a F and the coursework was ridiculously easy. I came to the same conclusion as you- all I had to do was read and I would pass. This continued on for me through High School. It was sort of an interesting life experience because I had to learn how to communicate with a rough crowd. I would have never have been able to walk through prisons when I worked in them as an adult if this hadn't been part of my life. Also, my oldest son is in a magnet middle school in CCISD. About half the kids there are from the zone and the rest come in from the Clear Lake area. There absolutely is some friction or elitism between the two types of students. Lastly- was there an armed police officer at this school? Every school in CCISD and Alvin ISD has one now. I'm not talking about ISD Police, I'm talking about real cops.
Houston really needs zoning laws to be put in place. This point is the absolute truth in how to deal with everyday life and how society works. As long as there is a good foundation at home, a kid should know right from wrong and how to rise above certain crowds, but its not to take away from those experiences learned from said crowd. It just builds an all around character, instead of being sheltered and never having experienced how to act around other demographics.
From what I recall the officers were armed back then. Don't quote me on that but they arrested and cuffed people so I imagine it is hard to do that with just the fear of a whistle.
When I went there the car to have was a Jeep Grand Cherokee. A few people had them. Most people drove hand me down civics, accords, or whatever. While it was obvious that the area was very wealthy, the kids all seemed pretty down to earth.
don't think a 19 yr old is a HS student, wonder if any of the shooter(s) or victim even go to that school.
yeah, that was sad, still don't know all the details...I always thought it was a good school in a nice neighborhood, shame stuff like this happens...my have times changed...
