Good evening. I would like to ask everyone to please take their seats and silence their cell phones. We're getting ready to begin the meeting. Good evening. This meeting is now convened at 05:02PM. And just to note, this clock up here, if you can see it is five minutes slow tonight. So, the quorum of the Board members is present in the Board Auditorium. And we will get started. I'd like to welcome our elected officials in the audience. I see we have elected trustees Sue Digard. We also have elected Trustee Gomez and also elected Trustee Moore.
So thank you for being here. What do we have? We have another elected official. I can't see you. That that one's for you. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. We have, we have trustee elect, Benzon is here as well. Good to see you. I love your hat. Okay. What do we have to do about it? Something's going on here. Okay. All right, we tonight, we are joined by a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp to lead our pledges, elect to ask Board Member, Marcos Rosales, to introduce the leader tonight.
Thank you, President Campo. Cadet First Lieutenant Helen Garcia has demonstrated academic excellence, strong leadership, and dedicated community involvement over the past three years at Sharpstown High School. She is a public affairs officer for the JROTC staff taking pictures of battalion events. As a color guard commander, she has led numerous parades and competitive events. She plans to major in respiratory therapy at Columbia University. I think I've heard of that one. And participate in ROTC with a goal of commissioning as a reserve officer in the U. S. Army.
Cadet, first Lieutenant Garcia? Please rise for the for a moment of silent meditation. Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance and pledge to the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and into the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now to the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the city, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.
Thank you Cadet First Lieutenant Garcia. Appreciate it. And good luck at Columbia. Now I'd like to call for another moment of silence in the memory of the late Doctor. Rod Page, who passed away this week. He played a huge role in both local and national education policy, so we'll take a moment of silence. And now, Board Vice President Angela Mon Flowers will share a few words on behalf of the Board, in honor of Doctor. Page. Thank you, Mr. President. Yes, we would like to note that we are deeply saddened to hear of Doctor. Page's passing.
The board will be providing a resolution to his family, expressing all that he did for the city and nation. The resolution recognizes in part that Doctor. Page was a lifelong educator who served as an HISD trustee and superintendent, a professor and dean at Texas Southern University, and as the first African American US Education Secretary. He led transformative changes in HISD that significantly improved student achievement and which came to be known as the Houston miracle and which helped develop the No Child Left Behind
Act. Doctor. Page was a remarkable leader and dedicated champion of public education, and we express our sincere condolences to his family. Thank you. Before we begin public comment tonight, there's an update to our agenda this evening. Please note that the administration is postponing item five, which is approval of magnet program changes for Cashmere Northside and Heights High Schools and Item Number 14, which is approval of a provision proposed revisions to Board Policy EL local campus or program charters,
a first reading. So these items will be discussed and addressed at a later date. We will now hear from public officials and speakers who identified themselves as HISD students and parents. Please note that Spanish live captioning is available for those viewing the meeting via live stream and live Spanish interpretation is available in person in the auditorium. Public comment during school board meetings will only be available to those persons who have signed up to speak prior to the meeting time per current protocol. Verbal and other disruptions by persons during school board meetings are not acceptable as they
limit the board's ability to conduct business and the public's ability to observe those processes. Persons who participate in such behavior will be given one warning and if the behavior is repeated, they will be asked to leave the meeting. We have 69 registered speakers tonight who will be limited to one minute each per board policy as we have more than 30 people signed up to address the board. We ask that you stay on topic and refrain from naming individuals especially students as our identities is are protected under the law. But you may name your own child.
I see you please respect our procedures and the other speakers and at the end of your comments properly end your comments properly when the time is expired and the timer rings. We'll start with public officials. Will HIC Board of Education's Trustee Savant Moore, you're up first? Thank you. Nochez, Desconce, Sergio Rodriguez. Good evening. Rest in peace to Sergio Rodriguez. As this new bridge moves forward, may we do everything in our power to prevent making our children angels too soon. I wanna thank the administration for pulling the CTE item from the agenda.
I'm grateful that you are not removing programming from Cashmere at this time. Cashmere is a historical high school that has produced leaders for generations, and I hope you will consider adding more program to increase enrollment and honor the legacy of this great community. As a trustee and someone running for Texas Comptroller, I spend my time listening to Texans. Listening helps you make better decisions, and tonight shows what happens when a community stands together with one clear voice for our students. I'd like to thank the clergymen for being here today speaking and advocating for their
community. Merry Christmas, and may god bless our district to reach that ideal place where the community is listened to. Teachers are respected, and a bond that is needed can be passed because we all have improved as leaders for our constituents. God bless you. Thank you. Trustee Gomez, you're up next. Thank you. It's my son's first birthday today, so I'm feeling really sentimental. And in that spirit, I wanna talk about one of his favorite books, El Camino Cirque du Soleil. Starts out with a little blue truck. He's going through the neighborhood. He's saying hello to the animals.
He's being very pleasant. And then a very big cargo truck is roaming by and he says, everybody out of my way. I have important things to do. I don't have time for all you lost little ducks. Everybody out of my way. And And then he takes a sharp turn and he gets stuck in the mud. And at first, nobody wants to help him, because he was a little bit rude at the beginning. Luckily for him, the little blue truck rallies the animals. The animals get the truck unstuck. And after the truck is unstuck or the the the big cargo truck is unstuck, the truck learns a lesson as, you know, it's I do have important things to do, but it's good to make friends along the way.
And so, yeah, it is true that the big cargo truck probably did have something important to do. It might have been on his way to deliver wholesale systemic reform, but it's still worthwhile for that truck to make sure he's making friends along the way and listening to every little on his way. Thank you. Thank you. Christie Digard, you're up. Thank you for being here. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. This is my last board meeting as an elected trustee. When I was sworn in eight years ago, I couldn't imagine that my last meeting would be on this side of the dais. I want to thank the board of managers for your service.
Regardless of what I or anyone thinks of your decisions, you chose to serve at one of the most challenging times in our district's history. Thank you to the newly elected trustees and the candidates that did not prevail whether you ultimately sit at this dais or not. Thank you for your willingness to put yourself in the arena. Few people are willing to make that choice or the sacrifices that accompany it. When I first started the day, I made a public commitment to hold myself accountable to three things. More students reading on grade level, more students doing math on grade level, and more ready for college or career. Well, it wasn't achieved in the way that I would have wanted, it was achieved.
This document here, I found it recently in a box in my house, is the plan that was present presented to the board in January 2018. This is not only a plan to prevent a takeover, but more importantly, to improve learning for students in chronically underperforming schools. It was shouted down in multiple community and then their administration were asking our board to make, I'd still be sitting up there. But what makes me sad and angry are the lost opportunities for students. It haunts me to think of the kids who remain underserved because of adult dysfunction. Our district had a plan literally in our hands to improve learning for students with
an elected board and give those students what they needed and deserve to be ready for the world after graduation. What we did what we didn't have was community support or absent that, a board with the courage to risk losing their next election. When the district eventually returns to elected governance, I hope the people on that board, in that administration, and in the community will work together to never let this happen again. I want to add a brief comment about two agenda items, e l local and e l a local. ELA is a policy I am proud to have been part of passing. It planted the seeds for our district to sustain and scale high performing schools that
have lengthy wait lists and to support the creation of new school models that are responsive to the needs and interests of students and our innovative educators. I implore you to be transparent with these policies and to also set any partnerships up to not just comply but to thrive. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for your service. We appreciate that. Next we'll hear from speakers who have identified themselves as HISD students or parents. Speakers, please state your name and topic and when you step to the microphone, Ms. Smith, you may call our first set of speakers.
Luca Candida followed by Micah Gebay. We had good teachers before the day to control, and we still have good teachers. But every year, we lose more. Mister Miles describes the loss of teachers as something positive, saying that those teachers are inferiors to that the what he says is not the truth. Not only the majority of the teachers that have gone were loved and respected,
But the districts to where they have been moved recognize their talent and are getting awards, such as teacher of the year for Jennifer Blessington. Mister Miles, you are like the Grinch, but you don't change. You need to be kinder. HSD will continue to lose good teacher. Please use your position to change the situation. Thank you. Micah Gebay, followed by Eliana Gottlieb. Good evening. I'm here because the district is removing programs that students depend on to succeed.
These weren't extras. They were essential. Programs like web web development, graphic design, culinary, and entrepreneurship gave students real skills, dual credit, and motivation to stay on track for college and careers. Now instead of strengthening these pathways, they're being eliminated, and students at Heights Northside and Cashmere are being towed to ride bus buses across town even though our own campuses are already invested in fully equipped facilities. This isn't improving access. It's taking away opportunities
and destabilizing schools. When these programs disappear, success becomes harder not because students are trying less, but because the tools that help that help us succeed are gone. Every student deserves a fair chance, and these programs made that possible. Real impact these cuts have on students and take action to restore opportunities we've lost. Thank you. Thank you. Ileana Gottlieb followed by Christiana Thomas. Hello. Tonight, I'd like to speak about the recent lawsuit involving a fellow HISD student at Bel
Air High School. For those who don't know, the student's parents sued the district after school staff respected their child's request to use a different name and pronouns. The district recently settled, agreeing to require teachers and staff to use only the student's dead name and pronouns assigned at birth. But I'm not here to talk about the legal details. I'm here to speak directly to that student. To my fellow HISD classmate, I see you. We see you. What you're going through right now, being at the center of a legal battle, having your identity debated by adults in public, no teacher should no teenager should have to go through that.
I want you to know that who you are is valid. Your identity matters. And there are so many students, teachers, and community members in HISD who support you and believe in your right to be yourself. You are loved for exactly who you are. You belong in our schools. You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and you are not alone. Thank you. Christiana Thomas followed by Mariah Thomas. Hi. I'm Christiana, and I'm a senior at Heights High School. I know that you're trying to cut, like, engineering programs and graphic design and web development. I moved into Barbara Jordan. But cutting these programs would also force you to either fire or move those teachers,
and they are people that are pillars of our community. I've been at my school for four years, and I don't recognize basically any of the teachers because of the severe turnover. And the teachers in those programs, when I had a I had a a kickball tournament treated versus teachers to be able to raise money for breast cancer, our web development team made a poster of all of our teachers after they won as, like, a school spirit thing. They're pillars of our community in a way that is really personal, and forcing students to have to go to Barbara Jordan for office hours or understand or connect with those people would remove and destroy a school that already doesn't really
have a really strong teacher community. I won't be in HI NC next year, but my sister will. And these teachers, admin, and programs have shaped my life. Please remember this experience and the chance my sister and her other students have to have a job post high school. Thank you. Thank you. I am Mariah Thomas, and I'm an eighth grader at T. H. Rogers. My sister, Krishan, just went up and spoke and attends the school I hope to attend, Heights High School. I know you're trying to cut programs like entrepreneurship, graphic design, and wealth to well, web development and move them to Barbara Jordan. I'm asking you to keep them at Heights.
By taking away CTE classes from heights and moving them moving them to Barbara Jordan, students lose valuable time for education and we and will be unable to take advantage of classes available. When students have to take a bus to Barbara Jordan, not only does it cut time from other classes, which affects the student's engagement and learning, but also moves their ability to be at their fullest potential because their GPA will be lower due to them having to lose valuable class time. Currently, students have to take who take class at Barber Jordan spend two class periods there
because they have to take because it takes time to ride the bus. If students now takes if students now have to go to Barber Jordan to take one class, they will most certainly lose time from their Thank you. Thank you. Zachary Youngblood followed by Adida Sage Bittner. Zachary Youngblood? Adidas H. Bittner? Yep. Good evening. Our schools are emptying out. Students are leaving. Students are leaving. Teachers are leaving. And every day, classrooms are getting smaller and smaller. This isn't just about numbers. It's about the loss of community, the loss of trust, and the loss of real education.
