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HOUSTON -- The Texas Education Agency has ordered the closing of a Houston ISD’s Sam Houston High School. The order from the state’s education commissioner Robert Scott comes after the north Houston school repeatedly failed to meet minimum state academic standards.

Even with word of the forced closing, the school district said it plans to have Sam Houston “repurposed” with new education programs by the fall.

Sam Houston High had earned “unacceptable” ratings by the state for five straight years and is expected to record a sixth poor rating this year. According to the state, Sam Houston has the worst academic record of any school in Texas.

School district officials said that although Sam Houston had made progress on its state test scores, the progress in math was not enough this year to earn a rating of “academically acceptable” from the state.

It is only the second such forced closure since the state legislature gave the education commissioner the power to order school shutdowns in 2006. Johnston High School in Austin had been the only other school that the education commissioner had ordered to close.

About 2,500 students attend the school. Most are Hispanic and predominantly poor.

Sam Houston also employs about 170 teachers.

Staffers were informed of the state’s decision in a recorded phone message from school Principal Julia Gajardo.

TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said any proposal to keep Sam Houston open would require that at least 75 percent of the school’s instructional staff be fired or reassigned to other campuses and that at least half of the students who attended Sam Houston are enrolled at other campuses.

In an afternoon press conference, HISD officials said they were looking for a way to reopen Sam Houston with new programs.

“This is not the end of the story, though. We will work with parents to develop a plan to take to the school board and then to the commissioner to repurpose Sam Houston High School and to start exciting new programs with many new teachers beginning in August,” HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra said.

Saavedra did not outline any specifics about the new programs, only to say that they would focus on math, science and technology. The superintendent plans to host a series of community meetings next week to seek input from parents and area residents as to how best to keep the doors of the troubled school open.

Any plan to keep Sam Houston alive would have to get the state education commissioner’s approval first.

Sam Houston High may not be the only Houston-area school the state will order be closed. TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said that Oak Village Middle School in the North Forest ISD is also under review for a possible closure order.