Inside Pearce Middle School voices of students echo the halls. But outside, community leaders make some noise to save a school in need of help.

Low-performance scores threaten to shut down the middle school, but community members are organizing to make sure that doesn't happen.

"We need their voice and we need to come together as a team and work," Pearce parent Betty Johnson said.

The discussions about how to prevent a Pearce closure are getting more frequent and adding new attendees, as members of faith communities joined the meeting Friday.

"As soon as we knew, we just gathered the church and asked, 'What can we do?'," Pastor Mari Valreyes said. "We feel like we need this school in our community because if we close it we will split families and have very bad results."

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"Buildings don't teach kids, neither do desks, so it doesn't matter if we move them from one building to another," Pearce Principal James Toutman said.

According to parents, some students have already begun reacting negatively to the news.

"They say, "We are actually doing better, why should we have to close?"" Johnson said. "Some of them actually think it's their fault that we are at this level"

With confidence that community efforts will keep Pearce open, the school community plans to give the Texas Education Board an improvement plan by the end of May.

While many agree the problems at Pearce started many years ago and have only gotten worse, they believe it's time to invest in finding out why students aren't learning, instead of having them continue their academic struggle somewhere else.

"That destroys a community so it's really important that Pierce stays in place," Toutman said.