Okay. Alright. Good evening, everybody. The meeting is now convened at 05:11PM. I would like to ask that all everybody, please silence your cell phones. A quorum of the board members, mister Rovan, quorum of the board members is present in the Board Auditorium. They are from my right, Cassandra Ozan Bandy, Michelle Cruz Arnold, Jeanette Garza Lindner, myself, Audrey Momani, Rolando Martinez, and Adam Rovan. If there are any elected officials, I see a couple upfront. Welcome. Please stand and be recognized. Thank you for being here with us. We will now, be joined by a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps to lead our
pledges. I would like to ask that board member Rolando Martinez introduce tonight's pledge leader. Thank you, Vice President Momonani. Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Kaelin Vasquez is a senior at Heights High School and in her fourth year in the JROTC program, JROTC program. She serves as a battalion commander and oversees over 130 cadets. Cadet Vasquez is ranked in the top 20% of her class with a grade point average of 4.3. She is a web design magnet student in the technology career pathway, a member of the National Honor Society, President of the Astronomy Club and a service commander of the JROTC physical fitness team
and the JROTC leadership and academic team. She has won numerous JROTC awards recognizing her academic and leadership accomplishments. She is also passionate about serving the community and has over 200 community service hours. Upon graduation, she plans to attend the University of Houston and major in graphic design. Thank you. Will you please rise for a moment of silent meditation? Thank you. Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance and the pledge of the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Enough with Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. Thank you, Cadet Vasquez. Next, I would like to ask that board member Michelle Cruz Arnold please read our proclamation recognizing women's history month. Doctor Cruz Arnold? Thank you. Whereas women have made significant contributions to the growth and strength of our city, state, and nation in countless ways, and whereas throughout our nation's history,
women have been leaders in shaping our economy, culture, and values, building a foundation for strong families and communities across America, and whereas it is appropriate to gratefully acknowledge the skills, abilities, and achievements of all women who support excellence and success at every level of the Houston Independent School District. Now, therefore, we, the HISD school board, and the superintendent of schools, do hereby proclaim March 2025, women's history history month in HISD, and we encourage all to join in this observance and expression of appreciation for the
contributions of women and witness thereof on this March 2025. Thank you very much Doctor. Arnold. Now I believe we have other recognitions, by the superintendent. Sir, you have the floor. Yes, ma'am. As noted in our Women History Month proclamation, this is a time when we celebrate the achievements of women who continue to break barriers and inspire future generations in HISD. First, I would like to acknowledge the women who have served as board members in HISD. Thank you very much to the board members, for their service. And tonight,
we will be spotlighting several outstanding women within our district whose dedication and contributions make a lasting impact on our students, and we will spotlight a special group of students. Board member Cassandra Ozanbandi will share the first recognition. Thank you. At this time, we would like to take a moment to recognize a true trailblazer in our community, Chief Shamara D. Gardner. As the first Black female police chief at HISD, she has set a powerful example of leadership,
dedication, and service. With twenty nine years of law enforcement experience, including twenty eight years with the Houston Police Department, Chief Gardner has demonstrated excellence in handling major investigations, fostering community relationships, and model. Chief Chief Garner, thank you for your commitment to protecting and serving our students and school communities. Will you please stand so we can recognize and celebrate you? One of HISD's true gems is the Young Women's College Preparatory Academy, which was established in 2011, boasting award winning STEM programming,
100% college acceptance, and appearances on many top ranked school lists. Continuing our celebration of excellence across HISD, we highlight Ms. Jennifer Simmons and her YWCPA eighth grade fundamentals of computer science students, Peyton Cunningham, Andrea Davis, Leighton Malone, Ava Ford, Aliyah Hughes. These students recently showcased their talents at Code at the Capitol, sponsored by the University of Texas Advancing Computing Center. These young women engaged in hands on coding activities,
presented their innovative project on mitigating flood road hazards to industry professionals, and explored the broad impact of computer science education. Wow. During their visit to the Texas State Capitol, they met with Senator Boris Miles and State Representative Jolanda Jones, gaining firsthand insight into the legislative process and the role of technology in shaping policy. Our lawmakers were inspired by these young women, and the know and their know and they know their budding leadership will strengthen Texas.
Ms. Simmons and students, please stand and be recognized for your hard work and achievement. Finally, we celebrate Althea McWhorter, who has dedicated 44 as a bus driver for HISD. Her commitment to the safety and well-being of our students has been unwavering, Known for her warmth, reliability, and professionalism, Althea has made a lasting impact on children, parents, and staff she served over the years. Reaching this incredible milestone is a testament to her dedication, and we are deeply grateful for the care and passion she brings to her work
every day. Althea, if you are with us today, please stand and be recognized so we can celebrate you. Thank you. Thank you, board member, Ozan Bandy. These spotlights serve as a reminder of the dedication and excellence within our district. Thank you for joining us in celebrating their achievements. Thank you. All right. We will now hear from two public officials, student speakers and speakers wishing to address agenda items one through five in our public hearing regarding the Texas Academic Performance Report. 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 to speak prior to the board meeting time per current protocol. Verbal and other disruptions by persons during the school board meetings are not acceptable as they inhibit 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. Tonight, we have five 52, excuse me, registered speakers who will be limited to one minute each per board policy as we
have more than 30 people sign up to address the board tonight. We ask that you please stay on topic and refrain from naming individuals, especially students, as their identity is is protected under the law, but you may name your own child. I ask that you please respect our procedures and the other speakers and end your comments promptly when your time has expired and the timer rings. We'll start with public officials. Will HISD Board of Education trustee Savant Moore please come to the microphone followed by trustee Placido Gomez? Yes, sir. Happy Women's History Month. To the chief,
thank you because the community has brought so so much to me, and you always address it on the same day. To all the women behind the scenes, the teachers, y'all truly are the backbone of HISD. Thank you to the superintendent at HISD for supporting Wheatley, Booker t Washington, and Bel Air in the state championship. Many of these children, for the first time, will go to college. So they may not have won the state championship, but they won the state championship for their neighborhoods. If people don't know it, I've been sick for the last two years. I know it's surprising. I've had a sore throat. So 1,100
people joined me a few weeks ago at the State Capitol. And on April 5, '13 thousand will join me to advocate for the basic allotment to be increased by $1,300 so that we can help the superintendent not have to close any schools, not have to take pay raises from teachers. So I'm asking my constituents support us in this endeavor so that we can tell the world. We're not closed. Sports. People need to come to this district. And lastly, I'm not pretending my four year old out of two weeks to everyone.
I love you. I love my constituents. The things that we fight about Thank you, Mr. Moore. Mr. Gomez? Good evening. I'm a little disappointed that to see that students' surveys were taken out of the final draft of the teacher evaluation system. And I was a little surprised about the arguments that were made. For example, the idea that students would penalize teachers who are strict but effective in the classroom doesn't ring true to me as a former teacher Because contrary to popular belief, students actually want to be in safe and orderly classrooms and are fine with discipline as long as it's fair. I also heard people ask, well,
what if students retaliate against teachers if they get a failing grade? If we imagine that 10% of a teacher's classroom earned a failing grade and all of them decided to take it out of their teachers in the surveys, that would equal only half of 1% of the teacher's evaluation. I've heard many people talk about the importance of uplifting student voices, but I see very little evidence in our policies that we actually believe it. Obviously, adults know more than kids when it comes to what good teaching looks like, and we should have a more of a say. But students also have a valuable perspective, and it would be wise of us to listen.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next, we are going to hear from speakers who identify themselves as students when they checked in this evening. If the speakers will please, state your name when you come up to the microphone, I'm gonna go ahead and call the student speakers who are here present right now. I have Kai Henson followed by, Leon Garza Lopez and then Josephine Guzman. So is Kai Henson here? Are you mister Henson? Yes, sir. Come on up. Okay. Bring the microphone down to your a little bit.
There you go. Hello. I'm Kai Henson, and I am from Frank Black. And, the teachers, they just hand us a packet, like the DOL, and it's worth 60% of our grade when really it's just supposed to check where we are in the lesson. And I think if kids don't understand it during the DOL and they understand it after, then they're gonna fail the class, and then they don't get to go on. And instead of the teachers actually standing up and teaching us, they give us a packet and we just do it all by themselves by ourselves.
They don't even read it to us sometimes. In one of my classes, all he does is give us a packet and then the class is pretty much done with the DOL after that. So it's bad. I don't get to learn anything. And with the projects, there's no more projects anymore like there used to be. There used to be a lot of projects where I loved it, and I was excited to come to school. But now I'm really not excited to come to school. I think Thank you. Okay. Our next student speaker is Leon Garza Lopez, and he'll have a translator.
Okay. Hello. I'm Leon Garza Lopez. I wanna speak about our teachers and why it's important they have a good work environment. They teach us patience and care. But sometimes they strike that. They teach us with patience and care, but sometimes they're confronted with this difficult situations like disrespect, mistreatment, and an excessive amount of It's just not fair. We can be kind to them, And we can speak out whenever we see that someone is mistreating them because they deserve respect. Yes. Our teachers we want our teachers to be okay.
We want to learn and be better. Let's take care of those who teach us so we can have so we can build a better future. Thank you. Our next student speaker is Jessica Guzman. K. Can you pull the pull the little microphone towards you? There you go. Okay. Go ahead. Hi. I'm Josephine Guzman, a student at Wharton Dual Language Academy. I've prepared a spectacular speech, no thanks to the millions of worksheets that we are required to do. Anyway, that's not the main point. See, I saw I saw at least five kids the week of February 17 go to
the nurse for headaches. Now this may just be a coincidence, but it is way too rare to see. This entire school year has felt like doctor Seuss's Hueville. Crazy. Teachers have quit, and we are constantly getting visitors. My own teacher, mister Fernandez, was put on administrative leave. He would give us the autonomy to choose how we organize our work. He would still teach us everything the administrators wanted us to do. Therefore, he was doing the required and using his teaching style too. Thank you.
Okay. Our next student speaker is Hera Malik. Hera Malik has arrived. And then Eliana Gottlieb is here. So Hera Malik? Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Good evening, board members. My name is Hera Malik, and I'm a senior at Carnegie Vanguard High School. I wanna speak tonight on behalf of the teachers who can't be here today, but remain failed by this district. Strong teachers are the backbone of a student's educational outcomes. District. Strong teachers are the backbone of a student's educational outcomes, but their support and mentorship extends beyond the classroom. There are people who students rely on for a helping hand when things aren't right
at home or when it's just not your day. And I can confidently say as a student in this district for the past twelve years, that in the past two years, I have seen more teachers leave than ever before, qualified teachers at that, and the proposed teacher excellence system will only further that exodus. I truly believe that the targeted distribution system is just another chaotic evaluation tactic designed to scare staff and pit them against each other for a better rating. Why is competition being prioritized more than healthy collaboration? Classrooms are being micromanaged with scripted lessons that don't give students the individual the individualized
mentorship they need. Is this what success looks like? Is this what learning is? I urge this board to genuinely put students first and reconsider Thank you. Our next speaker is Eliana Gottlieb. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Good evening. My name is Eliana Gottlieb. I'm here to ask for guidance on how DOLs should be graded. I've been talking to other students and teachers, and there's confusion district wide. Here's my personal story about DOLs and math. Most of my algebra class is is a lecture and a follow-up worksheet. We typically have five to ten minutes left to do our DOL. The DOLs are always exactly five questions and are about what we learned that day.
