BISD names elementary for Mitte Pullam

The Brownsville Independent School District decided Tuesday to name the elementary school under construction at 3200 Madrid Ave. in the Heritage Trail Subdivision after Mittie A. Pullam, the beloved African-American former teacher at Brownsville's segregation-era one-room school.

The decision came at a lengthy meeting during which the BISD Board of Trustees also named three other elementaries, a new middle school and the district's sixth high school. The decision was unanimous in all cases.

Trustees also set the effective tax rate for the fiscal year that began July 1, leaving it unchanged at $1.0923 per $100 of taxable value - $129.23 on a $100,000 home. The median home value in Brownsville is about half that, $53,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The $59.2 million new high school being built on Military Highway across from River Bend Resort will be called Brownsville Veterans Memorial High School. The name had been proposed by a number of organizations, including Post 2035 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Trustees dispensed with naming the high school and the district's newest middle school before getting to the agenda item that many in the audience were waiting to hear about.

The middle school being built across from Ortiz Elementary on Alton Gloor Boulevard will bear the name Edward Manzano Jr. Middle School. Manzano rose from humble beginnings as a migrant farmworker to serve BISD as a teacher, assistant principal and principal, opening James Pace High School in 1975.

Pullam served as the only teacher and the principal of Frederick Douglass Elementary, the one-room school for blacks only that operated in Brownsville during segregation. Pullam later taught at Skinner Elementary. She retired in 1975.

Now suffering from Alzheimers, she is 95 and lives in Corpus Christi. A grass-roots movement grew up advocating that a school be named in her honor. The group now plans to hold a fundraiser in an effort to bring her here for the school's opening, organizer Laura Arroyo said.

"It's so nice to see this come to fruition," Arroyo said. "I can't imagine a person who deserves it more."

Phyllis Clipper, who was a student at Frederick Douglass Elementary, said it took a good deal of courage for BISD to seek out Pullam and bring her down to Brownsville to open the school at a time of few opportunities for blacks.

"We've come a long ways since then," she said.

Pullam Elementary will relieve overflow student populations at Benavides, Burns and Yturria elementaries.

The names and locations of the other three elementaries:

ä Raquel Peña Elementary, 4975 Salida De Luna, near Garcia Middle School. Peña taught at Putegnat Elementary for many years. Her niece, Judi Rodriguez, said the school will be near one of Peña's favorite fishing holes. It will take students away from Vermillion and Gonzales elementaries.

ä Thomas W. Keller Elementary, 2580 Alton Gloor Blvd., across from Ortiz Elementary adjacent to the newly named Manzano Middle School. Keller, who grew up in the El Jardin area at Keller's Corner, later became a chemist, but returned to Brownsville to become a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent.

ä Daniel Breeden Elementary, at the corner of San Marcello and Jose Marti in the Brownsville Country Club area. Naming this school was a surprise. It is still in the planning and bidding stages and won't open until the 2010-2011 school year.

In other business, Homer Saenz, a 26-year BISD employee and maintenance supervisor at Rivera High School who was reassigned to Perkins Middle School, won reassignment back to Rivera after a Level III grievance hearing.

During the hearing it was revealed that Saenz had agreed to go to Perkins to help out the district with the understanding it would be a temporary assignment. He was later assigned to Perkins permanently but fought the decision.