When teachers walk away, it's because they feel unsupported and unheard. And when students leave, it's because they don't have a future here. The district may try to paint a picture of success, but the reality is clear. Our schools are hollowing out. We're losing the very people who make education possible. We're not engaged. We're not supported, and we're watching our schools shrink into something unrecognizable. Real learning happens when teachers stay, when students feel invested, when classrooms are full of energy and connection. But HISD system is driving that away.
We're not statistics. We're students. And we deserve a school that keeps teachers in classrooms, keeps students inspired, and keeps our community strong. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is Adida Sage Mitner, and I'm a sixth grader at Young Women's College Preparatory Academy and a gifted and talented student. Item 13 matters to me and and to so many other teachers like kids like me. Changing this policy means HISD will no longer promise real act advanced academics to students who are identified as gifted and talented. That makes us feel like our learning needs don't matter. Superintendent Miles keeps saying teachers can just give us different levels of worksheet packets,
but GT education is so much more of than that. We need faster pacing, challenging projects, chances to think creatively, advanced classes, mentors, and teachers who understand how how GT students learn. We want to be supported to reach our potential, not handed packets. Please don't take away the programs that help us grow. Vote no on item 13. Thank you. Thank you. Emily Yanez. The district visited my school two days ago, and I'm talking about this because the atmosphere was tense during the visit. Our teachers were strictly keeping us quiet and busy even if we were ahead,
all due to the fact that if they were caught not doing anything from the curriculum, they would get fired. I'm not saying, like, it they would get a strike or a slap on the wrist. We had two teachers last year be publicly fired in front of their students for not picking up phones. I can't imagine how humiliating that was and how how I would feel if I had worked at a school for ten years and get fired for not for for not picking up phones. Those two teachers, mattered to their students. The band teacher was one of the teachers fired from my school,
and his students were so angered by the by the fact that he got fired. They raised a thousand signatures to bring him back, but he was not brought back. The dyslexic teacher was another teacher fired. He helped my friend with her dyslexic and got to pass her finals thanks to him. Your rules are so strict there's nothing these teachers can do right before they get fired. And since I'm here, I've seen more students than the whole time I've been here. And I've been attending these meetings, and everything that really speaks a lot because they're starting to take notice too.
And and since they're since they were talking about, career pathways being cut, I've my school, Northside, they already cut hospitality. And that was one of the big factors why students came to our school. And now they're talk I've heard that they were talking about maybe even cutting our budget from culinary even more than this than this year around. We have been fundraising a lot, but we can't fundraise at the school. We can't fundraise during, during class time. It's there's no room to fundraise. So what do you think would happen if we had no money?
And it's just gonna bring everything down. And I really love culinary. So thank you. Thank you. Are there any other student speakers who've registered? Okay. We're going to move on to HSD parents. Speakers one through 10, please come to the front row. We'll begin with number one, Thomas Cornstock. My name is Trey Comstock, and I am a proud Durham parent. Like Miles, you carry a heavy burden, and you've sacrificed a lot. You're at a stage of life where many people think about their next fishing trip, then you spend Saturday Sundays and Saturdays at coffee shops staring at data. With your military and diplomatic background,
you can make even more money from a defense contractor. You live away from your family. And here you are, fighting for student achievement. It's admirable in its own way, but there's a problem that you remain completely blind to. The burden that you carry is not meant for a single man or even a single district staff. It's meant for an entire community. You alone don't hold all the answers. For one human to think that they hold these answers is unrealistic. This city is diverse, and no one person holds its whole answer. We all do collectively. So let's fix this together.
Thank you. Hi. My name is Audrey Nath. I'm a parent of two students in HISD. And I know that policy ELA will be discussed at a future date, but trustee Dygaard brought it up. And I'd like to speak to its importance as well. It came about because in 2019, the operator of HISD's energized in district charter schools had siphoned off $17,000,000 in student funding. And so policy ELA was written to set standards for the opening and operation of such public private partnerships. It includes an application process,
minimum operating standards, and periodic monitoring, including the ability to audit. So the $17,000,000 scandal happened because HISD gave away these students and schools, then failed to check-in or ask even basic questions. The scandal was discovered by simply reading the energized financials. Our elected board took the needed steps to safeguard the assets of our public, and we need to protect them. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah Maller, you guys have me as next? Alright. I'm following up on Trey's, Trey's talk. You don't ask the community,
you impose. You dismiss us parents as hysterical anecdotes and haters. While healthy education systems seek to treasure parent, parental, and community involvement, you install school leadership who seek to keep us at arm's length, treating us as hindrances rather than partners. At Durham, we've been scolded by administration in public meetings, had our emails ignored for weeks and months by administration, had our valid and educational educationally relevant concerns go undealt with, and had to wait almost an entire semester to relaunch an already robust parent volunteer system.
You create an environment that tells parents that we know nothing. But we know our children best. We know our communities best. We know that each story matters. We look at each other to rally and fix what's broken. Let us help you. Let us fix this together. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is Doctor. Maria Benzon. A closed agenda item includes the sale of five district owned properties. Listen, selling public land during a state takeover without elected oversight risks the permanent loss of community assets that belong to our students and our neighborhoods.
HISD should not sell a single acre without transparent democratic input and clear proof that the decision benefits students. Before considering any sale, we need a comprehensive long term facilities and financial plan. Selling assets to cover operating costs is not only unsustainable, it is fiscally irresponsible. The board of managers approved a policy change in September 24, allowing revenue from property sales to flow into the general fund where it can be used for discretionary spending rather than capital renovations desperately needed for broken AC units and
deteriorating facilities. Voters rejected the bond because they distrusted Miles' spending priorities, and selling these properties deepens those concerns by giving him Thank you. Hi. I'm Diana Kaneda. It's not the list speaking on item four, it's not the list of books for approval on item four that we should be talking about. It's the list of schools. 10 elementary schools and one middle school are buying books to refresh their libraries. Of course, this might not be the only purchase this year, but it sure shines a light on the haves and have nots. Westside, designed around a beautiful library centered in the building like an atrium,
is not on the list. Out of 270 schools, 11 libraries are functioning at a level that can be described as just above life support. The list reads like a realtor's list of desirable Houston neighborhoods. River Oaks, Pin Oaks, Oak Forest, Heights, Briar Forest, and Willow Bend, those are the ones that will get the books. On the realtor theme, I want to point out that selling long term assets for short term expenditures should be a crime when we have no elected Board. Fire Mike Miles. Thank you. Speaker six. Schools going to nonprofits and charters, you're sending the message if you do good enough,
you'll be rewarded with not being part of HISD. HISD is not worth maintaining high performance. The takeover is just a real estate flip. Data was the landlord's special. Making ZIP code success irrelevant is just price fixing the market, allegedly a forte of one of our board members. There was no fixing the foundation. Ever ask a slumlord to repair or follow their own policies or heck, even the law. Good luck. And that's exactly how it feels to be a parent at HISD. Compliance doesn't equal support. When you sit there and watch your kid break down,
crying after the fourth college denial letter that you know full well was a direct result of sped inadequacies, the district standing there griping at you me griping at you here is extreme, then fine. But I may be unprofessional in your eyes, but you didn't fool City Hall. Thank you. All remaining parent speakers, please come to the front row. Number seven, Jessica Dugan. Mike Murath was supposed to tell you that, the board of managers by now when the takeover would end. The TEA's own regulations require Murath to announce the takeover's end date by 06/01/2025.
He couldn't even be bothered to follow his own rules. The rule says, not later than the second anniversary date of the appointment of Board of Managers, the commissioner shall notify the Board of Managers and the Board of Trustees of the date on which the appointment of the Board of Managers will expire. I'm just confused why y'all don't know yet when the takeover is supposed to end. It was supposed to be, according to his own rules, he was supposed to notify everyone by now. Does anyone have an answer? I doubt it. Everyone. Thank you. We're moving to parent speakers on Zoom.
Melanie Gaiman, please turn your camera on. You may begin. Miss Gaiman? Please turn your audio on. Go ahead. Can you hear? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm a senior of a freshman and a senior at Heights High School, and I'm here to urge you to click our Pathways programs. My senior is in the audio visual magnet, my freshman in graphic design, and these programs and their excellent teachers are the reason they love coming to school. Once again, HISD is taking a successful high interest program and stripping it down,
which will only drive enrollment down next year. These classes weren't chosen because they guarantee high paying jobs. They were chosen out of genuine academic interest, creativity, and curiosity. These programs teach real world skills and ignite passions that last a lifetime. Future students deserve that same chance. Dad, more worksheets, IA generated curriculum, fewer opportunities to and the loss of creative outlets that make education meaningful. And what happens to our talented teachers? They're fired, and students get larger, less engaging classes taught by uncertified staff.
This is a a disservice. Thank you. Is that the bell? Yes. Brianna Van Borsen, please turn your camera on. You may begin. Thank you. I'm speaking to the LA some some problems ago. Can you hear me? Can you speak into your microphone? Thanks. Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes. Miles has noticed that he's for eighteen eighty two schools. He's an operator for partnerships being his company third teacher. He knows eighteen eighty two partners of Anita State Park, Newark, and the public schools. When his product company, Sarciso, found that he has spent millions of dollars in trusted school firms to this Colorado
company, it was embarrassing, not illegal. The state audit recorded that there are no rules in the education code for eighteen eighty two schools. It was just their own fault, not prohibiting sex fees in the context. Seventeen eighty two is an open invitation to steal public realtors. We got calls from ELA because this is exactly what happened with HSI's energized in school's part of school. There, the operator siphoned off $17,000,000. Our elected board wrote the policy to prevent that from work cloned. My all time is to delete ELA to emulate to eliminate transparency and oversight.
Will you lose him? Thank you. Ms. Ladner, You may turn your camera on. Will you say your full name for us, please? Oh, you may turn it. My name is Dana Ladner. At Durham, or I'm parent at Durham, you create a coaching system rife with abuse and degradation, then write those off who seek a modicum of humanity as subpar, weak or not, fits the culture. You dismiss those who have left as consistently unworthy of profession, But you know you've also lost talent and experienced career educators that can help achieve
the gains that this administration, that mister Mike Miles, you claim to seek. You create an environment where teachers fear telling the truth and then pat yourself on the back about how much they like you. At Durham, we've lost nine teachers since August 1. Other districts and private schools are cheering, screaming HISD's loss is our gain. If you had created a better environment, some of those teachers could have helped you helped the HISD. Instead, not only have teachers left Durham, the exodus across HISD has been gutting.
Kids feel it, parents feel it. Parents lose faith, and parents choose schools that offer stability. HISD doesn't. Thank you. Let's fix this together. Miss Folger, please turn your camera on. You may begin. Cassandra Bolger. Yeah. Send me here. Thank you. My name is Suzanne Boulder. I'm a parent at Durham. I am speaking tonight, on behalf of, community. At Durham, we've lost close to 10% of our student body since the first day of school, which is an all too common drop in enrollment for our district. The numbers don't lie. In most other fields, this 10% drop in the participant base is down to one road,
but not apparently, not in HIS too. Our students feel the pain of the empty seats that once held their friends. Do you claim that they're being deported or homeschooled? This is something. We know our neighbors weren't deported. We know our neighbors decided to use the private school. We know that had Durham not lost the teachers, that may never have happened. Durham has been given the wraparound services and something actually resembling support rather than a team center and for worksheets and points of shouting at adults and students. These families would not have lost faith in public school. That kind of brain drain isn't healthy for additional.
