Several Houston ISD (HISD) teachers and principals are being let go before the end of the school year. Superintendent Mike Miles has not specified the exact number of teachers and principals whose contracts will not be renewed, but those impacted by the job cuts have already received notices for Zoom call invites to discuss the future of their employment at HISD.
Miles said that although a number of teachers will not receive a renewed contract, the teacher positions will remain intact. HISD is hiring replacements for these teachers and aims to have a similar teacher-to-class size ratio in the 2024-25 school year. The district made “several hundred offers” at a recent job fair, where nearly 2,000 applied for 800 positions, he said, adding 500 positions at Miles’ New Education System (NES) schools will be filled by the end of May.
“The recent abrupt layoffs at the Houston Independent School District, involving hundreds of dedicated employees, are deeply troubling,” Council Member Edward Pollard (District J), who attended Lovett, Johnston, and Lamar schools at HISD and then attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA on a basketball scholarship, told the Defender in a statement. “As a product of HISD, I am profoundly disappointed by the lack of foresight and sensitivity shown in handling these layoffs… The method by which these individuals were notified—grouped together, with little to no prior warning or explanation—falls far below the standard of respect and decency that we owe our educators and staff.”
In March, Miles reversed his decision to use principal proficiency ratings to determine whether principals will be fired from their jobs in the coming school year. However, teacher proficiency screenings remain.
The data decides who gets to keep teaching at HISD
Miles said during a press conference that the district was looking at data for the first time, and principals are analyzing not just “anecdotal information” but also “data of all sorts.”
“As a profession, we need to look at data to assess a teacher’s performance and other things, not just spreadsheets,” Miles said. “We need to look at how well they have been responding to the feedback, do they have a continuous improvement mindset, even if they are progressing, are they in a position to move forward.”
Miles added that principals have begun making decisions by analyzing data to evaluate teacher performance and determine the fate of these teachers’ jobs in the next year. This data is based on the proficiency screening’s several criteria, including quality of instruction as measured on spot observations, student achievement outcomes from district, state, or national assessments, the school action plan, and performance on the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS).
“The spot observation does not give the full scope of special ed. We got six of them the whole year,” Arnetta Murray, a special education teacher at a non-NES school at HISD who has been with the district for five years and has been an educator for 17, told the Defender. “It’s stressful.”
Why are teachers and staff being let go?
HISD is facing a $450 million budget shortfall as the federal COVID-19 relief funds or “ESSER dollars” that provided funding for certain positions are due to expire. The district is also facing declining student enrollment. For this, chiefs from each HISD department identified positions and programs previously funded by federal funds that can no longer be paid for by the school district, although some positions and programs were left at the discretion of principals.
“Like most school districts in Texas and across the country, HISD is being forced to make some very tough budget decisions for next school year,” HISD responded to a public information request from the Houston Defender. “State funding for education has not increased, and the time-limited emergency aid provided by the federal government to help districts respond to the pandemic is no longer available. This means that—in order to meet our students’ needs—HISD must right size our central office and find ways to operate more efficiently.”
Despite the budget gap, HISD maintains its plans to keep the cuts away from classrooms and will spend $120 million more to increase teacher salaries and expand the NES program to 45 additional campuses next year.
HISD did not discuss the number of wraparound resource specialist positions that will be impacted or what the next steps are in the budget cuts. The last day of work for the impacted employees is June 28.
Jobs across the district will be impacted
HISD also recently announced job cuts to wraparound resource specialists who serve economically disadvantaged students with unmet basic needs such as homelessness and hunger issues. The district’s plan is to support students through its eight Sunrise Centers, which will provide medical care, basic needs like food and clothing, case management, language classes, and employment support.
This could impact 80% of HISD’s 183,884 students, who belong to economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and its 6,900 homeless students. Black and brown students, reported to have the highest amount of need according to the HISD Student Needs Survey, rely heavily on wraparound resource specialists.
Custodian and administrative jobs are also at risk, Miles said.
“I’m getting updates from a parent I know whose kids are at Briargrove Elem. In addition to 13 teachers who were some of the best there, all custodians were fired,” a concerned parent posted on a Facebook group called Supporters of HISD Magnets and Budget Accountability. “The principal found out about the firings via email. Parents are incensed. Fifth graders are supposed to clean their own classrooms!”
The precedent was already set
Earlier in May, the HISD Board of Managers unanimously approved two measures that would allow the district to eliminate staff and teacher positions as part of a “reduction in force.” These include jobs held by nurses, librarians, counselors, assistant principals, principals, reading, math and science teachers, fine arts and other elective instructors, speech therapists, magnet coordinators, and special education coordinators, reported the Houston Chronicle. It would also allow HISD to reduce or reorganize staff, change programs, or necessary plan budget reductions.
Parents, teachers, and students voiced their concerns about the job cuts for three hours during the HISD Board of Managers monthly board meeting this week. Several speakers referred to the lack of support for a multibillion-dollar school bond election in November, which could benefit the district’s students with renovated campuses. Currently, HISD is exploring the $4.4 billion bond package to upgrade its facilities. Miles pointed out that the last bond for the district was in 2012, which focused on high schools, while the last bond investment for elementary and middle schools was in 2007. Most school districts look for bonds every five years, which makes HISD long overdue for one.
Pollard posed a few questions to the school district: “Why were these employees not given any prior notice? On what basis were the decisions made about who would lose their jobs? Such actions not only disrupt lives but also shake the very foundation of trust that should exist between a school district and its community.”
“Houston cannot thrive without a well-supported, effectively educated population, and that begins with how we treat our educators and school personnel,” Pollard added. “I call on HISD to provide immediate, transparent answers to these questions and to reassess their approach to ensure that any financial adjustments are handled with fairness and clarity.”
