Prior to the 1980s oil bust Braeburn Elementary school had a middle class, White student body. After the oil bust, Central American immigrants moved into apartment complexes in the northern portion of Braeburn's attendance zone. By the year 1990 only 5% of Braeburn's 1,000 students were White. On April 29, 1992, a petition to have the neighborhood rezoned to Herod, a mostly-White high performing school, circulated in the southern portion of Braeburn's attendance zone. The area board member, Donald R. McAdams, did not support the proposal, and the request was not approved. McAdams, the author of "Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools-- and Winning!: Lessons from Houston", wrote that he did not support the proposal because the area demanding a rezone was across the street from Braeburn to the south and west and that "Moving this neighborhood to Herod would acknowledge that middle-class white children were not expected to go to a school filled with poor Hispanic children, even when the school was directly across the street." In addition, at that time Herod was overcrowded.