There are future leaders and scholars who could've helped make HIS team best, but you let them walk out the door. You continually show up and send it off as the rest of your children. A study partner who our lab's assistant party has a choice is not a self linked to love and learn. Our students want to learn and learn to learn about let us fix this together. Abby, please state your full name and turn your camera on to begin. Abby, please state your full name. Good evening. My name's Abby Stargell, and I'm continuing the message as a Durham parent. You carry a burden not meant for one man,
but for an entire community, and you arrogantly assume that you can. Your militaristic methods and need for short term validation through test scores may make your star rise in certain circles, but we call this out because we know that these miracles on billboards don't tell the whole story. We are the ones who know our kids and know what your methods are leading to, and that's not long term knowledge. We are the ones who will have to pick up the wreckage after you're gone. These are our schools. These are our children. These are our communities. This is our city.
In a democracy, we are meant to be part of how this happens. While we don't have a vote, you can choose to work with us. Let us fix this together. Thank you. Thank you. I believe we have one more parent speaker in person, Ms. St. Jules. Latricia St. Jules, and I'm here with Houston Parent Action Network. As a parent from the historical 5th Floor, I'm here tonight with a simple request. Put real community and parent engagement at the center of these decisions. When decisions are made, families deserve more than an announcement. They deserve a seat at the table. I'm a say that again. We deserve a seat at the table.
Our students deserve decisions shaped with them, not simply about them. I understand that data drives district planning, but data alone cannot replace the lie lived experience, aspiration, and perspectives of families who trust this system with our children. Kids have different interests, goals, and experiences. Schools should be a place where kids are exposed to a plethora of post post secondary pathways, not just a few. So tonight, instead of focusing on whether specific program stays or goals, I'm asking you to focus on the process. Engage us early, honestly, and deeply.
Bring the community together to rethink, redesign, and strengthen opportunities not behind closed Thank you. Thank you. This concludes our public comment by public officials, HISD students and parents. We'll now hold a public hearing on the School Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas. I understand that our Chief Finance and Operations Officer, Jim Terry is presenting. Doctor. Terry, are you ready? Board chair, members of the board, thank you for this opportunity and Merry Christmas. School FIRST ensures Texas School District maintain high standards of financial management and accountability.
These 21 indicators are determined by TEA independent of us. The system evaluates the financial practices and promotes efficient resource use and encourage transparency. Ratings help the safeguard taxpayers' funds and serve as a benchmark for financial performance and improvements. Wrong way. Okay, the data uses, uses users fiscal, uses the fiscal financial statements for fiscal year twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four, reflecting the financial activities during this period.
The rating was finalized and published in 11/06/2025, marking the official evaluation date. This is listed on the TEA website. Understanding the timeframe and context links financial outcomes to budget decisions and economic conditions. Transparency data encourages the credibility of the highest from the use of our financial resources.
It also shows the first ratings and evaluation process. Houston ISD received a rating of A with the score of 96 out of 100 reflecting outstanding financial performance and accountability. The rating indicates robust fiscal health and operational efficiency within the district's financial management. The achievement showcases Houston's dedication to responsible use of public funds and transparency. The continuous improvement in rigorous financial practices are essential to maintain high future evaluation.
An A rating is achieved with scores between ninety and one hundred. And again, we scored 96 out of 100. Let me catch up. These are the indicators, 21 indicators are categorized into the following. Financial reports ensures accuracy and fitness for financial reporting in schools. Payments and fund balance indicators measure liquidity and fiscal stability through payments and fund balance. Liquid assets indicates focus on the district's ability to meet short term financial obligations.
Revenue and expenditure analysis indicate a fund balance through revenue expenditure monitoring. And solvency and debt indicators, long term financial stability and debt management. The administrative cost ratio measures ensures administrative expires expenses remain with acceptable limits on operational efficiencies. Accurate enrollment in PEIMS data are critical for funding and district reporting obligations. Website and property compliance indicators support the transparency and accessibility in district operations.
Accounting for extraordinary fiscal circumstance to ensure fair evaluation of district performance. Houston's superior rating under School First highlights its strong financial health and operational efficiency. Full disclosure and detailed report provide transparency and stakeholders trust in the district. Finally, maintaining high financial standards supports ongoing quality education and community confidence. Thank you. Questions? Any questions? Next time on the slide, you should probably use a higher credit score than six eighty.
If you had 96 out of 100, it's more like 800. Okay, will do. Thank you again, Merry Christmas. Thank you. Okay, before we move into our business, I'd like to invite board members to share reports and comments. Anybody have anything to report? I know we have a lot of holiday events coming up, a lot of breakfasts that we're going to be passing out to kids and holiday parties and the like. And it will be a lot of fun to do that. And so everyone I know has signed up for that. So go ahead. I just wanted to acknowledge,
most schools are, celebrating students' talents right now with concerts, dance, band, and others. So I just wanted to highlight, I I get the privilege of attending many of those, but I wanted to encourage our community to also visit your your neighborhood school. We need participants in the audience as well to, make sure that our our students' hard work is, is is, is highlighted and enjoyed as we enter this holiday season. So thank you. Thank you, mister president, especially for your patience figuring this thing out.
I wanted to give, a shout out to a teacher at Pin Oak, miss Byro, who teaches, among other things, fantasy geopolitics, which is a class that I would have taken, as an elective if I would have had the opportunity to do that. She and many other teachers across the district used CNN ten in the classroom, which I think, the precursor to that might have been, of course, now I can't remember the name of it. But it was through MTV, when I was in, high school, which was a great, program, the students love it. I know it's also used in elementary schools,
and this creativity really fosters student engagement in politics, in journalism, and, cultures. My own son, happens to be in this class and his teacher sent a video of the kids hearing that they got a shout out from one of the hosts of CNN ten, and it was terrific. And I know a lot of students in this class now ask their parents on the drive to and from school to listen to the news on the way in. So thank you to, teacher, Byro, and all teachers who are using, CNN and other creative mechanisms in their classrooms.
Wonderful. Thank you. I on November 19, I attended an a an event called Threads of Gold, which is an art program event held at the Asia Society. I happen to be the chairman of the Asia Society, and we had over a thousand people, parents and children and artists, there in partnership with the Ferris Foundation, which is a charitable foundation to support young children, particularly those, who have suffered from cancer. But the event was there to celebrate artists from across HISD and in fact we invited four other districts this year to participate.
But, the majority of the artists there and the art that they had on display was from HISD students across mainly the high schools. Two students from HISD won $500 certificates for the quality of their work and they were chosen as the best artists, their two pieces. And so I just want to it it it reinforced to me that there was an active art program across the district, and these kids were all participating. And it was one wonderful evening with a thousand people participating and celebrating. Thank you, president Campo. I had the privilege of attending a,
a school visit, with the superintendent and some of his team, representatives from the HISD Foundation, and even I believe it was the Kansas City Public Schools who were interested in seeing, the NES program in action. And, it was remarkable. What I saw from those teachers, the engagement I saw from the students, the the the combination, when I think about the teachers, the combination of skill, you know, pedagogy, and genuine love and affection for these students. Right? It it's no surprise to me that they went from an f rated campus to
an a rated campus. And so it also brings me great pride to the principals in Aggie, and but it was it was awesome to see that, in action. What a what what a cool experience that was. Thank you. I would like to shout out, a public part community partnership with, Gregory Lincoln Elementary School. I got a call from, their awesome counselor, Lavonda Menifee. So Rose of Sharon Missionary Baptist Church and Hope Charity contacted the school wanting, to partner and to give little gift bags, to the students.
And our resourceful counselor said, yes. We will take them, but what we need is coats. And they asked what she needed. She said, I need six forty three coats. And two weeks later they got them. So, so just, appreciate her for her resourcefulness, and we wanna thank the Hope Charity and Rose of Sharon Missionary Baptist Church for partnering with our kids and getting them brand new coats sized to fit. So that's really wonderful. So I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the businesses out there that have joined the Houston Promise that celebrates our teachers and celebrates the success of our students.
We appreciate them standing up and participating in the events that have started already and that will continue through the end of the year. So I appreciate them, it takes a lot of time, effort and finances on behalf of the businesses, So we appreciate you, so thank you for that. President Campbell, one more if you don't mind. I think I might have mentioned earlier that, my family is very involved with the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation. I learned this evening talking to one of the Sunrise Center professionals here that tomorrow they're going to collect 100 books from the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation,
that they've requested. But more importantly at the end of the week they will have also collect 12 boxes of 75 books each so nearly a thousand books that will be given to the Sunrise Centers and put in Sunrise Centers available to the communities. And I believe that over the next few months if the the Sunrise Center is needed, there are probably thousands more books that I know the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation is very anxious to distribute through the Sunrise Centers to HISD parents and families. Thank you. You mentioned, mister president,
events, and I wanted to shout out, Garden Oaks Montessori. They had a fall event that I know Jeanette and I attended at the same time, so if you were also there, I'm sorry. We did we did not see you. But schools often invite us, and I it's great when we can attend. I know I've tried to make this particular event for three years, and scheduling just worked out. And I'm so glad that I did. I have heard a lot of wonderful things about the campus, and it was nice to see the campus on a Saturday with families and to be able to talk to families and staff and to see all the wonderful things that the Montessori School has to offer.
So thank you to the Garden Oaks Montessori School and all the communities that continue to invite us. We try to go to as many events as we can. Thank you. Are we done? Okay, great. Let's go ahead then. No, we can keep going. We got a lot of time. So now, why don't we move to Superintendent Mile for your reports? You have four? Yes, Mr. President. Thank you, Board of Managers. Just wanted to start off by saying on Tuesday, the Bush Institute convened, 20 some Commissioners of Education to talk about reading and, student achievement and how to improve across the nation the proficiency of our students.
And, I was fortunate enough to be invited with Mike Morath and Todd Williams and we gave a presentation, and the topic was, what the Bush Institute calls the second Houston miracle about how, well our students are doing. And so, I just wanted to say, out, in the in the in the national audience, there's a lot of recognition, not just locally, but nationally, for what our students are doing, what our principals are doing, and even the Board of Managers got shouted out positively, for what they're doing.
So, just wanted to relay that. That was, on Tuesday at the Bush Institute. I also want to, second what, Board Member Mendoza said about the Houston Promise. And to add even more, I would like to bring up Najah Callender to introduce a couple of speakers on the Houston Promise. Good evening, everyone. Can y'all hear me? So we're here to recognize the partners, organizations, and individuals who make up the Houston Promise. Their support is making a real difference for our students, and and you got to hear some from board member Mendoza and board member Goosen
about this process. I am going to just say two quick words. We have 43 partners in total that are supporting the 64 schools who are currently rated C and D but on their way to A and B. And they, really run the gambit of type of organization. So, we are super excited about the work they've been doing. So far, through the Houston Promise, we've done celebrations for more than 2,000 teachers and more than 10,000 students. And this is just first semester, so we have a lot more events happening, with these partners in the spring.