Getting one wrong is an 82 wrong is a 60. My teacher uses these DOL grades as a significant portion of the final grade. Even if we do well on the regular tests and quizzes, a few bad DOLs tank our grades. This has made math extremely stressful for me and my friends. And what was once a fun and interesting subject for me is now one that I do not enjoy. I have heard at some schools, DOLs are as much as 60% of the final grade. I understand that the DOLs are supposed to help measure how well new concepts are understood. They are not tests. Please understand your lack of guidance here is negatively affecting the learning environment.
Please provide guidance on if DOL should be graded and how much of the final grade they should be. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'm checking. Emily, there's no more student speakers. Right? And none on Zoom. Okay. So we're gonna switch to our, adult speakers. Oh, Angie? You have arrived. I'm recognizing them. You've been here for a while. Okay. We're gonna start with, William Morphy who's identified as speaker number one, and then I have speakers through number eight. But if number through 10 can come forward, and then we'll we'll progress through the numbers. So sir, if you're speaker number one,
please come on up. And you can go ahead. Thank you. Thank you all for your service. I'm here to echo what a lot of these kids are saying, with with an issue that's going on at my student's school. I'm a parent at the Wharton Dual Language Academy, and we have a problem with teachers leaving. My in a recent interaction with an HISD representative, the teachers at our school were characterized by that individual as unicorns, given the fact that they need to be certified, dual language capable, versed in the International Baccalaureate system that we use at the school,
and yet we are losing these folks. They're part of our family, and Wharton is better when it stands together as family, but we need to keep these teachers around. And to the extent the evaluation system is causing them to move out, something is wrong. There's an incongruity there. We need to keep good teachers in our school, and we need some flexibility in helping them if there's some way that they're somehow falling short. Although as parents, it's tough for us to see it, to be quite candid with you, they've been around a while. But we need Thank you. Okay. Speaker number two? Speaker number two of group a.
So the next speaker I have is Michelle Williams followed by Dana Serrano and Trista Bishop Watt. So miss Williams, please. Michelle Williams speaking on behalf of myself and other teachers with 10 of certified teaching experience. I've worked under many evaluation system, but TS is by far the worst I've ever seen. It's inequitable. It penalizes teachers with high achieving students, emerging bilingual students, and, frankly, parents of children. Teachers don't know how to improve because math tests isn't aligned to the Texas curriculum.
Teachers who teach multiple subjects such as math and science are responsible for math, STAAR, and the campus improvement plan. This TES system will now attract high performing teachers, to nonNES schools and will continue to hemorrhage the hemorrhaging of experienced teachers. I have urged you to vote no to TES and to pay for performance plans so students in HISD can have a chance at Thank you. Our next speaker, please,
Dana Serrano. Good evening. My name is Doctor. Dania Serrano, and I have been an educational researcher for nearly twenty years. I'm here because I'm highly concerned about the upcoming implementation of the teacher excellence system, which will evaluate teachers based in part on students' standardized tests and math. TES will be implemented when the certified teacher workforce in Texas and HISD is already in peril. A 2024 report by the University of Houston Research Center indicated that the percentage of teachers holding a standard teaching certificate, a predictor of student success, has significantly decreased over the last decade.
HISD lost nearly half of its teachers in one summer. TES will likely make this matter worse that I see history repeating itself. Research shows that value added models based on teacher evaluations and higher test scores are biased, unreliable, invalid, unfair, and non transparent. The last time HISD took this approach, they lost a lawsuit trying to defend it. I urge the board of managers to reject punitive and convoluted means of oversight and scrutiny, instead invest in restoring teacher certification requirements and fostering teacher sense of autonomy, competence, and belonging, which are the psychological needs Thank you, ma'am. Our next speaker is Trista Bishop Watt.
Good evening. I'm Trista Bishop Watt representing Houston GPS. We applaud the continued growth in third grade reading and math. This progress is encouraging, but to meet the academic and post secondary goals set by the board, a strong teacher evaluation system is crucial for educators' professional growth, high quality instruction, and ultimately to drive student outcomes. Research consistently shows instruction from effective teachers is the most significant factor in student success, and the teacher excellence system provides a comprehensive approach to evaluating and supporting our educators. TES includes key evidence based components,
including measures focused on student growth and a rigorous evaluator certification process to ensure consistency and fairness. TES also maintains the pathway for additional funding to reward and retain effective educators through the teacher incentive allotment. Clear and thoughtful implementation of this system will be essential to its success. Ensuring that educators fully understand the process, expectations, and available supports will maximize its impact and build trust. This system is an important step forward in ensuring that all students in Thank you. Okay. Our next speaker is Joanna Guzman.
Hi. Good evening. I'm Joanna Guzman, mother to a fourth grader at Wharton Dual Language Academy and a former HISD teacher. My daughter, Josephine, spoke earlier this evening. She has been directly impacted by the unprofessional, stressful, and toxic environment that doctor doctor Veronica Saladone has helped to create since becoming a new principal this school year. We have seen the stress on our teachers' faces and heard it through our children's experiences. My daughter has spoken to me of the constant interruptions from administration and the worry that the students experience for their teachers. Her teacher, mister Fernandez, has become the collateral damage of doctor Saludon's poor management skills. I implore you all to learn more about the history of mister Fernandez's excellent teaching
career and the and the circumstances of this year with doctor Saludon that brought him to no longer be my daughter's teacher. I beg of you to complete a thorough investigation, which I have no doubt that you will see he should still be in the classroom educating our children. Teacher retention in schools across the nation is already a most difficult task, and what we have seen in HISD in the past two years around teacher retention is grotesque. You all have the power to help salvage my daughter's school year and a most important relationship. Thank you. Our next speaker is Doctor. Denise Wilborn. Doctor Wilborn.
Page eight of the TES guidebook, page 32 of the agenda packet. Research has shown that on the spot coaching, also known as in the moment coaching, can be highly effective in improving teacher practices and student outcomes. From the same referenced and cited research of Kraft, Blaser, and Hogan's meta analysis of 60 studies revised in twenty seventeen, one, although these findings affirm the potential of coaching as a development tool, further analysis illustrates the challenges of taking coaching programs to scale with maintain effectiveness.
Two, the total hours of coaching, we fail to find any evidence in support of the hypothesis that coaching must be high dosage to be effective. Three, an approach taken by many districts is to fill coaching in teaching evaluation systems. Research suggests that having the same person serve as a coach and evaluator. Thank you. Our next speaker is Nancy Podish. Yes, ma'am. Hi. My name is Nancy Putsch, and I am a mother of two beautiful children that attend HISD. The last time I was here, I was concerned about the principal and teacher turnover in HISD.
There are many reasons for this, but I wanna focus on the teacher evaluations that many parents do not seem to be aware of. We were told that spot checks occur on a monthly basis. However, what parents pause you, ma'am. I'm sorry. The the kids up front and could y'all just stand I I'm having trouble focusing on what you're saying. Oh, okay. Kids, would you mind just standing over here altogether? Thank you. Okay. Let's start from the top. K? Okay. Thank you. We were told that spot checks were on a monthly basis. However, parent what parents don't know is that there's still observations going on,
sometimes multiple times a week. I have yet to hear arguments about how this benefits teachers and students. We have teachers in kinder that have no TAs helping them, teachers with dirty floors and carpets that they sometimes have to clean because resources are tight at these schools, and now they have to worry about getting graded on an evaluation system that seems to not take into account the schools' autonomy levels. So it's no wonder that these teachers are worn out. I read an article recently, and I quote, HISD is giving some principal stipends of up to to 11,250
for limiting enrollment declines on their campuses. I have a better idea. Ask Mike Miles to resign. Thanks. Thank you. Our next speaker is Melissa Yarbrough, and then I have Mindon Tran as our next speaker. Good evening. The superintendent says that HISD teachers had low expectations for kids experiencing poverty and that he is here to save them with his high expectations. Sorry. Wow. This false rationale is the whole basis of removing experienced teachers and, doing this strange experiment to replace them with unqualified novices and a scripted curriculum.
What he either fails to understand or refuses to tell you is that he is the one with the low expectations for kids in poverty. We ELA teachers, we expected all our kids to students to read entire novels, to discuss them deeply, to create and share their ideas. Now he came in and turned it all to test prep, daily test prep, and he'll give teachers low evaluations if they tried to hold kids to those high expectations that we intrinsically do. So we don't need an unqualified superintendent.
Thank you, ma'am. To reduce their education to Thank you. Star test present. Thank you. Thank you, miss Yarborough. Okay. Miss Mindon Tran? Is she? Minh Dawn Tran? Hi. Minh Dawn Tran, HISD teacher. Paper for for performance does not work, period. Schools are not businesses and should not be treated like businesses. Schools are communities. Schools succeed when teachers, students, families, and administrators collaborate with students' best interests in mind. The proposed teacher evaluation system seeks to have teachers compete with one another rather than work together toward a common goal.
By rewarding a few teachers and threatening the rest with termination, you're going to see teachers hiding resources, hoarding materials, and not helping their colleagues. Who would wanna help their competition at the risk of losing their own job? You lose the community when you threaten the community. You didn't get real input from teachers about this evaluation system. Your fake survey didn't give teachers any real choice. It was like choosing if you preferred to be eaten by sharks or electrocuted by a sinking boat. Bring back consultation with the union so that the professional teachers can have input on how we teach our kids. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. That concludes the speakers who are present for the a group. So next, we're gonna move to the those folks who are on Zoom. So I think, miss Smith, I don't know who you wanna call first, but go for it. We also have two students on Zoom. Oh, okay. Great. Are we gonna do them first? Mhmm. Okay. Hurry up. Naya. Naya. Do you work? Sorry. Yes. Just give us one minute. He was bleeding and had to go back. Here, Naya. Okay. Hold it. Here you go,
Dina. Okay. Go ahead, Naya. My name is Naya, and I am nine years old. I love my teachers because they help me learn and grow. But the teacher x excellence system, t e s, is not fair to them. It makes it it makes teachers compete instead of working together. This doesn't make sense. Mister Mario, you are acting like this is a chess game and you are the king. The king has power, but it's not very useful because he can only do one tiny step at a time. You are changing the rules of the game to to move however you want.
But guess what? Pawns can make a difference too, and no matter how much power and money you have, we will still stand up for what's right. We need teachers who help each other, not ones forced to compete. If we don't change TES, good teachers will lead, and we, the students, will be the ones who lose. Please do what's right to fix this. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone. Adida Sage Bittner. Okay. Hey, Star. We need to see you. Can you turn your camera on? We need you to turn on your camera so we can see you, so we can get started. Are
we on with the Bittner folks? Mhmm. Maria Benzon. Yeah. Miss Benzon, can you fix your camera? We can't see you. Do you wanna come back? Let's come back. Okay. I'm using it. Okay. What's that? Are there any other student speakers? No. No. Okay. Let's go on to another Zoom speaker. Okay. Well Nope. It looks like we're not Okay. Miss Benson, was Adida Sage wanting to utilize her a minute? Let's come back. They seem like they're out of zone. Okay. There's no Wi Fi or something. Let's see. I'm so it's mentally muted.
