The following narrative is taken from the BISD website:
In 1951, Cummings Junior High opened its doors. Named after Joseph Franklin Cummings, who is credited with organizing Brownsville's first public school system and who provided leadership to the community from 1888 to 1889, it opened as one of the most modern public school buildings in Texas.
A long, low school building, the 30-room facility featured a Harmon lighting system that utilized natural light to reduce glare, wide terrazo-tiled corridors, gas overhead blower-type heating system, and a "cafetorium" which combined the cafeteria and auditorium.
Notably, Cummings featured "greenboards" to replace the old time "blackboards."
Those days, alas, are long gone. Dwindling student enrollments, aging nearby neighborhoods, a shift in population to the northern part of the city and stiff competition from charter schools were the death knell for Cummings. But to those who attended the school, the slogan "Once a Red Ant, Always a Red Ant" will always be true.
One of our seven reader sent us some photos from the 1960s when Cummings was the school to go to. In the top one, the cheerleaders from 1963. In the bottom, a bird's-eye the campus as it appeared in 1961. Notice there is no zoo in the photo then and a baseball filed where the Brownsville Children's Museum is today. And railroad tracks in the foreground is where the Palo Alto Hike and Bike Trail is today. Those old days will never return, but what days they were for a good 65 years and several generations of Brownsville kids!)
17 comments:
So what? What do you have against PROGRESS? Shit!
And just what is this facility going to do??
There is nothing against the progression, but a reminiscing of a school that started as a progress and continues to do so by opening up as school and certification center.
Puro pedo
No such thing as school pride
BLA is just a school for flunkies and pregnant students
BS WITH CERTIFICATIONS NO SUCH THING.
MY SON WAS PROMISE A ARCHITECTURAL CERTIFICATION AT VETERANS IT DID NOT HAPPEN THIS IS BS.
WE ARE TIRED OF LIES FROM BISD.
I was a proud Red Ant from 1954 until 1956. Mattie Stell was the principal and Kathryn Bader was the librarian. Those two women were fearsome people.
Juan thanks for the memory, it is good to know that a gringo started the public school system in Brownsville that benefited all the children of Brownsville. They we not all robber barons! Keep us the good work and pay no attention to the souless pendejos and culeros that have no connection to this great town.
Those students are today's leaders and good family heads. I know all the women in picture and Brownsville should be proud. The Red Ants have long line of great people that continue to out do the bad and the corrupt.
Ah the house parties that's when 45's were records not pistolas
Como siempre Juan todo el timepo se quieren dar el paquete anque sean puras mentiras. Pinche gringos...
The state of Texas established a permanent system of common public schools in 1854 with the Common School Law. In 1856 and 1858, the law was amended to stipulate, "œno school shall be entitled to the [monetary]benefits of this act unless the English language is principally taught therein."[18]The amended law, targeted at both German immigrants and former Mexican citizens, attempted to impose English as the primary language in public schools. Mexican American parents with resources responded to this and the virulent anti-Catholic sentiments that Protestant Anglo settlers brought with them to Texas, by enrolling their children in Catholic schools or establishing their own independent private schools
Pinche bader always picking on poor Mexican children
white parents, in particular, were determined to keep "Mexican" children out of their "American" schools, even if these were third generation Mexican American who were U.S. citizens. Not all Mexican Americans, however, were blocked from the upper grades or entrance into the white schools. Rather, porous opportunities existed for a slim segment of Mexican Americans who possessed honorary whiteness.[This honorary whiteness was often extended to children with American surnames (typically those with an Anglo father), children possessing light complexions, members of the older "elite" Spanish families in certain locales, and others who possessed economic/social capital or connections with school board members. However, access, even among Mexican Americans with these characteristics, was not guaranteed but subject to school-by-school's or district by district's unwritten practices. As University of Texas professor George I. Sánchez described in 1948, the decision to be placed in either a white or a Mexican school was "arbitrary and capricious.
Your child is a flonke. That’s why it didn’t happen.......
Wouldn't it have been great if Cummings would have offered the curriculum it is currently offering? It would not have taken me so long to finish my college degree if I had been certified in a position that would pay me more to save for college. Instead, I went to school on a scholarship and worked at a hamburger stand to help me out and only took part time classes. Our students now have so many opportunities and if they don't take advantage of them it is their fault or their parents who are constantly trying to drag BISD down. Mrs. Stell and Miss Bader were the law of the land and we knew it. You messed up and we suffered the consequences and we did not go crying to our Mama's - maybe because they were not judges nor did we live in an affluent neighborhood. We had fun at Cummings and we learned because except for two teachers I had, all were good and excellent teachers - Celaya, Holt, Putegnat, Frankie, Green, Machado, Shears. We enjoyed going to school because we did not have STAARSbut we still passed and some of us graduated with honors at BHS. Regardless, Cummings will always be the Red Ant School. Now lets us see the new
Cummings develop a new kind of legacy like we did. Check out who goes there and you will find that pregnant girls go to every high school and Lincoln Park. NOw tell me that is the BISD fault also.???
Once again racism raises it's head. Some losers blaming the gringos for their problems.
Juan, this is just a cracked open door to a new beginning for that school and the orgy of contracts and services the tax payers have to pay in promise of a certification that is just bullshit.
Most of the cheerleaders on the picture are now blonds.
Pinche Bader didn't pick on poor Mexican kids! She picked on every kid in the school, regardless of ethnic heritage,family wealth or position. She was a true equal opportunity bitch.
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