So just a quick look so you can see the organizations that are participating. And we have, quite a few, partners here this evening, so I'd like to really offer them an opportunity. If you're present today, we'd love for you to stand and just be recognized, for all your hard work. So I think it's most of the people in this section here. So please just stand up. We'd like to say thank you. And thank you to, board members who have also become partners. So we're gonna have a quick video, and then I'm going to invite, the following folks up to speak.
And and I did talk, I predamed this with the staff, and they said we're gonna let a pastor have the microphone. And and so pastor Lee is gonna be our first speaker, and he's assured me that he is the lone pastor, including my father, who will speak in the time allotted. So don't tell my dad. I hope he's not watching the word meeting. But we will have reverend Derek Lee come up, who is the pastor of Midtown Worship Center. We will have Stephanie Cruz, the managing director for Houston Loves Teachers. And then we will have, tech Houston Texans, legend, Wade Smith come up and speak.
And they will each speak for one minute, so that I can, rest easy. So quick video, and then we will have them come. The Promise Partnership, has brought together, more than 50 partners with our 64 c and d rated schools that are striving for a A and B. Many of the partners are corporations or churches or individuals, and they are doing all sorts of things just to help our campuses know that the community is behind them. We are supporting teachers and celebrating their accomplishments and all their hard work with students,
and then we are also celebrating students. We are having teacher lunches to show appreciation for, their hard work in the classroom every day. We're celebrating student success and progress at some of the campuses as they are doing map testing, as they are preparing for STAR, as they are reaching new heights on, systems like Zearn. We are giving them just little nudges and little encouragement. We want to see them succeed. We want to celebrate success. And we want to, just plant those seeds for our students and,
and frankly, for their families to know that there are, lots and lots of people in Houston Houston that wanna see them succeed. To superintendent Mike Miles, to the board of HISD, to the staff and community that is in this room, I hope I hold this one minute. Kofi, you're laying here. Do I do this? Okay. Let me say this. I'm glad to be a part of Houston Promise Partners. It gives us an opportunity to support the students and their endeavor for higher education, support the teachers and staff in terms of who administer that higher education,
and to support the superintendent in terms of the narrative of our school district. I'm alarmed, and I'm disturbed for what I've heard in this room. I pass the teachers who teach in other districts, and in that district, they lose funding because students is not in the classroom. Last time I checked, enrollment should be a parental issue, not a school district issue. I wanna say it's very loud. We're in trouble when the conduct and the disrespect and disregard for our leaders and our students is supported by parents to walk in this room and to say things
that are disrespectful to our superintendent because disrespect in public places normally means it's gonna be disrespect in private places. When we partner in the community and in the school, we see behavior that is happening that didn't start at the school district, started at home. So we, again, we're inviting kids in a room to talk at levels where they don't understand. They don't understand the finances and programs. They don't know understand why things are being cut. Let me say this as I take my seat. Mike Myers did not get us in the trouble that we are in.
Past administrations is the reason why we failed. He's been invited to this table to bring us out and check-in the records and the standard of what I've seen and what I'm engaged. I'm a student. I'm a, student of HISD. Grew up in it. Better than what I've seen. We are striving, and I see the strides. I see that ground level. My school that I'm at is a d level, but I see the teachers engaging in doing what. And if that means that we need a general and a commander, we should have because we're a warring for the education in the future of our
children, and we need someone with a military mind. Don't fire him. Keep him. Put some pressure on the parents. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Stephanie Cruz. And first, I wanted to say thank you to the teachers and students who show up day in and day out to make this work possible. None of this is possible without them, and their commitment is the foundation of Houston's future. And I'm grateful that the Houston Promise gives more of us a small but meaningful way to honor their work. We have the opportunity to sponsor five campuses across the district, and I firmly believe that appreciation is not fluff.
It's fuel, and our schools need more of it to do this work. We know that when schools thrive, communities thrive, and this initiative creates space for our city to celebrate and appreciate the work happening to help Houston schools thrive. Houston Promise opens the door for partners to understand what's happening inside schools, to see the victories, the challenges, and the work underway. And as more partners see that clearly, my hope is that community engagement deepens and Houston's investment and commitment to more of this work grows. So Houston is at its best when we move together, and we're proud to celebrate and support the educators and students who are shaping Houston's
future. Thank y'all for the opportunity. On behalf of the Houston Texans and the Weisz Smith Foundation, I wanna thank the Houston Independent School District for allowing us to share our passion for reading with the students of Matting, JP Anderson, Arena, and Law Elementary School as part of our Reading with the Pros literacy program. Our highlights include reading sessions with Houston Texans, all pros, Will Anderson Junior and Jalen Petri, along with current Texans, including but not limited to Blake Fisher at Ingram, Jake Andrews, Tim Settle, Dylan Horton, and British Brooks.
Now while the star power that this program brings is significant, it is the week in and week out participation of our community volunteers that really drive the program. With over 450 volunteer visits, over 15,000 reading minutes logged, a 100,000 books read by students, improved attendance numbers, and declining behavior issues across the board. The impact of the Houston, Texas reading with the pros most definitely is felt throughout our classrooms and hallways. We recognize that our engagement with students in Sunnyside and Magnolia Park supplement the work that is being done in the midst of these difficult times
on a daily basis by the teachers, staff, administrators, and parents of our participating campuses. You can rest assured that we are dedicated and playing a part in the improvements that we're seeing amongst our campuses this past year. We look forward to continue to build upon these successes now and expanding into additional campuses for years to come. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you, Nadja. Mr. President, board members, I would like to now invite Chief Academic Officer Hall to come up and talk about,
Career and Technical Education program. Good evening, board members. I'm here to give an update on CTE programs. I first want to start with acknowledging that you have moved, the item number five for discussion, and so this is to give some additional context for, for that item. Thank you. So first and foremost, I wanted to anchor in the design principles of this work. And so, as we set out to think about the programs that we can offer for our students, we're committed to a couple big, big design principles. First, all of our CTE programs we want to ensure lead to high wage,
high demand, and high skilled jobs that prepare students for twenty, thirty five in the world. And in particular, we really pay attention to the programs that prepare students to get jobs right out of high school because about 50% of our students go into the workforce directly upon graduation. We also are working to make sure we increase access to these programs for all students, so ensuring that all students have a variety of choices they can choose from based on their interest and their skills. One of the methods that we use to do this are our career centers. And so our career centers are,
kind of a hub and spoke model. So they act as a hub in the middle of surrounding high schools, and they offer a set of programming to all students at those surrounding high schools. So our Barbara Jordan Career Center is the center that we operate in HISD, and it, it feeds, nine surrounding high schools in the area. So one of the reasons we focus on career centers are are are are, many reasons. First is that it expands access to programming. So, as we look at Barbara Jordan in the future, it will have 16 programs that a 100% of students in the surrounding area can
access. Another important feature of career centers is the ability to enhance quality of programming for our students. And so our CTE teachers, will be at the career center. They'll get deep embedded coaching. We'll have, career counseling embedded in the career centers, and we can really build state of the art equipment for our students, in the career centers. And we'll talk about this a little bit later. But, when we think about career and technical ed, it's equipment heavy. If we want to outfit an automotive program, for example, to buy one EV charging station,
it's a $175,000. And in one classroom, we might have five or six. And so we if we are able to invest and enhance in those state of the art programmings in a central hub, all students in the surrounding areas would benefit from those resources, in a way that, allows us to expand and improve the the future opportunities for for students. So, based on feedback from the board, we want to propose this process. So, the first thing we have done when thinking about our career centers is start with talking to experts, that look at labor market data to say, what are careers that lead to high wage,
high demand jobs? What does the data tell us about the Houston community career offerings, and and the work there? The second thing we wanna do is make sure we provide you with an update on what that those findings say. And then in January, we're going to do a number of community information sessions that we'll share more information on in a bit. And then we'll bring the item for discussion back to the board for consideration in January. So as a result of the third party labor market analysis of high wage, high demand skills in the Houston area, this is the set of program recommendations that came from those findings.
And so this is the proposed set of 16, career program offerings that we plan to offer in the Barbara Jordan, Career Center. Health, there's a series of programs under health, the trades, human services, IT, and engineering. And the, the, programs with the asterisk are the ones that are new programs that we'll be building to offer an enhanced set of programs for students. And then all of the, nine surrounding high schools will be able to access all 16 of these new programs. So it'll improve the access for students across the geographic area.
The data that led to these findings is shown in a couple of these charts. So what you see at the top, left is, an average view of salaries in the, career clusters that are offered in the set of recommendations. And we really anchor around living wage. So where the dotted line is, you see that's the dotted line for living wage at $45,000 and all of our career offerings will in, be higher than that. And that includes, access to careers directly out of high school. So even the careers that these programs can offer directly out of high school will
exceed the living wage. We also look at the number of annual job openings in the Houston area. And we really wanna make sure that as we support students in getting access to these career programs, job openings exist for students to obtain when they graduate. So the bottom graph shows that all of these, programs offer, they offer many, many jobs, and there's a number of openings that allow and ensure that students can access jobs when they leave us. The labor market analysis also tells us areas where either salaries do not meet the living wage threshold or where the number of jobs in the Houston area are lower
than we would want for our students. And so this is a little bit of information that supports the, the rationale for bringing the item around graphic design to the table. The labor market data, when we looked at the graphic design program of study, showed that, from a living wage perspective, it was significantly lower than the other programs we would be able to offer. Additionally, the number of open jobs in the Houston market did also not meet, the threshold that we would want to ensure students can get a job when they leave us. So again, even with, the consideration of sunsetting programs,
we do wanna ensure that when a program is sunset at a campus, all of those students would still be able to access all of the programs at Barbara Jordan, including many, many new ones that we'll be adding to the space. And the other thing I wanna highlight about the sunsetting process. So when we sunset a program at Barbara Jordan, it doesn't impact any of the students currently enrolled in a program. And so, all of our ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth graders will be able to continue in their current program, and we phase out programs over the course of three to four years.
And so, we we, continue to support students through, and those teachers will continue to support students through the program over time. We then embed new programs starting in ninth grade. And so we'll really be supporting our eighth graders that are rising into ninth grade this year, looking at all of their potential options related to career and technical education, and support them in choosing the one that, best fits for them. But our current high school students are not impacted by this recommendation. The last thing we just wanted to highlight is for, every high school where we're looking at these programming recommendations,
we're planning to hold a community meeting. The first week we're back from the Christmas break, the holiday break, and the dates are listed here. And all meetings will be held 05:30 to 06:30 at the schools. And that's it on the CTE center update. Mister President, can I ask Yeah? Go ahead. So, Kristen, you may not have answered this on, at your fingertips, but what is the range of programs at the 10 high schools right now? Is it four to ten? Is it six to nine? Do do you have that information? I know across the district,
it's between two and sixteen, but at this 10 high schools, I can I can we can find that out in So but, we can say for sure that in the 10 that we're talking about, they don't all offer those 16 and most of them offer only a handful or a lot less than 16? Yes. And so, improving and upgrading, the Barbara Jordan, programs of study, all those, high schools will have all the kids in those high schools will have access to all 16, programs of study? Yes. And that will be significantly more options for most of the students.