I'm so sorry. Are we okay now? I'm so sorry. No. You're breaking up. So we're gonna give you a chance to maybe get to better Wi Fi, and then we'll come back. So stay tuned. Good. I'm I'm logged in. I was there. If you wanna have a DSSH can use mine. Yes. Hi, Shannon. Swoop. Shannon swoop. Shannon swoop, can you turn your camera on? Sorry. Coming. Hi. Please go ahead. Okay. Sure. Shannon Swoop. I see a newly added item for auditing of purchasing process, assuming this is the $1,000,000
oopsies that, Mike Miles, and administration had. My concern here is focusing on the purchasing process. While that's important, it's definitely missing the mark. We are wasting resources to review transactions and paperwork, clearly lies in the process, not in the process, but the behavior of the personnel. It is the actions, the attitudes, and the ethical decision making of individuals that shape how processes are carried out. No amount of scrutiny on purchases can address the cause of inefficiencies and corruptions. Please prioritize this audit on personnel behavior,
examining accountability, decision making, and whether employees are upholding the values and integrity and transparency that you should demand. By authenticating the personnel, we address the human element that really drives the effectiveness of this process. Only then can we ensure that purchases are executed ethically and with the assistance of the agency. Let's not get lost in the details and forget the, bigger, picture. Lack of concern and disrespect. Okay. Are we going back to, Clyde Bittner, if you could unmute yourself and begin. Okay. Hi. My name is Clyde Bittner. I'm a parent of an HISD student and a proud graduate of the high school
for the performing in visual arts. My teachers nurtured my love for music, shaping my future and leading me to sing in the Houston Symphony Chorus for over twenty years. Since the takeover, teachers are scared of getting bad spot scores instead of focusing on inspiring students. They scramble to put on the dog and pony show before district visits, hiding novels and following scripted lessons just to avoid punishment. This fear based system crushed creativity, drives great teachers away. Now HISD wants to make it worse with bell curve evaluation system, pitting teachers against each other instead of lifting them up.
Great teachers know their subjects, their students, and how to spark real learning. They need trust and support, not arbitrary rankings. For the future of our kids and our schools, please vote no on item three. Thank you. Thank you. We have speakers 10 through 15 in person. Do what? Speakers 10 through 15 have arrived in person. Okay. I have And we've fixed no more on Zoom. Adidas, Sage and Ben Zong? No? Okay. Okay. Speaker number 11, I'm sorry. That's not right. 10. 10. Megan Hocom. Doctor. Yes, ma'am. Hi. Thank you. Good evening.
My name is doctor Megan Hocom. I have a graduate degree in public education policy as well as a PhD in k through twelve education administration. But more importantly, I'm a parent and a former employee of HISD. I'm here speaking on behalf of parents, students, and community members of West Briar Middle School. Our school is in crisis. Since the TEA takeover, Westbrier has faced relentless instability, teachers are leaving, leadership is inconsistent, and morale is at an all time low. A thriving school is built on stability, community, and trust, yet those have been systematically dismantled at Westbrier.
Parents, students, and teachers have voiced concerns repeatedly, but we are ignored. On March 7, we sent a letter outlining these issues signed by nearly over 400 parents, students, and invested community members. We kept student and staff names anonymous to protect them from retaliation. HISD leadership can no longer dismiss this as just a loud few voices. The time for action is now. Thank you. Our next speaker is, Anna Heinzelman, number 11. And if numbers twelve and thirteen wouldn't mind coming forward. Yes, ma'am. Please go ahead. Hi. My name is doctor Anna Heintzelman.
I'm a professor, and I'm a parent at West Broward Middle School. We are alarmed by the ineffective and damaging treatment of staff, which has created a punitive and bullying culture. After the forced resignation of our principal last year, turnover reached 47%. This year, we expect even more losses, including veteran teachers who and administrators who have been critical to Westbrier's success. These educators bring years of experience, strong communal community relationships, and deep institutional knowledge, yet they are being dismissed. Forced and rigid lesson structures and given little flexibility to meet their students' diverse needs.
Staffing levels have dropped to just 79% of what they were last year. Our teachers deserve respect. They deserve support, not policies that drive them away. HIC must take immediate action to stop the exodus of these qualified teachers. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kelly Bleaker. Kelly Bleaker, parent. This teacher exodus directly harms our students. Since last year, Westfire has lost its social worker and wraparound specialist. Now nearly 1,000 students are left with just one guidance counselor.
We've lost a reading interventionist, three special education teaching assistants, and a special education teacher. The consequences are clear. Fewer adults to supervise students, more disciplinary issues, and reduced support for academic, emotional, and behavioral needs. Safety has taken a hit too. With insufficient staff, critical areas like the cafeteria and drop off zones lack proper supervision. Are these cuts about budgets, mismanagement, or both? HISD must address the root cause of this crisis. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Brooke Longoria. I have speaker of Brooke Longoria. Are you Ms. Shay Nagle? Okay. 13. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Shay Nagle, West Briar parent, certified English teacher. Instead of receiving a well rounded education, students are stuck in endless test prep. Engaging lessons have been replaced with lengthy, error ridden packets. Teachers are unable to adjust instruction to meet students' needs because of a rigid one size fits all schedule forced across all subjects. Students report wildly inconsistent instruction.
How can we expect them to succeed when the system is working against them? HISD claims teachers have autonomy while forcing them into scripted lessons. The district is stripping away real learning and replacing it with standardized worksheets and AI generated materials. This is not education. It is neglect. Our next speaker is Nicole Perry. Hi. My name is Nicole Perry. I'm a concerned parent of my daughter at Westbrier, and I have a child at Westside as well. We demand immediate action from HISD. Support teachers by addressing the toxic work culture,
publish a real retention plan, and balance accountability with trust. Prioritize student learning. Allow teachers to differentiate instruction. Stop the overreliance on testing prep, and restore whole child education. Provide transparency, share a staffing comparison from last year, explain the budget changes, and present a clear plan to stabilize Westbrier Middle School. These are not radical demands. These are the bare minimum expectations for a functioning school. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michelle Jackson.
Michelle Jackson, concerned parent at Westbrier Middle School. Westbrier is deteriorating, and we refuse to let it continue. Parents, students, and teachers have spoken. HISD cannot continue dismissing us. This is not just a Westbrier issue. It is an HISD issue. If it's happening here, it's happening elsewhere. Leadership instability, excessive staff turnover, and harmful policies are weakening schools across the district. On March 7, we sent a letter outlining these concerns signed by nearly 400 members of our community. West Division chief Casey Bailey's response acknowledges turnover,
but ignores its causes. It claims teachers have autonomy while enforcing rigid mandates. It points to outside support while failing to address the staffing crisis. HISD leadership insists everything is fine, but the bond referendum failed. Student sick outs made headlines, and now these numbers prove otherwise. Words are not enough. HISD must act now to do what is right for our Thank you. Okay. Miss Smith, were we able to get, Adita Sage, miss Benzon on or no? What's that? I don't know. Are they, like, on somebody else's phone or something?
Okay. I mean, if you can identify, let's get them on and they can yeah. That's fine. Give me one minute while waiting for this. Okay. This is our last one. Okay. Hi, Adida. Go ahead, sweetie. Hi. My name is Adida St. Smitner, and I'm the fifth grader at Condit Elementary. My teacher makes learning fun. And because of her, I want to be a neuroscientist. My teacher under helps me understand my emotions, think creatively, solve problems, and grow my confidence. But if teachers are judged by a system that doesn't measure what really matters, we'll just we'll lose more great teachers.
I want a teacher who cares about me, not just about some test scores and spot scores. But if teachers are ranked against each other on a bell curve, that's not fair. It forces them to compete instead of working together to help all kids succeed. Imagine if students were graded on a bell curve. Some of us would have to fail even when we if we worked hard. That would be unfair. Schools should be a place where teachers have learned or kids and teachers grow, not be forced into a mean ranking system.
Teachers need support and trust, not a system that discourages them. Please vote for item three. Thank you. Okay. Is doctor Benz on? No? Okay. Alright. I think that is all of our speakers for tonight. Thank you very much. Tonight we have a public hearing posted for 5PM for a discussion of the Texas academic performance report as required by Texas Education Code 39.306 c. Superintendent, you have the floor. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't see you. Come on up. Sorry. Okay. Okay. My name is Guy Buford.
I'm from Key Middle School. Thirty four years of of teaching. Love teaching. I my salary has been cut by $19,000 by $19,000. When you first came here, you said that the people in the first eight NES school, the salaries would not go down. I should have a tape recorder so that I could keep that, but my salary has gone down. I was making, 75, then I was making 81, then I was making 90. Now I'm down to $71,000. Treat my salary like it's yours.
That doesn't make any sense. If you don't think I deserve that, I do. I don't think you deserve the salary that you make. But does but does that make any difference? Give me my years that I've been working. Thirty four years. I deserve that as a teacher, not because what somebody else think. I need Thank you, sir. Okay. That that concludes our speakers in group a. Superintendent, you've got the floor on the academic report. Yes. I'm going to ask Justin to come to the podium and show a few slides. Thank you. Yeah.
Go ahead. You're introducing yourself. Right? Just My name is Justin Smith, and I serve as executive director of assessment, accountability and compliance here at HISD. And my team coordinates and puts this, report together and publishes it. And so we just wanna do a brief this is a public hearing about our district annual report. The largest of that is TAPER, which is, required by, Texas education code, chapter 39. This code the this report is put together at both the state, the district, and the region level. It includes information about,
PEIMS as well as student assessment data and is disaggregated, with different student groups, including racial, students with disabilities, eco disc, as well as ELL and ED. The full report is available on our HISD website on the assessment, accountability, and compliance website. And when you look at that report, it will include these eight sections, and it will, be a full report. And you can download it, and it's available. Is there anything you wanna highlight about it? More than it's it's a very large a very large document with a lot of there's a lot of financial information,
a lot of information about our campus improvement plans. And so there's nothing, specific that we wanna highlight about it, but that it's available for everybody's feet. Okay. Any questions, comments, concerns? Alright. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you. Okay. We're going to move on to item number one, the acceptance of Board monitoring update presentation of goal one, progress measure 1.2 and goal two, progress measure 2.2. Superintendent Miles, is that you or somebody on your team? Thank you. Madam Vice President,
members of the Board, I'm here to, to cover the progress monitoring reports, 1.2 or goal progress measures one point two and two point two. Just as backdrop, for our goals, the NWEA MAP assessments we took in January, end of January, beginning of February, And we have the results, and you've had some other reports about it. What's important here tonight is that we look at the meets and or exceeds grade level, which is an achievement, not so much a growth measure, but an achievement measure of proficiency.
And so it's correlated to the STAR exam, and so that's why we chose it as a, growth progress measure. So 1.2, you see there on the on the screen I'm gonna get this larger here. 1.2, as you can see on the screen, is reading for NWEA third grade. And you'll note that we started with our 18% end of year, and then would reach 38% in May 2028. Started with 18% beginning of the year because we didn't have an end of year report at that time.
The end of year was '20 '4 the first year, and we're still trying to reach our goal of 38%. This is meets grade level in reading for NWEA. What you should note on the right hand side are two things. One is the middle of the year compared to last middle of the year. And so at this point, last year or close to this point last year, we we all students had 22% meets grade level, and this year that is now 38%.
