School board could return to elected officials in two years if improvements continue – Houston Public Media

If Houston ISD continues to see improving academic performance as it did this school year, control of Texas’ largest district could return to elected officials over the next two years, according to Superintendent Mike Miles.

Miles attended the Houston City Council’s economic development meeting Tuesday, marking the first time he publicly met with city government and answered questions from council members.

But before answering questions, the state-appointed superintendent gave a presentation in which he touted the new education system’s improved student test scores and more engaged teachers in his schools.

“I’m invested in Houston, but at the end of the day, I’m trying to get by without a job,” he said. “We want to return the district to an elected board.”

General board member Julian Ramirez asked after the presentation when Miles would expect his work to be finished and HISD to be able to return to an elected board. Miles said there are three main criteria for the Texas Education Agency to end the takeover of HISD, which began about a year ago when the district’s nine elected trustees were replaced by a board appointed in due to a series of academic failures for Wheatley High. School.

“There are no schools with multiple years of D or F status,” Miles said. “The second prong is about compliance for special education. We need to get out of jail, and then we also need to improve services for students with special needs. And the third prong is about governance, a more effective system of governance.

“We have a long way to go, but if we continue to see the growth we’ve seen this year,” Miles continued. “Let’s say we do this two more years in a row…the (TEA) commissioner (Mike Morath) is probably going to start the transition to an elected board. What that looks like, I think that will depend, of course, on the commissioner , but I suspect that some elected board members will replace some board members.”

Miles added that ultimately the decision was Morath’s and he could only give his opinion on when the transition would take place.

The meeting with Miles, which lasted more than an hour, drew questions from board members, including Edward Pollard, who wanted him to explain how the district determined its layoffs.

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“Have you or can you give us any insight into how you arrived at these decisions regarding these mass layoffs,” he said. “And if the school district is going in the right direction, why make such drastic changes when you’re supposed to be successful?”

Miles said the decision to reduce staff was “a difficult decision” and blamed hiring from the previous HISD administration.

“I wish we hadn’t used additional money for recurring expenses. I wish there hadn’t been this huge increase in central office positions over five and six years, when the district lost 30,000 children in six years,” he said. “Increase in central office position, decrease in registrations; huge gap.”

He also said that for the past 20 years, HISD has not had a “rigorous” evaluation system for teachers and principals.

“And so you have the same achievement gap and the same problems as before,” he said. “I can’t tell you in the past what they used to be an effective principal, what was named principal of the year; that’s a different standard.”

Miles added that to rigorously evaluate principals, they need to look at several things: achievement data, progress growth, teaching quality, leadership and special education growth and compliance.

“The quality of teaching is the number one indicator of success. Go to any other large urban district and it’s usually a failure,” he said. “That means they don’t evaluate it. They don’t insist on high-quality teaching. They don’t coach it. And we’ve done all that.”

That’s why some principals haven’t returned, Miles said.

Some parents and teachers, however, were unhappy with Miles’ answers and, during the meeting’s comment session, disputed Miles’ claims that the district was doing well.

Lauren Ashley Simmons, who recently won a Democratic primary runoff against state Rep. Shawn Thierry and has been a vocal critic of the buyout, said she hopes they continue to meet with Miles and said she had decided to remove her daughter from HISD because she was unable to receive the support she needed because her daughter is ill.

City council members said they want Miles back, but a date for another meeting has not yet been set.