Okay. Learning technology. So I have a few questions, and we had talked about transportation when we first came on the board about some different things that were happening. If you could just give us a very high level of what that transportation looks like if I'm at one school now, I need to go to Barbara Jordan for this. I'll repeat them if you need me to, but And then, so we heard tonight a little bit more about the graphic design, you know, that's a big thing right now especially with social media and things like that. Could that be because of AI that that's kind of not gonna be at the forefront moving forward? And lastly, those that are doing the,
this type of what I call, trades and what we're doing at Barbara Jordan and the other schools, will we have some type of a job placement partnership to help these students when they're graduating from the programs and moving out? Thank you. To answer your first question about transportation, there is no different experience from the perspective of a parent as it relates to transportation. They still show go up to their zone school, and then HISD covers the transportation to and from the student's school to Barbara Jordan. Students will typically go two to three days a week for,
either the AM portion of the day or the PM portion of the day, and then, they'll go back to their school. So, transportation for the family is the same as it would be if they were not at Barbara Jordan. And to answer your question about the the workforce partnerships, it is a, a really large priority for us to continue to build those. And I didn't name this, but we, talked with over 300 different workforce experts, through our workforce council to help build this recommendation. But for students to be successful in accessing living wage jobs, we try to build work based learning experiences into their programming,
especially in eleventh and twelfth grade. So they're doing internships, externships, practicums specifically related to their program, which should hopefully allow them to get the job before they walk out the doors of HISU with their diploma. And so enhancing that and building that out is a priority, and and we're even looking at launching launching student led businesses at Barbara Jordan, which is a exciting new endeavor. So that was your first. And then your second oh, was around graphic design with AI. This data looks specifically at actual job openings in Houston right now in the past
twelve months. So, AI could have already impacted that, and, we know AI is evolving a lot. But this data just reflects the reality of the job openings today. We do know that there are skills in graphic design that can be helpful, and we're looking at ways to embed that in digital communications and in a couple of other places, so that we can still expose students to those skills. Thank you. Chief Holt, I wanna ask a little bit, kind of bigger picture stepping back, CTE. It is it will create amazing opportunities for people.
I wanna make sure that that is optionality. Right? We are not taking kids off of a college path without their choosing and putting them on a path to a trade. Will kids still have choice, you know, options, choices that they can make? And and what is kind of the interplay between the path to college and CTE? Thank you for asking that. I I think one of the things we emphasize a lot is that this is not an either or. That's we really look at providing both. So even within CTE, we embed college courses.
So a lot of our CTE courses are dual credit. But apart from that, any student who is academically ready to take advanced college courses, we ensure are on that track. Unless we have a parent opting out, we ensure, most of a 100% of our students is what we aim for are on track to take those advanced courses, and that's whether or not they're in CTE. But we monitor and we really do make sure that, if a student is taking CTE courses, that separately they can be on advanced tracks in math, advanced tracks in reading, advanced tracks in our sciences. And our college, college credit data shows that that work is improving,
driving significant increases in college credit. Can I add, sir? The other thing to keep in mind is, while we want all of our students to be able to go to college if they want, we also know that the reality is there's a lot of students who, want to enter the trades or a career job right away and so that will also be available. It's also true that year 2,035 competencies, these new upgraded skills and programs of study still require a foundation in reading and math and science,
that kids who can read at grade level and do math at grade level can take advantage of these upgraded programs of study, more so than than the kids who can't. And they'll be more successful at drones and cybersecurity and upgraded health and all the ones that we're proposing if they can do, you know, if they can read and do math at grade level. And for a high schooler, that means passing English two. That means passing Algebra one. So, both of our attempts to really, get kids prepared for college also help with getting prepared for Career Tech Ed.
Any other questions? Go ahead. Thank you. I hope that I could get you to to maybe reiterate or clarify jumping off of the graphic design question from, miss Mendoza because I I I was confused about the distinction between what is a program versus what might be a skill. And so, could you reiterate that? Because I feel like that gets a bit lost in the discussion. And, and I appreciate that clarification. Absolutely. So, TEA is the entity that defines the different programs, and a program consists of four consecutive courses that build expertise in that particular program.
So if I pick pharmacy as a program, for example, students will take four consecutive pharmacy courses that build depth and expertise in the pharmacy program. Additionally, TEA has TEACs or standards for every course in that program that are the knowledge and skills you have to learn to be successful, in pharmacy, for example. And so there are many skills students will build in every course that they take, and then there's four courses that make the program. And so when we look at success in career and technical ed, we both ensure that students complete their program.
So they become completers and they complete that course sequence, and they obtain their industry based certification, and oftentimes multiple industry based certifications throughout their coursework. May I jump off of that? Just one more clarification, which is the programs at a given school, to your to your point, the the number they may vary. Right? And so it is not consistent across our our high schools. That is correct. There's also terminology the the terminology vary across schools where there, again, may be confusion that would be addressed at the local campus meetings that are planned.
In other words, there's, magnets. There's programs. There's pathways. And I think as a parent, those can be very confusing, and lead to maybe a misunderstanding of what this change really is. Will those be addressed at these specific meetings to help families understand that? We can do that. No problem. We can we can even include a definition sheet and pass it out for folks. So, yes, we're happy to do that. And I think there's heightened, there's heightened concern related to, decisions that are being considered for school choice.
So could you explain, like, how this timing why this timing is what it is, and and maybe what impacts to school choice as parents are considering, their plans for next year? Yes. So, one of the reasons we're, bringing this quickly and doing, the sessions in January quickly is so that we can, update the school choice process based on the decisions. And so the school choice process will be open until February, and so all families will have the option to make any sort of adjustments they want, based on the programs that are offered. Thank you for answering all of our questions I have a question that might be
better for the next meeting but could you give us a teaser maybe about how potential partnerships with industry and philanthropic partners might help amplify some of these programs if they are consolidated in a couple of places versus multiple classrooms across multiple campuses. So when we partner with industry, there's there's many ways we actually can partner with our business partners. For business partners, the thing we hear most is they're looking for a pipeline of students to work in their organizations as well.
So sometimes they will donate state of the art equipment that they're using real time, in business now, in their businesses now to ensure students are trained on it. They want to give students those work based learning experiences experiences to prepare them for getting a job, so they can be really strong work based learning partners. They also can advise us on the future of the industry to make sure that we update our courses, and the instruction that we offer related to the career and technical education courses so it's aligned to the future. I think automotive is an example of that, where we're taking traditional automotive and embedding hybrid and electric
vehicles. The other example another example that comes to mind is, in the career center, one of the things you can see that we've done is we offer multiple programs in the same cluster. So if you look here at the trades, right here, within the trades, construction, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, an individual high school might have one of those. But in a career center, you could imagine that we build a smart house, and every single student can add into the house, parts of the house that apply to their program, and students can get the more holistic experience around the trades.
And that can be really powerful when a student is getting hired. That's one of the things even, construction management companies look for is how you understand how all the different parts, work together. So businesses can help us improve and say, what does a smart house look like? And help us, again, push programming into the future. Wonderful. Thank you. It's this to me seems like a very comprehensive approach to CTE for a student when it's at the career center. Thank you. You teased us a little bit with the thought that you have kids starting businesses and entrepreneurship. I I'm I'm interested in that.
There's no starting wage at entrepreneurship. Right? There's no there's you can't guarantee you're gonna get a living wage if you start your own business. But if you have business been taught business, finance, money, whatever, are there programs that are gonna help kids that maybe go through these direct programs but also are gonna wanna start businesses? What how is that how will that work for them? There's two things here. One is whenever students are entering into some of these programs, we also will offer entrepreneurship as an elective so they can couple learning about business and being exposed to business while they are in HVAC or electrical.
So they can think about the business side of working in those trades or wherever they are, so they can get exposed to both. And then in addition, we whenever we were looking at the career centers, we visited six career centers around Texas to look at what is the best in class of what others are doing. And we were pulling ideas from each of them. And so there is a couple in particular that had been launching student led businesses out of the career center. So you can imagine welding and construction. They are taking the things that the students build and offering them in a storefront
where students can practice, working with the customers, where they can run, the books behind the scene, books to make sure that they can run a profitable business. So there's a lot of roles that students can play as a part of a student run business that also build career and technical education skills. You took my thunder there, but I wanted to say thank you for the entrepreneurship part of it because we know that this country is built on small businesses. And so those students that are participating in these different trades, whether it's culinary or automotive construction, that we remind them that one day they can be an employer and not just
an employee. So they learn the trade but at the same time, they need those skills, which comes back to math and sometimes science and being able to read books and things like that. So that's key and so I'm very glad to hear that and you're right. Sometimes we don't get paid for a while when we start a business. But if they know that and they're challenged by that and given that opportunity as they're in high school, some of us never know what a business is or how to start one. We may learn the automotive or the construction piece of it, but nobody ever tells us one day we can own a business.
So thank you for that. And however we can help, please let us know. Related to that, it reminded me of of, clarifying the art of thinking and making sure that we're focused on helping students learn how to learn because I think that lifetime of learning preparation is extremely important when we can't predict jobs in the future. Could you reiterate how that works into CTE programs? Yes. That's a great lead in to what I wanted to say because, going off Marcus' question about 20,000 foot view,
so the goal is to get kids ready, not only read, write math and science, but also to be prepared for year 2,035 environment, which requires upgraded programs of study in high school and a robust career tech ed center. Now with regard to facilities and Career Tech Ed Centers, we're behind the curve. Dallas has four state of the art Career Tech Ed Centers. ALAF, much smaller district to our Southwest, has a state of the art Career Tech Ed Center.
And so facilities wise, we're just catching up. I mean, we're just, you know, moving along the path and we're behind, so we're moving we're trying to move faster. But with regard to programs of study, we're at that point because we've done good market research. And by the way, we're going to bring the people who did those analyses, the experts, to the podium next time so the Board can hear from the experts what the future marketplace and the current marketplace looks like. But to address, Jeanette's question,
we have to also think about elementary and middle school is what I'm trying to say. And so we've already started with critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, team building. Those are things that are happening in our schools today, third grade through tenth grade. It's kind of flown under the radar, but it prepares our students for a different world in workplace where critical thinking is at a premium and prompt engineering is part of that critical thinking pathway. So we need to do more with our elementary
schools. With our middle schools, we're doing dyad, which exposes their the right brain, the experiences. And it has to be improved, it has to we have to do more with that, and we will be piloting a couple, programs of that. But that's the answer to the question is that we have a lot more to do, but we can't just focus on high school. Okay, I think we're done with this slide, we're going to go to the next. But before that, I wanted to welcome Trustee Elect McDonough here. Sorry, I didn't see you when you came in earlier.
So thanks for being here. I also saw former Trustee, Blueford Daniels here. I think she was maybe went out in the hall. And I also want to welcome Board of Managers, Lauren Gore here as well. So next item, go ahead. I think you have one more thing. Yes, sir. We want to do one more thing and that is focus on our, academics for special needs students. And, again, Chief Holt will do the presentation. Okay. I know I've been up here for a minute, so I will go quickly and chop chop.
Let me get to the next set of slides. Okay. So this is the 2025 progress monitoring report, for special education. So as you remember from last board meeting, MAP had some pretty significant updates to their assessment, and that led to some changes in goal progress measures for special education. But we did wanted to provide an update on data that we do have from that MAP related to students with disabilities. So goal four, that we report out on is students in grades four through eight who receive special education services that achieve growth as measured by domain two part a of the state
accountability system will increase from sixty three percent to seventy eight percent. And so just a refresher on domain two part a, what that looks at is students who start at a level on STAR, so do not meet, and their ability to increase a level. So go from do not meets to approaches or approaches to meets or meets to master. So it looks at our ability to move students up. Today, though, because of, the map changes, these are the two metrics we are able to report out on with the current data. We're gonna look today at achievement percentile and growth percentile.
