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River Oaks Elementary School

River Oaks Elementary School is a magnet Vanguard school for the Houston Independent School District. It is located in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, Texas and functions as a neighborhood school for the River Oaks, Avalon Place, Oak Estates, and Royden Oaks neighborhoods in addition to being a Vanguard school. Kelly McBride is the principal.

The school's motto is "Where discovery is elementary", shows that everything daily done at the school promotes learning (reflecting the fact that it teaches kindergarten to fifth grade). Its mascot is the roadrunner.

River Oaks Elementary School has an accelerated multidisciplinary curriculum. It became one of the first three elementary schools in Texas to get authorization for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (the primary school division of the IB program) during the 2002 - 2003 school year, and the curriculum was changed accordingly during the same school year [1].

There were 602 students and 38 teachers in 2003. 83.4% of those students were in the Gifted and Talented program.

River Oaks Elementary has a "nature center", which opened in 1990, which has various plants as well as several insects and smaller animals in it.

River Oaks Elementary opened in 1928. As the school grew, more classrooms were added onto the school. First permanent additions were built. Later temporary buildings were set up on the school grounds.

River Oaks Elementary was originally an all-White school; it was desegregated in 1970. The "ESG" (Elementary School for the Gifted) program was established shortly afterwards.

River Oaks became exclusively a public magnet school in 1986. In 1996, parents from River Oaks, Oak Estates, Royden Oaks, and Avalon Place pressured the school into adding back a neighborhood program for grades kindergarten through 2 [2] [3]. Grades 3 through 5 were grandfathered into the system. Prior to the rezoning, parts of the neighborhood River Oaks neighborhood were zoned to Wilson Elementary School (in the Montrose neighborhood - which also served Avalon Place [4]), while other parts were zoned to Will Rogers Elementary School (which closed after the 2005-2006 school year - the school also served Royden Oaks [5]).

The classroom scenes in Hope, the 1997 made-for-television movie directed by Goldie Hawn and starring a young Jena Malone, were filmed at River Oaks Elementary.

River Oaks Elementary celebrated its 75th anniversary in the 2003-2004 school year. Jeff Bezos spoke at a luncheon during this event.

A new addition [6], which replaced temporary buildings, began construction during winter 2005 and was completed in summer 2007. The lead architect was Joiner Partnership, Incorporated, and the lead project manager was Heery International, Incorporated.

All students who are zoned to River Oaks are also zoned to Lanier Middle School and Lamar High School.

• Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com^[1]
• John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus[7]
• Linda Ellerbee [8]
• Fred Hofheinz, former mayor of Houston.[9]
• Leah Henry, a kidnap victim [10] (Henry attended River Oaks at the time Gary Dale Cox kidnapped her - she later escaped from her captor) [11]

• River Oaks Elementary School website
• River Oaks Parent Teacher Organization
• River Oaks Alumni
• Article in the Houston Chronicle
• Article on River Oaks' IB status
• Urban Harvest Garden page for River Oaks Elementary
• Houston Press article on the drive to install a neighborhood school - Since the 1995 article River Oaks gained a neighborhood program