Jones would remain open, but it had a negative reception when he revealed the terms. Board member Rhonda Skillern-Jones, formerly a member of the Houston City Council, stated that there were not enough board votes to keep Jones as a comprehensive high school, so the conversion was politically necessary. Members of the public criticized the loss of the athletic programs at Jones. Texas House of Representatives member Borris Miles also argued that the compromise was politically feasible while keeping Jones as a zoned school was not. In 2014 the Jones campus began housing Milby High School students in grades 10-12 while their campus is under construction. In order to accommodate the Milby students there was a portable restroom and eight trailer classrooms posted at Jones. Vanguard program Jones had the Vanguard gifted and talented magnet program from fall 1977 to spring 2002. Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle wrote that the program was "prestigious". Throughout its history, the Vanguard program of Jones had a high of 300 students. As of 2002 the Vanguard program had 187 students. Of the students, 40% were White, 30% were African American, and over 20% were Hispanic. Margaret Downing of the Houston Press said that many people, including Jones principal Lawrence Allen, had portrayed the school as being majority White when it was majority minority. At the time, the overall school had 1,277 students. It had an African American and Hispanic majority student body. The program had class sizes of 7 to 19 students. The teachers did not use rote teaching styles. Students knew each other very well. Downing said that many students did not want to attend Bellaire High School and Lamar High School, even though they were very well renowned, because they perceived them "as too big, too impersonal, too preppy and too concentrated on rote learning." Many White students wanted to attend Jones Vanguard because they would be a racial minority at Jones and wanted to learn about another culture. The Vanguard students competed with the regular students for class rankings slots. The highest class rankings had guaranteed admission to universities in Texas, and Vanguard students had higher grade point averages than regular students. Parents of children in the program clashed with the administration of the school over various matters. Members of the Vanguard community accused various administrators, receptionists, and teachers of expressing a disdain for the Vanguard program because of a