These two metrics look at how our special education students, rank relative to the peers across the country of students who take MAP. And so we'll look at how they rank relative to their peers and their levels of achievement, and then also in their ability to grow over the course of the year. So this first slide looks at beginning of year scores. Beginning of year achievement scores from 23, 24, 24, 25, 25, 26. And what you see here is our achievement percentile. So how well we do relative to,
kids who take this test across the country has been increasing, over all grade levels, and this is for reading. And this looks at specifically our students with disabilities in HISD. But the the percentile is norm referenced against all kids who take the NWEA. Right. So correct. So math does not look at percentiles where you're comparing special education students to other special education students. This is how our special education students do across the whole population of testers, including general education students.
So this is a true testament to the fact that our students are moving up in percentile even when compared against general education peers. We also look at this for our different school types, NES and PUA. And across both school types, we are also seeing increases across all grades for our students with disabilities, again, in reading. And so this is, really great news as students are starting off stronger each year across all grades. We also have beginning of the year data for math. Similarly, for all grades, we are seeing increases for math as well.
And then when we break it out for NES and PUA, across all grades, we are also seeing increases over the two year span. This is shifting to median growth percentile for reading. And when we're looking at median growth, we're looking at the growth from fall to spring for last year. And one of the things we want to highlight at this slide is, 50% is the NASH at the is the typical growth. And so what you see here is our special education students in many instances are growing higher than typical growth of general education students across the country.
And so it's showing that they're growing at really incredible rates. And that's, with the exception of second grade, all grades, both NES and PUA, are above that fiftieth percentile threshold. For math, again, we see many grade levels that are above that threshold. We have a couple grade levels that are below the threshold, and we are paying a lot of attention to those particular grades. But we, many of the, grades, again, are continuing to be above typical growth. One of the things that's important to highlight with special education is we have a
little over 21,000 students in special education, and they are all served in different instructional settings based on, what their art decides they need and based on their disability. And so this pie chart shows the different instructional settings that we support students through. The least restrictive setting is students who are serviced in their general education tier one classrooms. So those are our students who, are sitting in classrooms with our general education students and the special education teachers joining or pushing into that classroom to provide additional support to the students.
If you if you think about instructional settings as a continuum where the least restrictive environment is students getting support in general ed, the kind of the middle of the continuum is what we call resource, where they're getting pulled out of general ed, and they're getting some supports, in a different, setting with a special education teacher. And then if you go to the farther right, the most restrictive environment, those are some of our students that are sitting in our self contained classrooms, where they are there for the full day, typically, and, they're getting services directly from our special education teachers. And so it's really important when we're looking and supporting our special education students that
we are, ensuring they get instructional into the instructional setting that best suits their learning. This is some data that provides how our students are growing based on the setting that they're in. And so you can see how our students are growing, with no disability. They are at the 69th percentile growth. But you see that our students that are in mainstream, so those are students where they're getting served in the gen general education classroom, and or no instructional setting, which means they're, you know, speak getting pulled for speech therapy or something like that, they are still growing above typical growth.
And and that's good because, again, it shows that growth is is happening. As you move to the right of this chart, kids are in more restrictive environments. You you can't quite conclude that they should be growing as high because sometimes these students will have more severe disabilities. But we do look and pay attention to, their growth over time. So, we do want to support all of these students, again, in ensuring they are continuing to learn and grow. This is for math, where, again, you see in the mainstream and in the no instructional setting supports,
they are growing really right around typical growth or a little higher. And then our students in more restrictive environments, sometimes with more severe disabilities, are in that 30 to 40 range. And that anchors back to some of the work that we are doing as a district. Even if you look at this data, it is apparent that our special education students can learn and can grow with the right supports. And so we've really centered the work we're doing as a district to improve the outcomes of special education students on these core beliefs. The first being that, again, all students are capable of accessing grade level learning with the right supports.
And we really believe that and support that as we think about how to service the students in a way that, really enables them to improve and achieve outcomes. The second belief is special education services and systems should be designed to increase access to grade level learning. And so one of the things that we talk a little bit about is, if you have a student learning, content in their general education course and then you have a student learning something totally different when they're getting pulled out and you're expecting a student with cognitive disabilities to make connections between the two,
that can be really difficult. So how do we as administration design a cohesive set of supports that really enhance student learning, for those individuals? And then finally, the third belief being that all educators and staff are responsible for ensuring students with disabilities can access grade level learning. It's not just our special education teachers. They are critical, but also our general education teachers and all of our campus administration really looking holistically around how we support those students. So we anchor in these beliefs when we build and design the programs,
and then we land on these five strategic priorities as we move into second semester. So first and foremost, looking across all instructional settings, how we improve the quality of instruction. Second, continuing to meet our compliance expectations. The heart of compliance for us really is to ensure that a number of adults that support our students are able to look at a student's progress and make the right decisions, at frequent points of time throughout the year to best service those students. We're investing significantly enhancing data infrastructure, with better underlying systems and technology.
We want to focus on, enhancing parent supports. And then finally, operating high quality functional programs. And so some of the very specific programs we run ensuring that they're high quality for our students. And that's, that's it for special education. Thank you, Chief Holt. I have two large questions. The first, I know we moved quickly here through the slides. It's great to see all the students are being successful, but it appears that students at NES campuses are seeing greater growth and performance than students at PUA campuses.
Are there notable distinctions between the student populations or, the severity of their diagnoses or the program types that we should know about, that could help explain the gap between the populations? We can give a comprehensive data set on the different disabilities, but for the most part, not really. There's about, fifteen percent of NES that are special education, 11% to 12% in PUA that are special education, so similar sizes. The different instructional settings don't vary so much that it would account for this.
So, you know, I think one of the critical things is that, for special education students, we oftentimes see they need, dedicated support for, learning specifically their needs and where they are. And so that differentiation, and that support from those instructors instruction and that learning is critical. And we know at, the NES schools, during that second teach time, they get more targeted support at grade level. And so that's, one thing that we do know and believe does help see the growth for NES. Thank you. Second piece, I'm delighted to see improved parent communications here on the slide as a priority.
What specific strategies are going to be used to further build trust? And will these communications be in multiple languages beyond English and Spanish? We have a number of things that we're thinking of in this area. First, we want to ensure parents are sitting at the table when the art is happening, And so increasing the percent of parents that are able to join, and participate in decisions being made about their student and voice listening to them and making sure the students' individual education plans are designed, with that, with that parent's input and voice.
When we have a NAR, we always have, interpreters as needed so that every parent can engage in that discussion. And so that's really critical for this work. One of the other things that we are looking at is ensuring that all parents receive progress reports in special education based on their students' individual education plan goals in a routine, way in alignment with our when we generally send report cards. So every parent should get updates on the progress their student is making. One of the other things we're looking to do is, make sure there's clarity in the process around school choice,
specifically as it relates to special education parents so they can navigate the different schools, for their students effectively. And then finally, we do want to post more resources on just how parents can better understand special education and how it works. What is an IEP? What do we know about how particular disabilities impact student learning? And really post supports that can help, parents access that material and best advocate for their student. We will also be launching a parent group to gain additional insight on what can what else we can do. Thank you so much.
The if you could go back to maybe Slide three. One, two, three. Let's see. Yeah. One thing that, jumped out at me was the number of students. Thank you for the end counts. Year over year, the number of students seem to be increasing. And that's notable, especially anecdotally, you hear a lot of, you know, comments about people leaving the district students leaving the district. But here, it stood out to me that we these numbers seem to be increasing. And so can you comment on on that? What what's going on here?
Are are are we getting more students that are being, maybe, diagnosed with, some sort of needs? Are there more students coming to the district? Could you help me understand that a little better? Yes. One of the things that is critical in this work is identifying a student as early as you can so that they can achieve they can receive the supports they need as quickly as they can. And so ensuring we have systems in place where parents, where teachers, where staff can say, hey. We wanna pay extra special attention to this student based on what's happening instructionally in
their work. What we generally do is we monitor that student for a period of time. And then based on those results, we can send the results of that to an evaluation committee that can determine this. And so when we put more systems in place, and we when we have universal screeners that can check for things like that, we can just make sure we're identifying all students appropriately as soon as possible so they get the services they need. Thank you. That that has been, I think, a consistent complaint that I think I've heard over time. So it sounds like through these through these improved systems and processes,
we are able to identify students' needs and and address them. Right. So for example, in second grade, we have a universal dyslexia screener, that will just check for dyslexia across all students. So we're even exploring if that if we could do that earlier, but we'll see an uptick sometimes between second and third, for students entering special education if they've been identified with dyslexia. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the report. Thank you. I would like to before we get into the hearing from our next registered speakers, I'd like to welcome former Trustee Judith Cruz here.
So thank you for being here. Thank you for your service and still your interest. Okay. So we're going to go ahead now and hear from our remaining speakers first in person and then those from Zoom. We will call the in person speakers to the microphone in groups beginning with the speaker numbers that, Smith will start with. We have seats in the front of the room so please, come up when you're in your number orders and please state your name when you come to the micro and we'll go ahead and begin. Can we have speakers number 36 to 46 come to the front row, please?
And let's begin with 36. I'm so sorry. We have a student who joined us. Let's have the Let's go ahead and take our student first. And parent, Archer Walter followed by Ellen Walter. I think we're all the schools that all the schools sent me to to school at 10:30 in on on birthday, if we if we know that it's it is someone's birthday,
you get them a gift. Math problem. Do you think you know the answers? A, more Sleep. B, a longer day. C, a shorter day. It's your turn. Okay. Guess the answers now. Okay. You can keep going. Okay. Here's the pleasure of the mic. Oh, yes. Wait. Enter the mic. If you have guessed more Sleep and a sword or drink, those are the correct answers. Very good. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. When I asked one of our longtime teachers what about this administration she would change
if she could, all she did was sigh and say everything. She wanted the ability to teach based off of full novels and not having to time everything and rush the kids as she was instructed to pick up the pace. Another teacher said just having working AC would be a game changer. One wanted resources for the GT kids instead of worksheets or the ability to do hands on projects in class. These are teachers that are highly coveted for our students to be in their classes. We hope every year they don't want to retire or leave our school.
They are overwhelmed with subpar curriculum and racing through the material. As much as us parents want to help them, this is something only you can do. Stop NES practices for all schools, bring back books, and let our teachers teach. Thank you. Speaker 36, Charles Collins. Good evening. I'm Charles Collins, former teacher at Challenger College High School. I speak to consent agenda item 12 because it really is directed to my case. Although the Board overturned my non renewal in December 2024, a subsequent internal contract was never issued.
I was instead harassed, intimidated and subjected to fraud by HISD employees in violation of consent agenda item 12. I filed a complaint in federal court because of because over $22,000 and false overpayments were made without my knowledge or consent. If there is more than a $50,000 difference between pay periods just two weeks apart. Serious accusations have been made against me, but none of them are true. So I asked the board to consider consent agenda item 12, take corrective action, and allow me to move forward with my life and career.
