Late August 1981: School Starts, Terrible Eating Implemented at PISD High Schools, Brio Weber Opens, & Dobie Car Fire

PISD lunch prices are raised: elementary from .95 cents to $1; intermediate from $1.05 to $1.15; high school from $1.15 to $1.25.

More importantly, PISD agreed to remove all four high schools from the National School Lunch Program (requiring more stringent nutritional offerings) and moving to an a-la-carte option, which creates more revenue (despite their "anticipation) for less expensive, higher fat options such as "carbonated drinks, deep fried foods, various chips and candies and salad bars.

Having the gift of hindsight makes some of these stories so heart-tugging. This one is right up there. 

Here is Cindy Cole, kindergartner arriving for her first day of school at Weber Elementary, along with 529 other children, excited and completely unaware that the ground underneath them was leeching poison into everything around them. 

From the Houston Chronicle: The district's original Arlyne S. Weber Elementary School was bulldozed and sold to Southbend Properties, Inc., 10 years after the last chemical company to use the property -- Brio Refinery Inc. -- went bankrupt.

At that time, the property was placed on the federal government's list of the country's worst hazardous waste sites and was designated to receive Superfund money for priority cleanup.


Over at Dobie at the start of school, new student Donna Fricke probably didn't want to get her name on the map this way.