While many assistant principals wanted to send the 42 involved children to CEP, a disciplinary school, Simmons called them into her office to have a discussion.

The prize was a $10 million grant,[18] awarded by the XQ Institute, and the Furr administration planned to use the money to revitalize the teaching program.

[17] In October 2017 the HISD administration suspended Simmons, accusing her of disobeying a district directive to suspend school uniforms in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and threatening to issue tickets for non-compliance, as well as threatening students with a baseball bat.

According to Simmons, she had the right to set a dress code, and that the bat statements were commonly understood as jokes.

[20] On a previous occasion students gave Simmons an engraved bat as a gift in light of the jokes.

[22] He accused the HISD administration of attempting to remove Simmons in favor of a non-Hispanic white principals and of trying to seize and redistribute the $10 million Super School grant.

[25] In May 2018 HISD announced that an investigation conducted by lawyers concluded that some administrators inappropriately altered grades.

[28] Simmons donated the settlement money and has a memoir Whispers of Hope: The Story of My Life, scheduled to be released on November 2, 2019.

[31] By 2017 the school established "Genius Time", a series of rotating elective classes, not taken for a grade, in which students may explore potential interests.

[14] By 2017 the HISD administration suspended uniforms in the wake of Hurricane Harvey,[20] but Simmons was trying to reintroduce them to combat gang issues; according to a friend of Simmons quoted in the Houston Press, HISD administrators were uninterested in allowing more high schools to have uniforms.

[36] The Houston Housing Authority complex Uvalde Ranch Apartments is in the Furr zone.

[37] Prior to 2000 Furr served portions of the East End, including much of Magnolia Park.