Thank you. Thank you. My name is Kathy Beasley. So now students at Cashmere Heights and Northside High School may possibly be bused to the Barbara Jordan CTE Center. What an incredible and innovative solution to a problem that did not exist. This is yet another example of how the delis zealous desire for control and power once again outweighs what is best for students in this district. This has never been about learning or caring about the students. It has, however, been about Cook test scores numbers and outrageous abuses of power across HISD. At first, I thought you would see the error of how treating teachers badly affects students,
but I've realized this was the plan all along. The level of evil from the state is horrendous enough, but the complicity of everyone who supports this board or works on it is truly unbelievable. I rhetorically ask, how do you look at yourself in the mirror every day and accept that this is what you're doing to the children in this city? Thank you. Hey. This is, respected, board members, president, and, Mr. Miles. Okay. This is with regards to my child admission for into the Debikey High School. So I have not received a response to my earlier e mail, so that's why I want to talk to you directly,
Mr. Miles. I'm respectfully requesting your approval for a hardship transfer and a Magnet Matrix exception so that Alekia can my daughter, Alekia, can attend the De Vigay High School. So the concern is the Health Science program at Westside High School, which she is currently studying, is not providing the academic rigor or the practical training required for the student who is serious about health science career. So Alekha is highly motivated in this field and she genuinely needs the level of education that Debeke offers. And, so, yeah. So basically,
when I approached the school choice, they said that, it is not reflecting a student most recent performance and the, the matrix score is actually based on the seventh grade. So my point is, like, you know Thank you. Your time is up and, I'm sure someone over here will, connect with you and make sure that we visit on that. Thank you. Next speaker. 39, Ms. Russo. My name is Jamie Russo, and last month, I went before the board, just a quorum of three. Mister Gore asked a question, and I wanted to answer his question the opposing lawyer could not.
He wanted to know how my students compare to the other students at Mandarin. She answered with the data of the star scores and implied that all students at Mandarin are smart. My data compared the student against themselves, their growth. If they came in on a pre k level not ready to read or on third grade, my data showed their growth for them for the year. All growing 100 plus points, all 44 beautiful students. Mister Gore said it was impressive. Mister Campo then later announced the board of managers overturning the recommendation that I received
this summer. He then announced in front of the 17 students and parents who spoke on my behalf that I was non renewed, fired for upholding my ethical obligation for thirty eight years. Thank you. I'm gonna give you one warning. You don't you don't communicate in this way, so you can get to the podium and say whatever you want. But do it from there. Thank you. You may begin. Shane. I'm speaking tonight about the proposed sale of 3200 Center Street. I'm urging you to vote against the sale of this historic property. It is the site of the Harper School named after abolitionist,
poet, orator, and suffragist, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a free black woman born in Maryland in 1825. This school is a significant part of Houston history. The first building at this site was a wooden structure built in 1911. The current building was built in 1927. That's nearly 100 ago. In addition to its age, it is a made the Harper School was originally the Harper Colored School during the period of segregated public education in Houston. Thousands of African American students,
teachers, and administrators worked and learned together for the majority of the twentieth century. Later, this became the Harper alternative school. Thank you. Doctor Denise Wilborn, thank you for closing way too many libraries serving the most marginalized of our students. You saved us time. Instead of banning books title by title, you just banned libraries. By doing so, you stirred up a lot of people in this community who care about students, the joy of reading, and access to books as a facet of a strong public school system.
And you are creating an opportunity and an environment for our students to become knowledgeable, articulate, very capable speakers as they come up and speak to you about their lived experiences every single day. Thank you for showing who you are with every decision you make, with every report that is spoken from this place. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor Pamela Bovling. Mister Miles, he vowed that he would provide high quality instruction to every child,
but his version of high quality instruction actually contradicts the research. He says his critics don't know what they're talking about. However, Lisa Falkenberg recently went to the authors of that very of those very programs that he's supposed to be doing correctly, and they all indicated that he's doing them incorrectly. He also promised to keep the best teachers and replace the failing ones. Those who left, he said, were not in interested in excellence. Apparently,
Bel Air High School, nationally acclaimed, was brimming with lousy teachers because loads of them left after Miles' first year, and 47 more left last year. Thank you. Doctor Ruth Hoffman Lack. Like Robert Kennedy, who is not a doctor but believes he knows more than the entire medical community, mister Miles possesses a level of hubris that is hard to exaggerate. Actual education experts know the number one factor in student success is a positive school culture and that real definition of a positive school culture is one where students feel
they are valued and they belong. That is accomplished when teachers connect with students and tailor lessons to meet their needs, not by firing beloved teachers in front of their students or eliminating the magnet programs that are the only reason that many kids come to school. You just heard from students who told you this. One of them literally said that the magnet program teacher saved her life and that removing the program would destroy school community. Robert Kennedy thinks the way to make America healthy is to bring back preventable childhood diseases by eliminating vaccines.
Mister Miles thinks the way to improve schools is to destroy communities. You can act like the Thank you. Good evening. Name is Greg Norwood. I'm the lead organizer for Houston Fashion Network, and I know you've seen a couple of us here, today. Students' access to a broad and diverse range of literature is directly connected to their post secondary post secondary opportunities. Young people read stories that reflect their identities and expose them to new cultures, ideas, and ways of thinking that develop the critical skills that colleges and employers say they need most, curiosity and empathy,
problem solving, and ability to navigate a complex world. A rich literary landscape doesn't just help a child learn to read. It helps them imagine themselves in places they've never seen, in future they've never experienced. When we narrow what students can read, we narrow what they can dream. From when we expand access to high quality and diverse literature, we expand their pathways to higher education, the workforce, and entrepreneurship, and, or whatever path they choose to take. And, well, I'm merely here as a further reminder that we don't lose sight of the fundamental truth that protecting students' access to a wide range of diverse reading. Options is protect literacy. It's about a poster of choices and chances for our kids to take your time
and your commitment to their future. Thank you. Hello. My name is Devonna Trimble with the Houston Parent Action Network. I am here to emphasize the point that decisions about our schools must be made with parents and the community at the center, not after the fact. We know our students, their goals, and the challenges they face. Their voices are essential in shaping programs, opportunities, and supports that truly meet students' needs. Too often decisions are made with data alone, but data cannot replace lived experience, insight, and perspective from those most affected.
When parents are fully informed, included early, and given meaningful opportunities to contribute, schools become stronger, programs become more effective, and students thrive. This is not just about one program or one pathway. It's about building a culture of collaboration, trust, and accountability between the district and the families it serves. Thank you for your commitment, deep ongoing engagement with parents and community members, ensuring our voices guide decisions at every stage. True equity and opportunity only Thank you. Could the next 10 speakers please come to the front row? Number 46 is next.
Good evening. My name is Ruth Kravitz. I'm a former longtime Northside teacher and administrator. I helped build Northside's AP program, created the master schedule that allowed meaningful collaboration to build the bar with the Barbara Jordan Kate Center. Northside and Casmer are now NES schools, and the damage has been severe. Fine arts and STEM programs at Northside have been gutted, and the parking lot that was once full of teachers staying late to support students now sits empty. Now HISD is preparing to eliminate more than half the magnet pathways,
gutting enrollment even further. This is not increasing opportunity for kids. It's dismantling it. I fully support centralized Kate Centers for high cost, programs like welding and HVAC, but there's no justification for removing low startup programs like graphic design and web development. And Capping Northside's culinary program makes no financial sense given that the district invested significant bond dollars to build the two state of the art kitchens, in the last Thank you. Melissa Arbro. This proposal Ruth is talking about eliminates popular magnet and CTE programs at Northside,
Cashmere, and Heights, and forces students to be bused to Barbara Jordan instead. They offer dual credit, strengthen, sorry, lost my spot, CCMR outcome and anchor magnet enrollment, removing them to stabilize the schools, especially the two already targeted by NES. This justification that these programs no longer align with labor markets rings hollow when many other HISD high schools will continue offering graphic design and related pathways. The only schools losing programs are the three closest to Barbara Jordan. Why? To artificially inflate enrollment at Barbara Jordan so superintendent Miles can claim it's bursting at
the seams and justify additional CTE centers? Projects already ballooning from 130,000,000 to over 180,000,000? Kids lose, taxpayers lose, and schools lose. And when magnets are gutted and enrollment drops, we all know what comes next, consolidation. Miles is you from Thank you. What is a library? During an after school program, a third grader asked me, what's a library? As we sat in the room formerly known as a library that was filled with books, I gestured around the room and said, yeah. You take these home, Bring them back. Read them.
His eyes widened, and he said, wow. We can take these home? Our sister, mama, Sonia, we get in trouble if we even touch these books. My eyes watered at his words, and for a brief moment, I traveled back to the period of enslavement when my ancestors and ancestors faced severe penalties for just wanting to see a book. They were penalized, chastised, traumatized. They received brutal beatings, whippings, latches, mutilation, forced sale, and even death for even just having a book. Thank you, f mite miles, and the board of managers
for reviving this spectrum of brutality of my Thank you. Alrighty. I'm Christy Michelle Brewster. Floyd, are you ever planning to adhere to the students' IEPs who are SPEDS, identified? Will you stop slow rolling the special ed assessments at the campuses? As a qualified certified school nurse of thirty five years, my department had to follow IEP guidelines, the state and federal ones. Why aren't you? Is your answer 67? Do you understand the brevity of the issue?
But I forgot. You're not certified. You're definitely not qualified. So is it the other reason? Miscommunication at the campus level. Are you clapping back because maybe you or a family member was fed referred? Well, you might better get yourself together because commissioner Alfalfa might have to call you in for a memorandum of record. Thank you. I have four kids who graduated from the Heights High School magnet program. One is getting his degree from Purdue in May in UX design,
which is something he became interested in through the magnet program. I thank you for pulling this from the consent agenda, but I want to talk about the community engagement that went up on the board, which is a slate of information sessions, which is not engagement, and a vote five days later, which gives no time to pivot and see the things that might need to be changed. Constraint three says you need to look at the impact on programming and school option options. School choice has already started. Heights is an A rated campus with excellent CCMR ratings,
partially because of the excellent magnet CTE ratings offerings. What's going to happen when those are gone? Does anyone know the college bound, career program IB requires CT Thank you. Hello. I'm Anne Eagleton. I'm here speaking on agenda item 14, which was, a revision of EL local. It was put on the consent agenda. However, there's no policy to look at. I'm struggling to understand how you put on the consent agenda something that has not
been read, seen, or viewed. I know that lies with the superintendent and the board president. This is the reason why the public doesn't trust you, is things magically appear on a consent agenda that it's obvious nobody's thought about it. I understand e l number 15 still on with ELA, local. Those two policies are a hand in a glove, so you probably ought to pull that off the agenda as well. I don't know what you're trying to pull with these partnerships, but I really need you to focus on getting us out of the TEA dog
house and not going down eighteen eighty two partnership rabbit holes and magical trips with mister Thank you. Good evening. So in school, I was not a very good science student, yet I do remember Newton's third law, namely that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Routing kids in schools to Barbara Jordan sounds great, yet you need to understand the other side. In the coming weeks, every eighth grader must choose a CTE pathway. Under this plan, many will have to leave their home campus and give up an entire class period for travel.
