SER-Niños Charter School  SER-Niños Charter School ("Niños" means children in Spanish) is a PreK-8 state charter school in the Gulfton area of Houston, Texas. The school has three campuses: An elementary school, a middle school, and SER-Niños Charter School II. The concept of SER-Niños was created by Dianne Mancus; she worked with the Houston Hispanic Forum to help obtain a charter to operate the school. Mancus said "if they could open a Rice School in West U, then we can open one in the barrio." SER-Niños, which opened in 1996, was among the first generation of Texas charter schools. SER-Niños was originally within rented rooms of the Bellaire Christian Church in Gulfton before moving into its own $5 million facility on Alder Drive. Mancus left her job after her husband's job was transferred to Atlanta, Georgia. Even though the school did not engage in much promotion, it became very popular. The school's initial 155 slots quickly filled after its opening. The school added fifth grade classes in 1997 and middle school classes in 2004. Word of mouth regarding the school spread throughout the Gulfton community. By 2009 the school planned to find a new site for elementary school classes within a three-year period. The school has since opened SER-Niños II. The school admits students via a lottery. The only preference that the school gives in the lottery is to siblings of already admitted students. SER-Niños as of 2009 receives state funds per student and relies on philanthropy for other expenses. While the school's teacher pay scales are equivalent to the pay scales of the Houston Independent School District, SER-Niños does not have signing bonuses. Since SER-Niños not a part of any school district, administrators do not go to a central authority to ask for approval of any proposed changes. A decision by the administration is made after a teacher submits a proposal and other faculty vote on the proposal. The school's classes are completely bilingual. the language of instruction of the classes alternates each week between English and Spanish. Originally the students switched languages every day, but the faculty believed that the approach was too chaotic, so the school instead had the languages switch on a weekly basis. Allen Matusow, a history professor and academic affairs director who served on the board of directors of SER-Niños as a member and as a one-time chairperson, said that the school decided to use the dual language approach because studies demonstrated that the approach was the most effective manner of teaching two languages.