Now when you compare the middle of the year, remember this is an end of year target, and we're giving you the middle of the year, of course, but end of year target is 23. We're already above that. So you can see the difference between where we are right now. We're already 15 points above, the end of year. So at some point, we may have to bring this back to the board, but right now, those are the targets that the board set, and that's where we are. What's good about this data is that you can see that in our subgroup data,
our subgroups are also doing really well. Our black students and Hispanic students in particular were 20 points over the end of year targets already and 15 points, respectively. So we're hoping our end of year targets are even higher for great, for meets and exceeds grade level. So this is a proficiency measure. The next slide breaks it down a little bit more, and you can see there on on the left hand side where they are proficiency wise. So our students in the PUA schools,
that's the gold bar, are higher proficient, have higher proficiency than our NES, students. On the right hand side, you can see the change though from one year to the next, and our NES students are doing stronger change or improvement in proficiency from one year to the next. That's reading. Some of the reasons, we've we've talked about these things before, and it's not any one thing that will help us get to where we need to be. All the things you see there, we've talked about before, but what I want to emphasize tonight is that it's all of the above.
It's not just the instruction. It's also the curriculum. It's the science of reading focus. It's the expansion of the dual language model. It's the supports that NES provides. It's the ensuring that you have teacher apprentices. It's all of the above put together that helps us get the results we've been getting. 2.2 is very similar. This is about math, though. Again, there's a good correlation between the meets grade level in in as calculated by NWEA and the star meets grade
level. So that's why we use that as a progress measure. And so the, progress measure specifically here is math. And in going from end of year to end of year, we need to get to 32% in May 2028. And you can see in math the same thing. If you look on the right hand side, the two columns, middle of the year now compared to middle of the year a year ago are the two columns where we see MOI. And this year at as far as proficiency goes, we're higher by by 11 points from last year.
Relative to end of year target, we're already above it. We're above it by 15, all students. Our Black students, fourteen percent. Our Hispanic students, fifteen percent. And our white students twenty, 24%. So even our subgroups, all students is good and our subgroups are are strong. If you look at this again, the left hand side is where are they with regard to proficiency? And our PUA schools, you can see, are outpacing our NES schools, and that's been the case for a while. Although NES growing
from one year to the next in proficiency is pretty impressive. So we're we're growing out. The subgroups are outgrowing our, top performers, although our top performers in proficiency, are much higher. And, again, the the reasons are very similar in math as they are in language arts. And except in this case, it's not so much about the science of reading. It is about having a good curriculum, good instructional materials, making sure those PowerPoints and the materials are tied tightly to the TEKS. Good quality instruction is probably the number one reason and then all the supports that
come with that good quality instruction. And so that is my progress monitoring report for today. Thank you. I'll open it up for questions, comments. Anybody? Mister Revan. Thank you, sir, for the presentation. Always good to see our students progressing in in the very ways that they do. My concern tonight is more about predictors of success and making sure that what we share is helping us to, inform decisions about how we go forward and how we improve things from here.
So whether or not we're exceeding our expectations from where we started, there might be noise in the number just because we didn't know our starting point. However, I do I want to make sure that we stay focused on the goal, which in one respect we did achieve last year, in one respect we didn't, and that the focus around our monitoring is intended to help us predict. And so, yep, we're we're going to hit the goal. And so I I know that we've got some working groups,
scheduled, to have conversations about that. I wonder also whether or not, NWA has done any analysis on that noise at some level, to see now that we know we've got correlation sort of where we how we should be thinking about that? So the correlation between, grade level meets grade level or above and STAAR has been done by NWA and that's why we actually can report that. Not all states have that because their tests aren't all correlated, but this one is correlated. So that meets grade level and above is correlated to STAAR.
You're absolutely right. There was noise in the beginning because we didn't know where we would end the year. We started with beginning of the year data and then we set targets. And if we in a perfect world, we would have waited till the end of year target. Thank you. End of year target to say, okay, five years from now where we should be. So we're gonna try to correct some of that. You'll see that in the next presentation, and the and the you've been on the committee and others have have looked at it, so that we can adjust the rigor because already beating 32,
while that's good that's good for our students. I mean, that's real growth. That's real achievement, but we want to keep pushing. And so if we're already beating the 32, then we should set a higher target. So that we're going to bring that to the board as well here shortly. And I think if the board is willing, as we go along in the next couple of years, if we see that the it's like steady state, like, we might adjust it too high or just too low, but we'll hit the right thing after a number of tests.
If the board's willing to make it even higher, if we're already hitting the end goal, then we'll do that. But these these are done based on what the board said, and we didn't wanna change those arbitrarily. And hopefully, the board will look at the changes we're gonna bring later today. Any other questions, comments? Yes. Thank you. A lot of good news in this, progress measure report. So thank you. The item that, if you'll go on the in the presentation to the, administration response, for a reading, I think, because it's similar.
The root cause the root cause. Yeah. Analysis and key actions. So I, appreciate the emphasis around the, point that these need to work these work together. Right? That you you can't just do one of these things and and move towards the type of outcome improvements that we that we see. The the one that I I'd like to understand better on how the administration thinks about this is is around the additional supports for NES and the focus 25. The idea there as I understand it,
so correct me if I'm wrong, is that those additional supports including adults, you know, in the school, right, are what are helping to increase the improve the outcomes for our students. That's one that has a direct tie to to dollars. Right? Number of people in the school. That's right. And so my my concern there and and there's, I guess, different ways to look at this, but if we we think about the sustainability of this model and how we're gonna do this in the future, also the idea that we have our POA model where we don't have those adults.
And I think that I was reminded of this with some of the community comments around concerns around, let's say, maybe not having enough people in the school. So what is the administration's view on on this? Because in one case, I see this as it's investment. It's investment in our in in our schools that have needed, additional help, have lacked investment in the past. But at the same time, we know that we're in a very economically challenging environment. So as we think about the upcoming budget and discussions like that, I'd appreciate understanding some more around how we're going to manage this.
How much does this piece of of the, this piece of the puzzle, you know, contribute to student outcomes? And when we start to potentially pull this back, what negative, you know, how could that negatively, you know, impact our students and so on? Yeah. Those are really important questions. Let me take a stab at an answer. You're right to point out as I have too that all of these things fit together. It's not just one thing. You're focused the question focuses on the supports like learning coaches and teacher apprentices,
for example. And, yes, that's a big part of the additional cost to of NES. It's the additional people. There's a footnote on that. Let me just say right now, and then we'll get back to the the point. The footnote on that is the the the staffing model that we use for NES is tight or or rigorous and frugal in the total number of FTE. In other words, if you you could, in many of the, non NES schools, refigure the staffing model to have apprentices,
but you wouldn't have other people doing other things. You might have fewer office managers. You might have you might not have a testing coordinator. You you might not have an additional elective teacher. I mean, there's many other things that we could do, but we have defined autonomy around there. Still having said that, there's no question that the teacher apprentices that and learning coaches that the NES schools have is additional FTE, and costs some money. What is the degree to which the the the outcomes would be gotten if without
the apprentices and and learning coaches? The model is designed with teacher apprentices in mind. It's a different staffing model, and I don't think we would get as high results without, teacher apprentices and learning coaches. We would get high results because of the other things. Also, curriculum, real good focus on quality instruction and things like that. Yes. And differentiated instruction, the model is good using using team centers, but it wouldn't be as good without the teacher apprentices. One of the biggest things, for example, with teacher apprentices is we don't have substitutes,
in the in the 30 NES schools or very, very rarely would we have one, maybe at the high school because the eleventh and twelfth grade are not covered by the apprentices. But in the elementary and middle, we don't have substitutes at all, and, that's a good thing because when there is a need for a sub, the teacher apprentices already knows the students. They already have the curriculum. It's already provided for them. They just step right in, and you wouldn't be able to tell a a teacher apprentice from a teacher at that point. And so that's been a good thing.
You don't have to combine classes, etcetera, etcetera. So that's that's been great, and it is a good thing. Long term, if and and we talked about this, and so I I don't know if, an NES school would ever choose by themselves to to go back to non NES. I doubt they would. If you're gonna get an a and b status for three years in a row with teacher apprentices, with higher salaries, with learning coaches, with the curriculum provided for you, why would you go back and lose that? So I doubt that's going to happen.
Is it sustainable? You'll see in the in the documents that we have prepared for you for the sustainability, discussion of the budget. It's certainly sustainable as it is today. Will it be sustainable if we add 20 NAS schools? We would have to I don't know is the answer to that question because we didn't run the analysis for that because we're not doing that at this point. So it is sustainable. What can we do for non NES schools with regard to teacher apprentices or learning coaches if we think that is part of the difference?
So a couple of things. For the special focus schools, as we, get resources without making them NES now here's here's another footnote I just wanna make sure we're clear on. If a special focus school drops to an F, we will probably make them NES as long as there's no more than five because the budget for next year, we want to be conservative on. But there's 25 special focus schools. Without making them any s, what can we do? One of the things we can do is provide some teacher apprentices that we've already
talked about that. So we'll look closely at our budgets and the need in the school. We may trim down extra programs and others to pay for that from those special focus schools, because in NES world, there are no extra programs like, you know, a special after school tutoring program. There's no differentiated, you know, instruction program. It is just in the model itself. Anyway, we we may be adding, teacher apprentices to those schools and maybe, you know, depending on how well these teacher apprentices show in those schools,
the other NES the the other non NES schools, we may consider, adding resources to those schools so that they could do teacher apprentices if they wanted to. May may I clarify one more thing? Related to that, I think, is is the, concept, I think, that that I've under that I've heard many talk about, which is, smaller class size leads to better outcomes for students. And so if the ratio of student to teacher is lower, in this case, because of the apprentice and the teacher in the classroom,
is that comparable to the argument for a smaller class size? Is that what we're doing there? So yes and no. The the class size that we shoot for for NES is still 25 to one, and the the PUA schools have some leeway in that. So some of them have smaller class sizes, some some a little larger. But you're right. While a teacher apprentice is there now remember, there's only one teacher apprentice for every hundred students, so every classroom does not have a teacher apprentice. And there's one learning coach for every hundred students, so even then,
every classroom does not have either a learning coach or a teacher apprentice. And they do they have different roles and responsibilities, especially during the second half of the class where the learning coaches are in the team center. So it is good to have an extra support person, some of them certified, many of them not. I'm talking about teacher apprentices. They're working towards certification, most of them. And so it's good to have that extra support in the classroom and that, in a sense, lowers class size. But they're not it's not like having two teachers with with 12 kids each instead
of one teacher with 24 kids. It's not exactly like that. One more clarification, please. So to to make sure I understand what you're saying, is it correct to take away that for in the POA model then because of the autonomy that schools would have, they could choose to shape the model in a way that starts to resemble a an apprenticeship type model like we have in NES? They they couldn't they couldn't replicate it exactly like NES because they wouldn't have enough money to do that. But they they could have two or three teacher apprentices.
