Madison contains HISD's magnet program for Space and Meteorological Sciences; the program is known as the High School for Meteorology & Space Science.
History
Former Madison High School building
James Madison Junior-Senior High School was opened on September 8, 1965. In February 1968, Dick Dowling Junior High School (now Audrey Lawson Middle School) was opened and James Madison became a high school that temporarily taught 9th graders for that first year. By the next year, it was for grades 10 through 12.[5]
In 1974 Carrie Rochon McAfee became the principal of Madison and worked there for 15 years. She was the first woman to become the principal of a traditional public high school in Texas. The Madison community knows her as "Marlin Mama."[6]
In the northern hemisphere fall of 1981, Madison again covered the ninth grade.[7]
In the 1980s the school was called the "James Madison Academy of International Education."[8]
The magnet program opened in 1995 with a partnership with KPRC-TV (Channel 2).[5]
In 2007, a study by the Associated Press and Johns Hopkins University referred to Madison as a "dropout factory" where at least 40% of the entering freshman class does not make it to their senior year.[9]
In the period 2014-2019 Madison had five principals. In early 2019, Carlotta Outley Brown, previously principal of Peck Elementary School, became the principal; this occurred at the mid-point of the second semester of the 2018-2019 school year.[10]
Location
Madison is in Houston's neighborhood "Hiram Clarke" nearby Hiram Clarke Road and West Orem Street, a major thoroughfare.[5]
In 1970 Westwood, along with some other White communities, was rezoned from Westbury High School to Madison because of a court ruling. By 1990, Madison was 1% White while Westbury was about 50% Black, 25% White, 15% Hispanic, and 10% Asian. In 1992 an attendance boundary shift occurred but Westwood was still in the Madison zone. The Westwood community advocated for a rezoning to Westbury,[15] and after the community gave a presentation to the HISD board, the board unanimously rezoned the community to Westbury.[16]
Dress code
As of 2019[update] the students are required to wear school uniforms. In 2019 principal Outley Brown instituted a dress code for parents visiting the school.[10] The principal instituted this after objecting to the dress of a parent trying to register her child for school.[17] This dress code bars parents from wearing pajamas, hair rollers, satin caps, shower caps, and other casual items.[18]
Student body
As of the 2016-2017 school year, 1,661 students attended Madison.[19]
All elementary and middle school students of Reagan K-8 are zoned to Madison.[28][29] Portions of the Dowling Middle School,[30]Pershing Middle School[31] and Welch Middle School boundaries feed into Madison.[32] Any students zoned to Pershing may apply to Pin Oak Middle School's regular program, so Pin Oak also feeds into Madison.[33]
Notable alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(February 2024)
McAdams, Donald R. Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- and Winning!: Lessons from Houston. Teachers College Press, 2000. ISBN0807770353, 9780807770351.
This list is incomplete. This list only includes schools in the Houston city limits. Multiple schools with "Houston, Texas" addresses are not in the city limits.