That one loss period is a lost opportunity. A student who wants to study automotive technology, aspires to take AP calculus, or hopes to play volleyball cannot do all three if travel takes a slot. Their choices disappear before high school even begins. Board of managers, as you continue to have shiny initiatives shared with you that offer bold promises, push past the bluster, and dig deeper to identify and fully consider what can be lost for our students. If a proposal strips away advanced coursework, limits choice, and narrows who kids can become,
it is the wrong proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. I'm here because of the proposal to remove seven seven of our 10 career pathways at Heights High School, amongst other career pathways at Cashmere and Northside, with no on-site replacements and instead requiring busing. Consider that for Heights to Barbara Jordan, that's a round trip of an hour. Two to three days a week for one class, students are learning or, sorry, are losing two to three hours of learning each week. My daughter is among the 40% of students at heights that are in these seven
pathways. I commend you for pulling this from the non consent agenda, but warn that the recommendations ignore your constraint number three. Changes to specialized programs like these require stakeholder engagement. Parents like me learned about this only by seeing this on your agenda. We have not been engaged. Engagement is not holding one meeting to tell us what you've already decided. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Morgan Chambers with the Houston Parent Action Network. I am reaching out because the way s b 13 is implemented will directly affect
students' ability to access the literature that preserves our history, our culture, and our truth. Too often, books that reflect black life are the first to get set aside and overlooked. Students should not have to wait for the stories that help them understand who they are and what is possible for their future. Literacy is more than reading a text. It shapes confidence, critical thinking, identity, and long term opportunity. Students who engage with diverse literature are more prepared for college, career, and the world. When access to those voices are limited,
the gaps follow students long past graduation. As you implement s b 13, I'm asking that transparency, urgency, and equity guide every step. The choices that you make will ripple into students' post secondary outcomes and their sense of what they can achieve. Thank you. In a radio oh, I'm Laura Henry. I'm a parent. In a radio interview with Houston Matters, Miles said, I've heard this thing about test prep forever, but I haven't heard a person define it. I'll define it. ELA test prep is an opportunity to practice strategies, best guessing, and familiarity with keywords in order to optimize test scores.
If you walk into a classroom and see students answering multiple choice questions using star stems, that's test prep. If students are only allowed read, answer, cite, explain, typewriting, also test prep. Test prep doesn't involve critical thinking because it's not it's best not to think too much on a standardized test. Test prep ignores or minimizes nontested TEKS. If you look closely, you'll see that kids who are drilled in star stems can answer questions just by reading the text around the question, and the timer supports skimming. As a result, kids don't find value in reading. They don't see a purpose for it.
If the superintendent needs test prep defined, he can't possibly understand the harms. It's very important that you guys start to figure out what test prep is. Thank you. Could all remaining speakers come to the front row, please? Number 56. Hi. I'm Mindon Tran. I'm an HIC teacher speaking on item 15. On page 89 in the agenda, you are deleting e l l ELA local, and you don't know what you're replacing it with. Item 14, policy ELA local, covers in district charter schools and promises to promises changes to cover processes and oversights
for the new eighteen eighty two partnerships, but there's no text attached. The next item deletes ELA local, which is a detailed plan of oversight of performance contract schools, which is exactly what eighteen eighty schools will be. That common sense policy is a result of financial scandals in partnership schools. Taxpayers need a policy that protects our assets from shady eighteen eighty two practices. We demand that you vet the partners properly, allow for meaningful oversight, and above all, demand transparency. Under Miles, eighteen eighty school 82 schools will be black holes where accountability for the operators is nil and information never leaks out.
As a charter school operator, this is his best life. He hopes you will not notice that by deleting ELA local without providing the replacement, you don't even know what you were voting for. You didn't internalize your Thank you. Michelle Williams, Houston Education Association, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Special Education Monitoring. You can add this to your monitoring report. TEA investigated the following allegations. Did the LEA ensure that the individualized education programs, IEP, of students on NES campuses were implemented in accordance with 34 CFR?
TEA determined the following noncompliance and required the corrective actions of the LEA. The LEA did not ensure that it implemented students' IEPs in importance with 34 CFR. You all removed my principal. He's the scapegoat. But I did a favor. I filed an educator misconduct, complaint for all the people in the North Division because y'all have a high performance culture. And I don't thank me. It's the least I could do for HISD. Thank you. Thank you.
My goodness. This is a public education has done well. Did you hear these people? And I think I'm old enough to have told some of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I thought we also had a great Christmas present, mister superintendent Miles. You got a good Christmas present? They eliminated the star. And it wasn't by the inner city people. It's by the folks in the boondocks, those GOPers, okay, eliminated it. Said they didn't want any more testing,
endless practice testing. That's in the bill. I wonder why we're going over this. Y'all should be packing. Get you some boxes. Go to the liquor store. Liquor store always has boxes. I'm representing the community of Northeast where we're battling high water bills, our center CenterPoint Energy who has eliminated our, electricity, and, of course, we have the They wanna know why we have commercial Thank you. Hi. Good evening. My name is Brooke Longoria, and I'm a former HISD parent. My elementary age children have contributed to this school year's approximately 8,200
student enrollment decline. The shame comments tonight earlier, I'm sure they hurt and stung, and that's why it's probably quick action by you, mister Campo. But I wanted to be clear to those who are new to the board that the people who attend these meetings and their voices and they speak out, those voices, they're not outlier fringe voices. They're the majority. You all are shamed whenever HISD parents and teachers gather. You are shamed in school parking lots. You're shamed when parents run into each other at the aisles of HEB.
You are shamed when we are at our children's sports events. You're shamed when we gather at family functions. Thank you. Hi. I'm Jesse Heiner. I, I know that a lot of it us here might seem like we're just here to cause messes. And I am actually here because you just care very, very deeply about the students, in our neighborhood, especially mine. I wanted to ask just really just one thing of you all today. Next week on Thursday, there is a board meeting, and I would really hope that board members will actually attend.
So miss Cruz Arnold, mister Lauren Gore, and mister Ocampo, I'd actually like to thank you for doing your job last week or sorry, last month and attending the board hearing. I really hope that I will see the rest of you at next week's hearing because if you're going to fire double the amount of teachers that the state average is, you could at least go in person and look them in the face when you fire them. Miss Flowers, I would Thank you. Thanks. Franklin Tamberillo. Just a minute. We need to see him on the screen.
Just a minute. We can't hear you. Graham shall be provided to any student Mister Timbrella, will you start over, please? We need to see you on the screen. One second. Okay. Hold on. I'll tell you. Okay. He's gotta be visible. Mhmm. Yep. I mean, he's not to the public. Yeah. There he is. Go ahead. Thank you. Okay. The rationale statement for the GTE program is that the HIC believes that every student deserves a stimulating curriculum and the opportunity to excel. Therefore, comprehensive advanced academics program shall be provided to any student in kindergarten through grade 12
who meets the statutory definition of gifted and talented. Deletion of that rationale statement would seem to indicate that the district no longer believes in that rationale. That's a troubling development. A public school system must serve the public, and that includes children of all abilities. And CEPs must include several specific items for it to mean anything, among them a description of how the student's education shall be differentiated based on GT identification results and past academic performance and a statement of the curriculum modifications or supports
for school personnel that shall be provided for the students. Those are really important things. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is it down there? Who is the next speaker? Ms. Catcher, you can turn your microphone on. You may begin. Hey, Joseph Catcher speaking on item five for a mom who can't be here today. I works closely with uDiscover math and Houston Young Honors. These organizations serve students who are carrying the weight of district instability since the takeover. Cuts to programs, shifting expectations, and inconsistent support have created strain for Houston families. If CTE programs are removed,
this will deepen. These pathways are often the only structured career exposure students receive. Without them, community organizations will be expected to fill an even larger gap, one that is growing too quickly for any nonprofit to carry alone. Houston Young Monarchs and U Discover Math are expanding hands on STEM leadership opportunities and future focused learning, but they cannot replace what should be happening at school. Students deserve strong schools and strong community partners. Removing CTE programs would move in the opposite direction.
Please keep CTE options in place. Students deserve stability and real pathways to their future. Thank you. Okay. That concludes the hearing of our speakers. We will now consider action items on the agenda. Board policy requires board members to abstain from all discussions and votes pertaining to conflicts that might involve the conflict of interest. Board policy BB FA local defines a conflict of interest as any circumstance that could be could cast out on a board member's ability to act with total objectivity with
regard to the interest. Do I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda by consensus? And a reminder we pulled item five and item 14. Let's see. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? If not, please vote. The motion passes. At this time, the Board will recess to closed session of Chapter five fifty one of the Texas Government Code Open Meetings Act, subsection 551.004 through 551.089. Should Board final action, vote or decision on any matter considering the closed session be required, Such final action,
vote or decision should be taken at the open meeting conveyed covered by this notice upon the reconvening of this public meeting or the subsequent public meeting of the board upon notice thereof. The board has recessed a closed session at 07:32PM on 12/11/2025. Okay. Good evening. This meeting is reconvened at 08:21PM. We are now ready to consider items in the closed session. Are there any motions? Yes. I move that the board approve the closed session personal agenda,
including specifically that the board approves proposed terminations and non renewals of continuing term performance and probationary contracts and authorize the superintendent or designee to provide notice of same that the Board approve suspensions without pay for continuing term and probationary contracts and authorize the superintendent or designee to provide notice of same that the Board void continuing term,
probationary and performance contracts and authorize the superintendent or designee to provide notice of same that the Board approve withdrawals of contract recommendations and that the Board approve issuance of final orders on contract terminations and non renewals as discussed in closed session effective 12/11/2025. Is there a second? Okay. Motion is second. Let's go ahead and vote. Voting is closed. The motion passes. Do we have another motion? I move that the Board adopt the resolution of the Houston Independent School District School
Board regarding the sale of surplus real property, which authorizes the board vice president to complete the sale of the property known as East Area Office number R E S B 260899, located at 1102 Telephone, Houston, Texas 77023 to Lobok GM Properties, LLC, Mahboud Carmouche. Your second. Okay, please vote. Motion passes. Another motion. I move that the board adopt the resolution of the Houston Independent School District School
Board regarding the sale of surplus real property, which authorizes the board vice president to complete the sale of the property known as Harper SB 2600 And Eight-ninety 5 located at 3200 Center, Houston, Texas 77007 to BKR Memorial, Roman numeral IV, LLC. Motion and second, please vote. Motion passes. Which authorizes the Board Vice President to complete the sale of the property known as North Forest Acreage SB-two Thousand 600 And Ten-ninety 9 located at Sierra Mesa,
Houston, Texas 77078 to OctaOne LLC, DBA, Octa Homes. We have a second. Please vote. Motion passes. Next one. I move that the Board adopt the resolution of the Houston Independent School District School Board regarding the sale of surplus real property, which authorizes the Board Vice President to complete the sale of the property known as Ryan Facility, RESB-two Thousand 600 And Eight-ninety 3, located at 4001 Hardy,
Houston, Texas 77009 to JPAD Holdings, LLC. The second? We have a second. Please vote. Motion passes. One more. I move that the Board adopt the resolution of the Houston Independent School District School Board regarding the sale of Surplus Real Property, which authorizes the Board Vice President to complete the sale of the property known as Terrell SB 20 Six-ten 96 located at 4610 East Cross Timbers,
Houston, Texas 77016 to Mark Dana Corp. Is there a second? We have a second. Please vote. The motion passes. And we there were motions? Okay. Okay, great. The next regular Board meeting will be held on Thursday, 01/15/2026. There being no further business, this meeting is officially adjourned at 08:27PM. Thank you and we'll see you next year. Happy holidays.