It it's a matter of what they choose to how they staff and what programs they buy. Thanks. I just there's there's a point here, I guess, I wanna make sure I understand, which is if this is a model, right, where we wanna show that this is a model that is working for kids, and and we know that districts around The US are looking at us. I'm hoping to understand a bit better, what what pieces and parts, you know, districts might be looking at and saying, oh, I I wanna copy the, you know, the these items here on the board, but I can't do it all. Therefore, I'm gonna try to do the top three,
but I can't do number four. Yeah. That I mean, that's that's good thinking. And, yes, there are numerous districts across the country looking at NES. And I try to answer the question, and it's hard because I keep saying it's, you know, it's a system. But if you had to do two things, focus on the quality of instruction, number one, and that usually doesn't cost that much. It costs effective training consistently applied across the system, and number two, teach your apprentices. The staffing model is important,
and then the question becomes, well, how do we pay for it? And the and the answer is you prioritize, you know, the effectiveness of the of the classroom teaching and the quality of instruction. So, you know, you have to cut central office staff or do whatever you have to do, but you prioritize that. Okay. Yes. Doctor Arnold. Thank you. I wanna, ask for you to remind me, under the model, why teacher apprentices don't cover eleventh and twelfth grade? Because the LS the the teacher apprentices are most helpful with the what we call the LSE model,
that part where it's differentiated. So it and and usually, it's teacher apprentices in in schools where a whole bunch of kids are struggling. In the high school, even in even in the NES orbit, there's the eleventh and twelfth grade are not your typical, you know, ninety minute class in the core subjects. We're that's where we have the teacher apprentices and the and the learning coaches. And many of them are doing the specialized electives or career tech ed, CCMR, those courses, or they're, you know, on they're doing internships.
And so that group of students, eleventh and twelfth grade, don't have the same need for the supports as in ninth and tenth graders. That that's why. Any other Mr. Martinez? Thank you, ma'am. Help me understand, Superintendent, on Page five, figure seven, and make sure I understand it correctly. When we look at PUA campuses, we're actually seeing a decrease in percentage change. Am I interpreting that correctly? Yes. So one point for our white students and one point for our EcoDITS in the PUA schools.
Do we have any hypothesis as to why that may be occurring? And again, it's granted it's one point, but it's still not growing, right? So is there a hypothesis or reason why that may be occurring at the PUA campuses? No. I don't have a hypothesis. I I would say at one point, there's nothing to worry about when you're when you're already at 81% meets and exceeds grade level. And so that's that's why I mean, it's up there already high to begin with. So change from one year to next is a little harder. Yes. And the reason I hear what you're saying.
The reason I'm also obviously concerned is last year, we weren't able to make it, but obviously, we see improvement in middle of the year. With regard to our goal, we actually decreased by one percentage point. So all that's one, it's still one, right? And so I think that's important. And I see kind of the similar trend on Slide, Page nine, Figure 12, when we talk about, math, again, we're seeing improvement, but the PUA campuses are not seeing and granted again, NES campuses are not as proficient, so we're going to see that opportunity to grow a little bit more. But again, just hypothesis there. Yes. I mean,
I'll try to choose my words carefully, so I don't get anybody angry for no reason. But, the focus on instruction and the differentiated instruction makes a huge difference. And so in the in the NES schools, while while we have done things across the board, which people have gotten angry about as far as improving the quality of instruction, there's no question that in the NES orbit that the focus and the feedback and the the supports on instruction are, are are intense but also effective,
as well as differentiated instruction. Yeah. And those are things that any school could do. I mean, a non NA school could choose to use a model that differentiates instruction for the kids who are behind because oftentimes, even at 81%, there's probably a gap, right, an achievement gap of sorts. And so maybe the kids who are behind need differentiated instruction. They're not getting that generally in the PUA schools versus the NES schools. So the model works it actually works for all kids.
It's a strong instructional model and strong differentiated model, And that's probably why you see the difference. Sounds good. I'm trying to just think about as we move forward, I think one of the questions, Janet brought up was just about like additional resources we could provide for PUA campus. And I think while we're still giving them their autonomy, right, I don't want this to be a conversation where we're going to now implement any asset PUA because that's not what the community wants, that's not what I want, and that's the autonomy that's been kind of promised as well. But I think it is important for me as we move forward that we consider
these these opportunities to, to at least clarify what resources are available at the PUA campuses or how they can change their model because I think that that's the big thing. But with the one thing I would also ask is as we move forward, again, we're only in year two, but that we identify if there are things to identify, but how we could differentiate because because what I hear and what I see sometimes, superintendent, is that, yes, quality of instruction is important. And we said that since the very beginning, right, that you you we were gonna do that. But are we perhaps with some of the things that we're implementing at NES schools
and then also implementing at PUA campuses, Are we impacting them negatively by trying to kind of require that PUA campus also kind of mimic some things of of NES? Like, I said, that's the question. Yeah. And I think, the the one thing first of all, the data doesn't bear out a a lot of negative impact. We went from 93 a and b schools to a 70. You just saw the children at risk report highlight many of our top schools. There's a ERG report that's out. I'd send it to the board that highlights many of our top schools.
Our top schools are still our top schools. And, you know, so the the the part that does intersect is when we talk about instruction. Yep. And, you know, and and we're talking about just basic instruction. Basic meaning this. I can't walk into a school and neither can any of the instructional leaders walk into any school anywhere in the world, including in HISD's two hundred seventy three schools, and see a teacher who's not engaging kids where the kids are just doing whatever, sitting on the teacher's desk and the teacher's sitting back with his heels up and
kids not doing anything, we're not gonna do that. So if that is what is meant by, yes, we're gonna make sure that. That's not NES. That's just good quality instruction. And so, that's that's what we're going to enforce throughout. But, there has not been much else on the a and b campuses that are that violates their defined autonomy. In fact, you haven't heard much from the community regarding the defined autonomy violations. The instructions, the only part and that in even in the defined a timely document says that's a non negotiable in this district.
We're going to have good quality instruction. So, having said that, as we get out of our budget hole and hopefully, we'll bring the board a balanced budget or clear balanced budget this year, as the board hopes that that we will or is encouraging us to do, as we do that, as we finally get increases to the basic allotment and money from the state, which has not been coming for five years, as we dig out of the ESSER misuse of money, we will be able to provide the PUA schools and non NES schools with additional
dollars to do instructional things. Right now, you'll see when we bring it to the board, we're gonna we're gonna continue to pay for some things that are really important for the nonNES schools, like the curriculum, IB program, AP exams, magnet subsidies, small school stuff. We're doing that anyway. And that's that is also money to help non NES schools do what they need to do to improve their programming. So we'll do that. You know, unfortunately, we're in tight budget times, and we're gonna have to bring a balanced budget. And to be fair,
we got we got a little spoiled during during ESSER. And so, let me just cut to the chase and say, in the in the end, I think it will be prudent for the district to provide more instructional money for the PUA schools to do what they think is best. And with just one last comment, one last comment. With regard to root cause analysis, I think what might be helpful for me is if we could perhaps differentiate by sub hops. And again, a lot of these things impact all of the students. And the reason I say that is because probably if I was to look at the root cause analysis over the last three
months, four months, it's the same one every month, it's the same thing. So just be able to kind of identify some things month to month when we review these things. That may be helpful for me. Okay. Any other comments, questions, concerns? I have just one thing. When, I think you're on slide five. Can we go to that real quick? And this is somewhat related to, Mr. Martinez's comment. But, if we just look at, by way of example, the economically disadvantaged numbers of kids, we can see that the the number of kids in NES schools that are economically
disadvantaged is very close to the number in the PUA schools, which is, for me, where this concern, about making sure that we're supporting those kids in the best way we can. Because I know one point decline in in the Hispanic population on on English that's shown on this slide. It may be a rounding error, frankly, but but we wanna make sure that those kids are also supported. And the EcoDisc who lost a point, they're not performing well, so we want them to perform well too even in our PUA schools. So I think that's,
I think it's worth looking at that issue. Yes. And I keep in keep in mind, we're we're pretty prescriptive in the NAS orbit, and we're prescriptive because there's so many kids who are behind. Right. And we have a differentiated model because there's so many kids who are behind, and those things work. We're not able to be as prescriptive and nor should we in the in the a and b schools, because it defined autonomy, and that's a good thing. Mhmm. Where it might not be as good,
one portion, is on the kids who are so far behind the achievement gap. So you notice in the defined autonomy, we say that if there is a a gap in achievement, we we still don't take their autonomy away, but we ask them to address it in their action plans. And we oversee it a little bit more, but, again, we're not gonna be prescriptive on how you close the achievement gap. What is required is high quality instruction for the kids and their strongest teachers teaching the kids who are furthest behind, and not too many teach not too many schools wanna do that.
They wanna keep their strongest teachers in their IB or the AP or whatever, honors courses, etcetera. The other thing that's important is to use a differentiated model for those kids. Use additional interventions during the school day, like Zern or a Mirror or something like that. That's also what's required to get kids the gap closed. So I suspect that one point or that I mean and that that's not a lot, and we've recognized that. But if you wanna move that up, then you're probably gonna have to do some things for the kids who are most behind. That's that's the answer.
And so we wanna be we wanna be reserved in in how we approach that and do a lot of coaching and training, but not a lot of insistence. K. Anything else? Okay. Thank you very much. So we are going to move forward, and I don't know. Do we need to hit my computer? Okay. Do I have a motion to accept the board monitoring update presentation of gold one progress measure 1.2 and gold two progress measure 2.2? I have a motion by doctor Arnold and a second by miss Limner.
Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Oh, mine's freaking out. Okay. Let's see if this works. Okay. Motion passes six in favor to absent. Next, I, we're gonna be talking about agenda item two, and I am asking for a motion to accept item number two, report from the board audit committee chair, including the final activity funds process report. I have a motion by Mr. Martinez and a second from Ms. Flowers. Is there any discussion about this item? Or did you, as chair, wanna say something about it?
I'll just add, we've included the latest audit committee report in the agenda. So if anyone had any questions on that, I'm happy to address this here. And just as a clarification, for those paying attention, we did have two reports that were presented in the most recent audit committee meeting. But the, extra duty pay report that was presented as draft, was, not presented today for acceptance because the department wishes to add some additional information to their management response.
So not a concern from an audit committee perspective. We appreciate that they're paying close attention to that and taking the guidance and advice that they've been that's been received. So that'll just be presented the next meeting or the next time we can get that on the agenda. Thank you. Anything for Ms. Lindner? Okay. We have a motion by mister Martinez and a second by miss Flowers. If there's no further discussion, please vote. Okay. Motion passes six in favor. Next, we will consider the remaining action items on the agenda.
Board policy requires that board members abstain from all discussion and votes pertaining to contracts that might involve a conflict of interest. Board policy BBFA local defines a conflict of interest as any circumstance that could cast doubt on a board member's ability to act with total objectivity with regard to the district's interest. We have three items that are withheld from the consent agenda. We're gonna start with item number three, approval of the teacher excellence system for school year 2025 to 2026 implementation. Do I have a motion to approve this item? Have a motion by Miss Flowers and a second by Miss Lindner.
Are there any questions or comments regarding this agenda item? Mr. Martinez? Thank you. Let me just say that I'll repeat what we said last time during our last workshop that this is takes a lot of work, to get this much feedback from 3,000 participants. So I think overall, you did an excellent job, your team as well, of making sure that voices were heard, from all teachers, whether that's core subjects or, electives. So thank you for doing that. It takes a lot of work. And we also got input from SDMCs, which is comprised of parents as well. So that was good as well.
