‘I never doubted it:’ Wheatley High School Alumni Reflect on the Campus’ Rise to Excellence with 2026’s A-Rating 

In 2019, Wheatley High School in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward was the subject of scrutiny after receiving seven consecutive failing state accountability scores. The pattern triggered a state intervention in 2023. 

What might have seemed like a moonshot to reverse a nearly two-decade trend of academic underperformance was within reach for the Alumni who remember Wheatley as the “finest” Black high school in the South. 

“When the administration was eyeing Wheatley, [asking], ‘Are they gonna make it back to prominence,’” Cornell Gaten, Class of 1965, said. “I never doubted it. And I never let anybody else doubt it.” 

The intervention transformed the classroom, more than doubling the percentage of students meeting grade level standards and achieving college and career readiness under the New Education System (NES) model that provides uniform, high-quality learning material and real-time teacher coaching. This year, for the first time, the campus is A-rated. 

With all the changes, Alumni say that one thing remains the same: the presence of Wheatley High School graduates to uphold the ground-breaking legacy of its past. 

“The pride you feel when you walk into the door of Phillis Wheatley high school is from generational wealth invested to continue that legacy,” President of the Phillis Wheatley Metro Alumni Association (PWMAA) Carolyn Moore Wright, Class of 1980, said. “Alumni will continue to support all students that come through Phillis Wheatley's doors. Whatever we can help them with.” 

PWMAA Secretary Sandra Whittaker, pictured center, cheering on incoming students at the Wheatley High School's 2026 Back to School Bash. (Courtesy Henry Guidry) 

A Room of Success Stories 

The afternoon after the campus celebrated its A-rating, it was business as usual for members of the PWMAA. In a sea of familiar faces across generations and purple and white regalia, Secretary Sandra Whittaker, Class of 1967, reads the agenda and no detail is too small. 

This August, the organization met to discuss fundraising for college scholarships and student needs, honoring the lives of “Fallen Wildcats,” a name affectionately given to Wheatley students after the school’s mascot, and event planning for the upcoming centennial celebration. 

Wheatley High School was founded in 1927 as the third segregated Black high school in HISD, after Booker T. Washington and Jack Yates high schools. Many PWMAA members attended the school at the time it was the most expensive campus in Houston and remembered Wheatley's reputation for graduating titans in every field. 

“My neighborhood consisted of Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Harold Dutton, and so many leaders that were examples for me of who I could be when I grew up,” said Gaten, who became the first Wheatley alumni to become a Marine Corps Reconnaissance, an elite group of the armed forces. 

Located at 4900 Market Street, Wheatley High School’s 1949 campus was the most expensive HISD building at the time. The $2.5 million investment was used to promote the idea segregated schools can be equal to white schools.  (Courtesy Phillis Wheatley Alumni Association)

The investment of alumni to the next generation was on full display the day prior, when the Class of 2026 valedictorian and PWMAA scholarship recipient, Thomas Johnson III, spoke at the school’s celebration and urged current students to lean on the community’s resource network. 

"There's always somebody that can help you,” Johnson said. “There's a lot of help in the community as far as in the alumni association.” 

Other student needs include the donation of sweatshirts to help students comply with the dress code’s hoodie ban. In prior years, donations have included instruments for the school’s musical programming. 

The efforts are backed by meticulous financial planning by treasurer Cheryl Curvey, Class of 1972. It was at Wheatley that she discovered math was her forte, leading her to a career in accounting and the continued support of her community with her talents into retirement.  

Like Curvey, many members of the PWMAA can point to a moment at Wheatley that helped set the trajectory of their lives. Their stories of careers built, barriers overcome, and communities served are now part of the legacy they hope to pass on to students.

“In this room are a lot of success stories and we want to be able to show that to our students,” Moore Wright said. 

"What did you take from Wheatley for the rest of your life?"

Click to hear from PWMAA members

Bringing The Community Home 

James Johnson, who has been Assistant Principal at Wheatley since 2021, said that while attending Wheatley is a tradition for many families, there’s been a stigma that has followed its recent academic history. 

“It was just hard to sell the program because parents want their kids in a successful environment,” he said. 

This trend is far from recent. Local media reported on the movement of Fifth Ward students to magnet campuses across the district as early as 1975, when Black students were integrated—a feat championed by a class-action lawsuit that included Wheatley alumni Beneva Williams Nyamu, Class of 1960, and Yates alumni Delores Ross, Class of 1967, as plaintiffs. 

Decades later, Johnson hopes Wheatley’s academic turnaround can help reverse that longstanding pattern. 

“Now we have this A-rating to offer them, and I know they will come back home,” Johnson said. 

For Wheatley alumni like Chevelta Remo, Class of 2007, that sense of home has endured even through the school’s academic struggles. An all-around student, Remo was at the top of her class at the HISD’s Middle College for Technology Careers. When the campus closed during her junior year, she transferred to Wheatley, where she shared the valedictorian title with Martha Rodríguez.

Though her academic success later led her to graduate from the University of Houston with honors and pursue a successful corporate career in the oil and gas sector and real estate, Remo said the one year she spent at Wheatley remains the educational experience holds the most dear.

“There’s a sense of community unlike anywhere else in the city,” Remo said. “I'm a proud member of the Wheatley legacy… to have earned that valedictorian title is an honor that sticks with me today and I think forever will.” 

Chevelta Remo graduated Wheatley as co-Valedictorian and attended Uninversity of Houston with a Phi Beta Kappa Scholarship. She graduated with honors with a degree in economics. (Courtesy Chevelta Remo) 

“We’re Not Done” 

This year, Principal Crystal Blanchard—who’s father attended Wheatley—has been placed at the helm of the A-rated campus with a priority to continue the growth, she said. The administrator has a set track record, having grown West Briar Middle School 11-points in the two years she served as principal. 

“Even though we are an A-rated campus, we know that we're not done yet. We just still have work to do,” she said. 

For Moore Wright, the work ahead is inseparable from the legacy that brought Wheatley to this moment. More than a mark on a state report card, she said the A-rating is evidence of a comeback that generations of alumni believed was possible—and a chance to convince the next generation to believe in Wheatley, too.

“We stand loud and proud. Nothing changed with us. We're exactly who we were before,” she said. 

Members of the PMWAA at the 2026 Back to School Bash. (Courtesy Henry Guidry)