Jane Long Middle School (Houston)

Jane Long Academy, formerly Jane Long Middle School, is a public grade 6-12 middle and high school in Sharpstown, Houston, Texas. It is a part of the Houston Independent School District. Long serves portions of Sharpstown, Gulfton, and Shenandoah. Jane Long serves Sharpstown original sections 1, 1A, and 2. The campus has a grade 6-8 neighborhood program and also houses Futures Academy, a non-zoned high school program. Las Américas Newcomer School, a school for new immigrants, is on the Long campus.

The school, named after Jane Wilkinson Long, opened in 1957.

Around the early 1990s portions of the City of Bellaire west of the 610 Loop were zoned to Jane Long Middle, while portions inside the 610 Loop were zoned to Pershing Middle School. After its formation, the Bellaire Area School Improvement Committee (BASIC) installed a gifted and talented magnet at Jane Long. A 32% tax increase championed by HISD superintendent Frank Petruzielo funded the new magnet program which opened in August 1992. The new principal started work that month. Donald R. McAdams, a former HISD school board member and author of Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- and Winning!: Lessons from Houston, wrote that the magnet program was "successful" and that the new principal was "extraordinary." McAdams stated that "In a few years Long showed dramatic improvement in appearance, discipline, and test scores."

McAdams described as a school that was "unacceptable" to non-Hispanic White Bellaire residents since it was less than 10% white. McAdams added that even with the new program, to many parents in Bellaire, Long was "never going to be acceptable" due to the overwhelming Hispanic presence. McAdams recalled that one parent told him "I don't care how good the gifted program becomes. I don't care what you do to Jane Long, I will never place my daughter there with all those Hispanic boys."

In October 2006, Michael Marquez, president of the Hispanic Housing and Education Corporation, which operated the Las Américas apartments, announced to HISD in a letter that the organization would terminate the lease agreement between HISD and the apartment complex because of issues related to maintenance and management, affecting the HISD schools housed there. The district decided to vacate the property instead of appealing the decision. In summer 2007, the former Las Américas Education Center closed. The middle schools that were in the complex, Las Américas Middle School and Kaleidoscope Middle School, moved to the Long Middle School campus.

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