I do have a couple of questions for you. So I I know a couple of changes and I wanted to discuss them. I think they were providing the final draft updates in which I I'm I'm glad that they were out there. Specifically, as it comes to the distinguished teacher review process Yes. It looks like we changed that. Right? So can you explain how the update versus, like, the teach the principal nominating versus the self nomination? If you can explain that a little bit. Sure. So, we didn't actually change the nomination process. The way the DTR system works is the top 30% of teachers at middle of year in student achievement and quality of instruction will be invited to apply for the
distinguished teacher review process. Then, their principals will have an opportunity to say, yes, I am excited to know that but in case there's, you know, something that we're missing, it's it's helpful to always know. And then teachers will submit an application online. They just need to give us, we wanna make it as easy as possible. It could be a bullet point list of the things they're doing on campus, that are contributing to, the learning, their own lifelong learning, contributing to the leadership on campus, and also potentially leading at the district or beyond. So they get to to list those things out, and then we score them on a rubric.
So the changes that we made from the first draft to the final draft, previously, we had said a teacher would need to write a one page statement detailing their application, and we were just reflecting and thinking, can we make that a little bit easier for teachers? Our goal with DTR is really to reward the teachers for doing amazing work they're already doing, not create more work for them. So that was really the only change we made. Sounds good. And then I know that, superintendent, you mentioned that there's I think there's only a couple handful of districts across the
country that are doing pay for performance. Have we kind of looked at studies to determine, like, how this will help with retention and attraction of teachers? Yes, sir. So, probably the best example is, Dallas's system, which is has several similarities. Started in 2013 and is still going strong. And based on their long term experience with this similar type of evaluation system, teacher retention is much better than across the State of Texas. I mean, it's still just like everywhere else,
it's still a little higher than it was just a few years ago, but I think they're around 17% or 16%, whereas most districts are at 20 or 22%. Okay. That sounds good. But, even more important is they retain their their strongest teachers Yeah. Their most effective teachers. And then just as we move forward in implementation, talk to me about the process that we're gonna, implement with regard to any corrections to the process, how we're gonna continue to seek feedback, from stakeholders. Yes. Absolutely. Our goal is really I mean,
well, the success of this program is in the implementation. Right? I mean, we've we I feel really proud of the work we've done with the community to design this, but that won't matter if we don't implement it the way that we are supposed to and the way that we've outlined. Right? So we're taking the implementation very, very seriously. When I think about the implementation, I think about it in kind of three phases. One, there's right now. So there's the planning, and we're continuing our work with our trailblazers, with our, TES trainers where we meet with one representative from every campus. We're continuing that work monthly this spring, to start to make sure we're answering commonly asked questions,
start to ask them, hey. What kind of training materials would you really wanna make sure you see this summer? What's gonna be really important in implementation? So we're doing that whole planning process, continuing to hear their voices this spring. Then in the summer, we really move into the training phase. Right? So that's where we really need to make sure that every teacher completely understands the system and will leverage our TES trainer program there. We'll train the representative at every campus to make sure that they are able to communicate the program to their schools. And then also the TES certification process for leaders to make sure they're prepared to
be effective evaluators. Then the year starts, and that's when we're doing our continuous improvement. So there's a couple of things there. First, we are gonna continue our TES trainer program for the specific purpose of making sure we have a constant line into how implementation is going on the campus. So we're gonna be meeting with the TES trainers at least quarterly, and it's going to be a two way feedback session to be able to hear, hey. Here are the things we prioritize this semester with TES. Here are the big things we want to make sure you're aware of, but also create space for them to tell us how it's going on their campus.
And they will be expected to go to their campus, collect feedback, and bring it to us just like they've been doing the last few months. So when we receive feedback, if there's anything we need to tweak, we will hopefully be able to find out in a quick way and be able to very quickly action it. If anything were to change, we have to make sure that it's communicated effectively. So we don't take changes very lightly. If anything were to change, we will create a video as we've started to do this year, when any minor changes have happened to the spot form, for example, explaining the change, make sure teachers can see it,
understand it. And we would only do that as a result of data and feedback. So that's that continuous improvement will happen throughout the year. And then, internally, on our team, we also have to have, continuous improvement spaces to analyze the data at middle of year and at end of year to ensure that the data is actually accurately identifying the teachers who are the highest performing. Right? So we constantly have to check that our metrics are working in the way that we intend for them to. And we do that right now with LEAD as well.
We're doing that process for our principal evaluation right now. It has to happen every midyear, every end of year to make sure it's effective. Anything else? Okay. And I'll recognize that Rick Campo has joined us, so welcome. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thinking about the videos, how just update on how's it going in terms of collecting those videos, and then do teachers have access yet, or do you have a line of sight of when they when they will? Yeah. Great question. We have, a team that has put together a big project plan for that. So we've collected,
around ten, fifteen videos that we feel good about so far, but we still need to collect probably about 30 more this spring. And that involves us, you know, scheduling time, doing the edits, and making sure that the video is high enough quality so that we can accurately understand what's happening in the classroom. We can hear the kids talking to be able to calibrate on the spot. So those resources, are not yet live. They have started to go live to leaders as we've, like, for example, today, we trained on a spot calibration and assistant principal meeting. That video is already live for assistant principals and principals.
But on the teacher for teachers only website, that's where all the videos are gonna be once they're ready. Thank you. Mhmm. Doctor. Arnold? Thank you. I have a question about Group E2, U. S. History and Biology Advanced Placement in IB. Okay. How can we, guard against potentially students not taking the exam or being in the course if the thought is that you could be penalized or not sit as high, in the system if you don't have as many kids scoring above a certain level? Yeah. It's a tough one. We try to strive for metrics that,
that incentivize growth as much as possible. It's really difficult with AP assessments because there isn't a, you know, pretest, really, for AP classes. So right now, the way the metric is written, we score teachers based on the percent of their kids who achieved at those high levels, and that does raise the question of, you know, how do we make sure that, we're making sure that kids show up for the tests and things like that. We're not have introducing perverse incentives. We track, whether or not our kids are sitting for those assessments really carefully. Our goal is really to make sure that any student who has that opportunity is
taking the test. I will say that the the AP question has come up, and we're continuing to look at if there's other things we need to add into the system, checks or balances, because I acknowledge that that is something really important. Got it. Thank you. And I also have a question about group f Yes. To follow-up on, mister Martinez's question. I know that there's a comprehensive list of options. Will that be changed from year to year? My concern is expectations and making sure that teachers know what the expectations are at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year. Yes. The goal would be that any change that needs to happen would happen before the
beginning of the year so that teachers are starting the year with a very clear menu that isn't going to change. We've done a ton of focus groups. We've done a lot of work within our own departments to make sure the metrics are strong. We're gonna continue to look at them over the next few months. But during the year, we really wanna keep things standard for the teachers. And then, like I said, at middle of year and end of year, we'll always look at the data and understand, are there certain metrics that are stronger than others, and do we need to make tweaks for the following year? We do try to keep things consistent during the year. Yes. Miss Lindner?
Oh, sorry. You all had a worked out order. Thank you. I hope, two things. One, I hope to address, the the item that, trustee Gomez shared, a question about the student survey. If you could just remind us where that went because I I I believe we talked about it. I'm getting off one short one as well. Yes. Yes. So we said from the beginning that we were going to be really clear about what parts of the effect of the evaluation system were core. Right? We said quality of instruction and student achievement are the core.
They have to be the majority of any evaluation system. Other than that, we were leaving a portion of the pie to really be decided on by the teachers and by the leaders, and we were really building this with their voice. And when we asked them about student survey, the answer was a resounding no to include it. That being said, we the answer was a resounding no to include it. That being said, it's a really effective tool. Actually, research shows that students really do know, how their teachers are doing, and and we think it's a really great tool. So we are going to continue to offer it, and any teacher who wants to take it can. We are going to keep it as part of the distinguished teacher review.
So if you are applying to be a distinguished teacher, you will need to do the student survey. But at this time, our HIC community said it's not the right time for student survey, and we're just respecting that. Thank you. One more item, kind of a comment really, but, I wanna just express my gratitude. Again, we've all and and Rolando mentioned this as well, but having gone through my own organizational change in my own work this year in parallel to watching this, this develop, I really appreciated the similarities I saw to, how a change was rolled out,
how feedback was collected, how voices were were recognized and heard, and and the the the structure you put around this to ensure that, when I'll say, you know, no evaluation system is perfect. And I think any of any of us in the community who work in an organization, lead an organization understand that. But, from what I've seen, so far, the the attempt to try to recognize the concerns, and address how we're going to, incorporate feedback and and continuously improve this is really important to me. And I hope that, that's something that the community,
will will begin to to recognize as we continue to talk about it. And two, I'm really excited for, I mean, personally, my kids to experience an organization that is is moving toward, measuring performance, that they're going to experience the result of that, because we are preparing them for a world of work. And part of that success in the future is understanding how we're going to work and collaborate together. And so, I really appreciate, what I've what I've observed so far, and I'm excited to to see it in practice. Thank you. Miss Ozan Bandy?
Thank you. Thank you, deputy chief, for all this information, all the hard work. I wanted to ask you to you know, go back to the student survey because my school's, own SDMC met, and part of what they came up with was having a a student survey piece. And so I appreciate you talking about the value of it. In what ways can we capture student sentiment? You know, I it doesn't, you know, doesn't have to be any evaluation. Just how do we capture student sentiment and report out on it? Yeah. No.
It's a great question, and it is so important. Right? I mean, we are here to serve our students. You know, I think that, hopefully, over time, the students are Survey will, reach a greater number of kids. I do think that student survey is a really effective way to understand student sentiment. From the central office, really, that's when we think about trying to understand the voices of a 75, 70 six thousand kids, using a survey tool is really, really powerful. But on the campus level, I think there's a lot that can be done as well, from a leadership perspective.
I know when I was a campus leader, we did a lot of student focus groups and, you know, asked students questions about different initiatives that were coming on in our campus. And so I know that's something that division chiefs care about, chief of school's office cares about, and something we're gonna keep trying to incorporate as well. In the evaluation system, one one piece where I hope student voice enters the picture is also through the distinguished teacher review process, because we are identifying teachers who are going above and beyond to serve kids even outside the walls of the classroom.
Right? And so student voice in, you know, how effective is this extracurricular activity or how effective is the mentorship I received? I've listened to students talk tonight about how, you know, they have teachers on their campus who they go to all the time with different things happening in their own lives, and I hope some of that to be captured on the distinguished teacher process. And if you don't mind, madam vice president, I I would also say, you know, we're we're trying to honor teacher, sentiment right now, their feelings about student surveys. I think, in every district I've been in and in my own network,
we did student surveys all the time. They didn't they don't have to be part of the evaluation system. Right. But this year this next year, we want to to ease into it because there's, there's not a lot of clear understanding of what it would look like and how the how the research is. The research is pretty clear if the questions are done well and we would get them from a nationally known company, Panorama, that does this across the country. It's not so much about, you know, do I like my teacher or not? It's a it is about the the learning environment.
