Former principals Samantha Woods, Jessica Berry, Gretchen Kasper-Hoffman, Sean McClish, Lea Mishlan, Auden Sarabia and Amanda Wingard were among the speakers.
The principals who spoke at the roundtable said they were initially optimistic about current HISD superintendent Mike Miles’ vision for the district. They said the district needed a change in leadership and spoke with their staff about being open-minded about the changes that were yet to take schools by storm. Principals were promised autonomy to run their schools, less paperwork, and, above all, the feeling they “had a voice.”
“Mr. Miles has a way with his words,” said Jessica Berry, the former principal of Herod Elementary School who began her career as an elementary teacher at Cy-Fair ISD and later joined HISD as a campus administrator at Harvard Elementary School. “Prior to Mr. Miles coming in, the district wasn’t in a perfect state, but we were definitely moving in a positive direction. In that June [2023] meeting, it sounded like he wanted a lot and very quickly, but what he was saying wasn’t horrible. It was mostly positive for kids.”
Since the Texas Education Agency (TEA) took over HISD last June, at least 150 principals have left, some voluntarily and some involuntarily, according to a payroll analysis by the Houston Chronicle. Moreover, 76 campuses lost their principals in June 2024 alone. Since June 2023, more than 4,000 employees, including a record number of teachers, quit HISD.
The evaluations that led to a principal exodus
In March, Miles announced that the district would no longer use its principal proficiency ratings to decide whether principals could keep their jobs. This decision followed public outcry and a legal memo sent to HISD’s board of managers and TEA.
Before Spring Break, HISD told 117 principals, representing 40% of the district’s campuses, to improve their performance. Ultimately, Miles decided principals would be evaluated based on data points such as instruction, achievement, action plan, and leadership data.
Principals spoke about the confusion surrounding the appraisal system, the metrics of which changed at least eight to nine times, according to Berry. The principals are yet to receive their final individual appraisal scores.
However, principals said they received no notice before being asked to resign. They did so after the district informed them they would be terminated if they did not.
“We were completely caught off guard. I did it a little bit more on my own terms, but knew it was coming. Our direct supervisors, who are the executive directors, had no idea that we were going to be asked to resign,” said Amanda Wingard, the former principal of Neff Elementary, where she was also recognized as HISD Principal of the Year.
The reasons behind asking them to resign included classroom observation scores by the Independent Review Team (IRT), in the case of McClish and Mishlan, and test scores, which had dropped across Texas.
Resign or be terminated: an ultimatum
Samantha Woods, the former principal of STEM magnet school Valley West Elementary, and Berry were terminated from HISD after they declined to resign. Berry’s resignation also stated that she could never work at HISD again after she was “written up” for expressing a concern about special education.
Woods was unaware her campus was under scrutiny. She also underwent the coaching associated with the Leadership Effectiveness And Development System (LEAD), or the rigorous principal appraisal process.
A few days before she found out she had to resign, Woods had asked her family to hold off a funeral so that she could support her students when they took their STAAR test in April. While preparing for the service, she received a phone call “about business.” She was shocked to hear her campus “had a problem,” as it was not in the bottom 10% and had received a “B” accountability rating for the 2021-2022 school year and a “D” during the last school year.
Moreover, Woods recalled when west division superintendent Dr. Laura Stout had visited Valley West ES, she did not mention any ongoing issues. According to her last IRT review, she received a 12.5 out of 15. Based on her calculations, there were 104 schools that had a lower score than hers. “It didn’t make sense. But if you ask questions, then that was a problem,” Woods said.
“I don’t have a problem with being terminated if I’m not doing my job. I am very big on accountability. But that was not the case,” she said. “We [educators] hold two, three, four degrees…we didn’t buy them. So, all of this was really blindsiding, all of this data that just came about that made no sense.”
Meyerland Middle School’s former principal Auden Sarabia was also beloved in his community. Out of the three decades he spent in public education, he spent 29 at HISD. Upon hearing about the ultimatum he was given to resign or be terminated, several parents, students, and community members protested to advocate for him. Parents started to send “angry emails” to Dr. Stout, to the extent that Sarabia’s senior executive director asked him to speak with parents and the community and get them to “back off.”
“I said, ‘No, they have every right to be angry, and I cannot control who they’re going to email… they have every right to be mad. I have every right to be mad,” Sarabia said. In the seven years he worked at Meyerland MS, the student demographic went up from 7% emerging bilingual students to 26%.
He is not convinced about the reason he had to resign — HISD told Sarabia they needed a change in leadership, the Texas-wide exam scores, and that the “sky is the limit for him.” He wondered: then, why could he not stay at the school and continue his work.