So I think once the teachers see that over time, that they'll see that it's it's really not a threat, especially if you're, you know, an effective teacher or even halfway effective teacher. But it does provide the teacher and the school with information, from the student perspective, which is always helpful. So at some point, we we may just do it, without it being part of the evaluation system. But let's let's give it a year to where people can get used to what it actually is. Yeah. And we we did pilot it this year with our trailblazer campuses, and, you know,
some people were probably apprehensive going into that process as well. But over overall, we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from that process, and teachers have seemed to value going through that data, regardless of what it says. Thank thank you both. Trailblazer campuses can The Trailblazer campuses are, what I call our kind of special advisory cohort. That was the, 19 campuses who selected to be part of the more intensely part of the design of TES, so we've been meeting with them monthly since August. And as part of being a trailblazer,
they said, yes. I will pilot student survey because when we were forming the trailblazer committee, it was very much still part of the realm of possibilities that student survey would be in TES, so we wanted to get data on it. Okay. So we are doing it with that subset. Is that what you're saying? Right. Okay. And when is that gonna take place? Just during the evaluation? So they this year, they took it in November, and then they'll take it again at the end of the year. Oh, okay. Have we seen that? Have we seen that data? I'm not sure, but be happy to get it to you. Okay. I'll be requesting it.
Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Anything else from my colleagues? Thank you very much. I echo everybody's comments on on the thoroughness of of the process. I think it was really good. So thank you. Thank you. Before so thank you. Before we take a vote, we have one speaker who didn't get identified earlier who's speaking on this agenda item, so we're gonna call her. It's Anita Wadewa, and she is by Zoom. So let's call her, please. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Board of managers, I love books. I have written and taught books. But because of HISD's evaluation system,
Pershing decided not to teach novels and hills after STAR. TES relies on problematic spot scores to evaluate teachers, ensuring only a limited number can be rated exemplary, while others must be rated poor, regardless of effectiveness. A bell curve does not ensure quality. Your phrase inflation prevention assumes an entire campus cannot be filled with highly effective teachers. TES ties teacher ratings to high stakes tests. One of my daughters opts out of STAR and MAP. It's her legal right. Yet, you punish teachers for a parent's moral objection to these tests.
To end, I would like you to find an evaluation system that supports teachers who want to teach books. I think books should be taught in schools. I like reading. Will you fight for books? I think books are good. Thank you. We have one other person who wasn't able to join us earlier, but is now apparently online. Doctor Benzon is on this agenda item. So let's hear from her as well. Doctor Benzon, please turn your camera on. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Please go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Hi. My name is doctor Maria Benzon,
and I am a former, school leader and a professor in teacher education with a PhD in educational psychology. I know that evaluating teachers based on spot scores and high stakes tests is disastrous. Administrators without certification shouldn't judge expert teachers. I know that evaluating teachers based on a bell curve isn't elegant. It is destructive. It forces competition over collaboration, crushing morale, and driving great teachers away. I know that scripted curricula and fear based evaluations will dumb down what our kids can achieve. Instead, we need a growth oriented system,
one that values teacher expertise, supports professional development, and measures student progress through authentic learning, not compliance. Mister Miles' system is a disaster. It disregards teacher autonomy, devalues student potential, and prioritizes control over education. We must demand better for our kids, our teachers, and even our future. Vote no on item three. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. No more, speakers on item three as far as I can tell. Any other discussion from board members on this item? Okay.
Then we've got a motion by miss Flowers and a second by miss Lindner. So with no further discussion, please vote. Okay. Motion passes eight in favor. I am going to turn over the meeting to mister Campo. Thank you. Well, thank you. And I'm sorry I was late today, but the traffic was crazy coming here from Hobby. The next item on the agenda is item, number four, which is consideration and adoption of revised goal progress measures. Electing, to invite Superintendent Miles' administration to present an executive summary. I know we talked about this at length before,
but let's go ahead. Yes, sir. So Justin Smith will be prepared and to answer any questions. Just waiting for alright. Hello again, board members. Again, my name is Justin Smith. I'm the executive director of assessment, accountability, and compliance. And over the last several months, my team and I have been working and reviewing and going over, trying to refine these goals. The the objective of that is to make sure they're aligned and that they they keep pushing us towards better outcomes for students. On this slide,
you'll see an overview of all GPMs, but the ones in blue are the ones that are the ones that we're considering for revisions. This process has been very collaborative. We've actually taken three major steps. The first step is we've met with a a subgroup of board members. We bought recommendations. They gave feedback. We bought recommendations. They gave feedback, and we've made adjustments to the to these over time. Additionally, we've met with our TEA board coaches and have aligned to make sure these goals are, aligned with the best practices of long start governance.
They have approved the the recommendations that we're bringing to you today. The third thing we have done is in February, the team brought, before the full board all of these recommendations and had a deeper conversation about each of them. And so today, we feel confident in what we're bringing forth. Additionally, there'll be a second part of this where I'll talk about the actual revision to the calendar. So there are three core revision types that we're that we're bringing today. The first one is a revision of targets, and that is affecting two point one and two point two.
The reason that we're revising targets is that we've exceeded our initial, five year target. And so we wanna keep building on that momentum and make sure that we're continuing to push ourself ourselves towards success. And so because we've met those, we've revised new benchmarks and new targets as we progress, to 2028. The second category, is revisions around our growth metrics. This affects 3.1, two point three, four point one, and four point two. As you remember, the original goals are written with c CGI, which is growth,
conditional growth index. And we've really worked really hard to make sure that this we've chain we've revised this to be more of a proof of visibility and transparency and alignment, with the growth to make sure that, what what, what, miss, board member Vaughn might say, one plus one is two. Like, how do we make sure that this is actually pushing us towards the goal? The third category is adding metrics for college readiness. This, this is about three point four and three point five. As you know, goal three, is our college and career goal, and a lot of those metrics are about high school.
As you know, in goal in our other goals, we get to talk about third grade. We feel it is incredibly important that we we don't leave out fourth through eighth grade and that we are that because we believe that our kids being strong in those areas is gonna be a key indicator for college readiness. And so we've included a fourth through eighth grade, map goals for for that. Here's a summary of all of what we brought to our workshop of of all the GPMs and their current metrics, the proposed language, and the proposed targets.
This is, what we brought before both before the workshop as well as we've gotten approved through our lone star governance coaches. The second thing is our lone star governance calendar. The biggest change that we're the reason we're making change here is really about data availability. We wanna make sure that when these items come up that the data is actually available for us to get it to you. And then secondly, making sure that you're getting that data as quickly as possible. Meaning that if it's a MO if it's a, BOY metric, we don't wanna wait several months for you to get a BOY metric.
We want you to get it as soon as we can get it to you so that we can talk through it, ask questions, and make sure we make necessary adjustments. Again, this calendar has been, shown to our Lone Star governance and TEA coaches and have been, approved to move forward to the full board. This is the this highlights the changes that, again, were brought before the full board at the workshop, and I think I'm available for questions. Representative questions? Thank you, Mr. Smith. I have a I have to take my glasses now. I have a question about, 2.3%. The way that it was provided to us,
specifically states that you read there, the recommended will increase from 51% to 53%. I want to make sure that's right because when you look at the approved target, that's 55%. So I'm just trying to make sure I understand that clearly. So is it 53%? It is 53%. Okay. We believe that that is that that percentage growth over time is still rigorous and in alignment with the type of growth that we see, from ours like, the star redesign, we're mimicking that, and that's the type of growth that we're we're that we believe we can see.
So that is correct. Okay. And then, 1.3, there's an x axis and y y there for a beginning and starting point. Do we know what that number would be? For 1.3 Yeah. That excess from June 24, which is last year, do we know what that would begin? The XX would be the 41 baseline Okay. And the YY would be the 56%. Okay. That's right. And that's why I was asking about the other one just to kind of match up there. And then ex if you could and I think we did talk about this last time, but if you could just reexplain things to me, why we're looking at second grade now instead of third grade. Great.
I think that's a great question. And so we're looking at second grade because, again, we believe that our ability to, indicate this early gives us more time to intervene. And so and when you take this and when NWEA does second grade, they actually project those students for third grade star. And so those projection allow us to say where our students are in second grade and what what things can we do to make sure they're ready in third grade. It gives us more time, to to give them the supports that they need to to meet that goal. All right. Sounds good. And then really the next comment is really for the board.
I mean, five is a lot, right? Four, go number three, that's a lot. I mean, I appreciate the TA gave us an approval for that, but that's a lot. And again, just to toss it out there, I mean, we're comfortable with it, we're comfortable with it, but that's a lot and that touches the question for the Board. Thank you. I want to clarify 2.1. Rolando, I didn't understand the answer. Is it are we saying the target is sorry, not 2.1. 1 3. Yes. 1.3. 2 3. 2 3. I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. Is it 53 or 55?
Because the table says 55. Yeah. The the You said it's 55. I'm sorry. The actual starting baseline is 51, and the the base the the long term goal is 55 on It is 55. Yeah. Okay. So then we need to make the change. So we're making 1.3. Correct. For Thank gotcha. There's going to be two. Well, to the extent we vote on this have you already called a vote? We have not. Okay. Okay. I will be making a motion to amend two parts of this document. And we'll make those changes. To clarify or to understand,
Rolando, the con the the the caution flag you're waving around the additional Yep. Measures, may I assume that if the administration is presenting this, then you've accepted that you're okay with tracking this many. We're trying to measure this to do to make sure that we're measuring, fourth grade through eighth grade as the superintendent by the end of the day. We we track it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're data hungry. Right? We're We're on the Right. Yeah. That's that's why we track it anyway. We track it anyway. We just wanna bring it before the public. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Same point. I don't know what other amendment or revision you were talking about,
Audrey. But 4.1, We say we're starting at 48% to 60%, but the approved target over there says 55. Yeah. Let's get this fixed maybe in a oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking too much. But let's I would suggest we we take a, like, a pass on this one. Maybe you could provide Katasha with the corrected version of this summary, and then we're actually is this what we're voting on this summary, or what are we vote where's the actual document that we're voting on? Is it the summary? The metrics.
And this is this is the summary. So where's the metrics? The the other The actual document that we're adopting, is it this summary or is it It's all that's actually So it needs to be corrected. So let's fix it then. We'll get it. The challenge with fixing it with trying to It should be AULIP. To delay this, I think we ought to have the proper numbers that are As amended. As amended. Yes. But the challenge here is that this is an important thing to get done, especially with our loan store governance, checklist in,
coming up in April. I think we knew it right now. I just want I just want the I would like you to print for us an corrected version of this so we're approving the right thing. Alright. We will do that. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions? Any other questions? Go ahead. It's from Lauren. And just, from a process standpoint, so whenever we vote to approve, it goes to AE local Yeah. For an update on the actual gold document. Which is what I thought we I think that's what we actually have to approve is the amendment to AE local.
This is not that. Yeah. We can bring back the amendment on, next Wednesday to AE local, if you want us to do it that way. That's fine. Well, could we vote on it next Wednesday? I would vote just so we're in line with our, if your intention is to approve it, and then, we will bring back AE local with the correct, notations in it for approval next week. I'm okay to approve the corrected version of this summary. Yeah. Okay. Come on. Anybody else? Okay. Well, why don't you make that motion?
Well, we're gonna still deal with it in this meeting. We just you can skip. You're in charge. I can skip. I can skip. Go to five. So we're not gonna make this motion. Yeah. Well, let's come. Okay. Okay. Got it. Okay. Well, let's then, go to five. Now five was summarized as well, right, which is the, which was the, approval and the option of the proposed proposed revisions to the Lone Star governance monitoring calendar, and that was discussed a minute ago. I want you to flip that back up. Yeah. I just need them to put it back on the screen for me. So here we go. Are there any questions board members,
on this calendar? And the idea clearly is to try to get information quicker and not delayed. And as I understand it, the, the LSG coach has approved this as even though it may differ from what the normal LSG process is for our purposes. So I'm comfortable. Thank you. And I'll just make one quick comment. I guess, because we're able to add additional, GPMs, to me, that's evidence that LSG is flexible, right? So it is flexible for us. It's not a rigid framework. I think it is. Right, there you go. So as we move forward,
that's something to consider. Right. Right. Okay. Any other comments or questions? If not, let's get a motion on number five. Let's go back to my computer, I guess. And okay, we have a motion and a second. Any other questions or comments? I'll go ahead and vote then. Let's vote. Okay. And motion passes. That's what your screen is saying. Okay. Here we go. Okay. We'll just come back to that other item then. Thank you. Okay. And the edits have been made to the other item. I'll put it Can we can we get a can we get a second? Yes, I will get you a copy after that. Yes, print it out.
We'll just take it later after we do speakers. I think Okay. All right. So, now we will hear from our remaining registered speakers, beginning with those who are in person, for both the agenda and the hearing from the community. They will be followed by the speakers who are on Zoom. We'll call the person's in person speakers to the microphone in groups, beginning with the speaker from number one through 10. We have seats in the front row reserved for the next group of speakers, so please occupy those seats. If you're up next, please state your full name. And before beginning your remarks,
please come to the microphone, in your numbered order. We do have one one student who's arrived, so we can call Luca Candida first. We have two minutes, please. We're gonna do one minute at a time and then translation for one minute. Pardon? Yeah. Or it's gonna be Spanish with the translation. My name is Luca Candida. Even working school, hasn't been affected too much like other schools. The changes in the curriculum and the rules the rules of HISD, have been creating a lot of stress for students and teachers. Two of my classmates, changed school this year. A lot of teachers that we like,
and they're very good, they have left. And another ones, they're thinking about leaving to the end of this year. And also, a lot of the students will leave. Please listen to us. We are the ones who are suffering for what you're doing. Thank you. Speakers two through 10, please move to the front. Alright. Catherine Donis. It sounds like me goad by the evil leprechaun, Miles. It looks like me goad. The BOM I managed did they know where I came from? Did they know that my Colorado charter schools had a deficit of $450,000,000? Mhmm. More gold.
The board of managers, I wasted $470,000 in taxpayers' money to start in a musical play, a play written by Mini Meade. Looks like me, gold. I drastically laid off certified teachers, principals, custodians, and staff in HISD like I did in Dallas ISD. History repeats itself. I got my power back. My board of managers, the ones I managed, previously approved my oots, spending of $870,000 more in gold. The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the ax, for the ax was clever and convinced the trees that because his hand was made
of wood, the he was one of The gold lost to the children a few miles. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. We are here and will keep coming again and again until we take back our school, Wharton dual language academy. NES influence has entangled Wharton. We are pushing back, but it is not enough. Not yet. Parents, we have no hidden agenda. Our only mission is our children's well-being. We will not stop until we see real tangible change.
We will keep coming until all targeting of all teachers and staff ends, until our children can freely lead with questions and be the inquirers they are meant to be. We will stand here until IB is not just a distant ideal, but a living, breathing reality from pique to fifth, fully and unapologetically present. See you soon, unless you choose to see us, hear us, and act. Wharton Thank you. Alright. Good evening. My name is Eckhart Stock.
I'm a partner of two in working dual language. There's a lot of things to say about the HSD and the situation, but I'm choosing to speak only about my school today, the school of my kids. There's something going on, something wrong. So I'm encouraging you guys to find out, to dig in, and realize what's going on, what is happening, and who is causing all the trouble. So it's not my job to tell you what to do, just to suggest you to find out. And there's some people here that is already in there,
so find out what's going on. Treating bad our teachers is not okay. Intimidating the teachers is not okay. As parents, we are here to support the teachers because teachers make the education happen. So they are the link between your idea and the kids are the teachers. So we need to support the teachers, and we cannot tolerate disrespectful treatment to the teachers. Thank you. I'm your retired school nurse speaking to the district improvement plan that you guys have posted. I know it's just checking a box because the items you've listed,
like special ed, still not in compliance. Is it for some ZIP codes and not others? The other item you have, expansion pre k three and four, are you gonna do it for all my children or just certain ZIP codes? That teacher evaluation, scratch that. We don't have any qualified educational leadership to develop it, let alone implement it. So just scratch that one. Stakeholder engagement, you have got to be kidding me. The DAC committee is made up of yes people. How's that for the rest of us? So the street committee has a plan for you. We're gonna put you on an improvement plan.
We suggest you just pull up this educational circus and move elsewhere. I hear Memphis loves you, Mike. Why don't you give them a try? We're already telling people in Austin about you, so you might wanna try Memphis. They seem to like you. We need two minutes, please. Okay. Miles promised that he would not touch Wharton. Our school, would continue to be a safe learning environment. Today, we are confronted with a worrisome reality. We have a principal who instead of fortifying our community has created a toxic learning
environment for our teachers, damaging years damaging the years of their hard work that they've put in. Since her arrival, more than nine members, including teachers of more than twenty years of experience have left, and there's rumors that this will continue next year. A clear example is mister Camilo Fernandez, our dear fourth grade teacher who is in administrative leave. This is just not fair. Warren does not deserve to be brought down by inexperienced leadership. Our school is a home for dedicated teachers and students.
We will not allow to be destroyed by toxicity. We demand real change. It is an honor to defend our school warm. Thank you. I'm Laura Henry speaking on the TES system because as an HISD parent and a data loving national board certified English teacher, I care about evaluation systems and teacher retention. The TES system continues encouraging our most experienced teachers to leave and can be gained to the detriment of students. A full 65% of the system prioritizes teacher compliance over supporting students. The remaining 35% forces teachers to compete with teachers.
Teachers tell me the scores they've been given so far don't make sense. The guidebook seems very hap haphazard. Just an example, category e seems very performance heavy, heavy. And it's the AP thing that I was looking at, but it's all over the place. Look at transition tables for the star too. So one thing that you'll notice is, like, kids can sit for the test, but if they don't need it for college, they don't really care about it. It's not their teacher's fault. My suggestion is that you ask experienced teachers who have been ranked highly in the past why they're concerned about the system and then listen to them. Thank you. Have we heard from all speakers from group b?
Any remaining speakers present? Two more. Your number? Jessica Campos? Yes. Go ahead. I I don't have to have it translated. I can translate myself. Your minute is up. Thank you. Carly Padgett, Diana Candida? Good evening. I just wanted to provide an anecdotal story and update a growth progress monitoring, from the people to you on the work that you've done. I parked my car outside of a Barnes and Noble last week, and I was approached by a mom. I was not in the city of Houston.
I was local close to it, close enough for this parent to approach me. And she saw my bumper sticker and told me, I just wanted to say thank you. It's a CVPE bumper sticker. She's a parent who's got two kids who should be enrolling next year in HISD. She grew up in public school. She is a successful woman from public school, and she will be enrolling her kids in private school because of the work you have done that she has witnessed. That's
Thank you. Reading a speech by Wharton parent because we are Wharton strong. She says, you are paid with our tax dollars, yet we have no say in who sits on the board. At Wharton, we have lost both families and teachers. My daughter's teacher was placed on administrative leave while HISD conducts an investigation. Despite this, he has already been permanently replaced. The decision has been made that mister Fernandez will not return, yet it appears that not all necessary information has been gathered for the investigation. Meanwhile, you continue to protect the incompetent principal Veronica Celadon,
someone you selected, not us. What I'd like to add is that the way principal Celadon is rolling out and enforcing the HIC curriculum means not only are we losing teachers, but recruiting is difficult too. The policies rolled out since the takeover are harming Houston's children and resulting in a brain drain with the best and brightest teachers leaving our district. Respect our teachers and Houston citizens, and fire Mike Miles. Yeah. Fire Mike Miles. Fire Mike Miles. Our next two speakers are on Zoom. Doctor Bevlin, you may begin. Good afternoon. Doctor Pamela Boblin here,
and I I really don't know why I'm here because it's not like you listen to us at all, and you don't comment on anything that we say. But but I was signed up to talk about item thirteen and fourteen, where you are giving all of the power of the of the agenda instead of it being the the members of the managers that you're giving total control to the board president. The superintendent has too much control over the agenda. He shouldn't be involved in the agenda. Why you continue to ignore issues such as not not allowing the selling off of
the property of HISD, and to use that in the general fund, why you don't, why you didn't go against the conflict of interest, and and have a research a real estate mogul, on the finance, public school facility. Thank you. Sister Mama Sonia, please turn your camera on, you may begin. We'll move on to Franklin Tabarello. Please turn your camera on. You may begin. Yes. Thank you very much. Look. There's a serious pattern of financial mismanagement and conflict of interest within HISD from the top down versus Myles' involvement
in the transferring of Texas tax dollars out of state at the expense of Texas children and for the benefits of third futures investors requiring this requires investigation. Third Futures investors are not the responsibility of taxpayers, parents, and students. For the taxpayer and HISD parent, I'm calling on the board of managers to push for comprehensive audits of HISD's finances under Miles' tenure. Secondly, Miles spent $870,000,000 without board authorization. Where are the basic budgetary control procedures? These are things that, the board should have voted on.
When Miles began as superintendent, HISD had a projected budget deficit of $99,000,000. But under a year and a half of Miles' leadership, that deficit is inflated to $285,000,000. Returning to HIC Thank you. Locally elected process. No democracy. No accountability. No trust. Sister Hamasonia. Yes? You may begin. Hello? Yes. Hi. Do I have to first congratulate the, board of managers because I can't I would really like to work for them because where else can you get, a, review of 66% and you get a hundred and $25,000
bonus? I mean, that is the best place to work with. And where else can you get a hundred and $25,000 bonus and our janitors are laid off and told to rehire at, with not any benefits? I mean, this is utopia. This is also twenty twenty five in action, project twenty twenty five. So I'd like to thank you all for doing what you all are doing and just running us into the ground. Running us into the ground. No truck. Oh, yeah. We you forgot. No trust. No bond. No trust. Miles.
Miles. Go away. Don't come back another day. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah Miller, please turn your camera on. You may begin. I'm Scott. Okay. Hi. I wanted to address the, bonuses that are going to principals for enrollment numbers of students for recruitment purposes. I believe that great schools sell themselves, and this decision to put pressure on principals to recruit students is really just another way for Mike Miles to, blame other people for the declining enrollment. He's in spite of no confidence in our school system.
He couldn't even sell an education bond during a major presidential election, which should have been really easy. So I feel like parents are seeing these dystopian policies, you know, the closing of the libraries in favor of star practice passages all day and firing highly qualified teachers, and all of those things are making them decide that they can just move to elsewhere. You know, we take it really seriously where our kids go to school, and people buy homes in areas so their kids can go to the very best places. So I feel like it needs to go.
This concludes our public comment. Are we done now? I'm sorry. Okay. Unless I was waiting for the last person. Okay. We now that we're done, with this concludes our, hearing of public, comments. We'll move on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the remaining items on today's agenda, by consensus? Is there a motion? Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let's go ahead and vote. Motion passes. Let's see. Do we wanna bring back number four now? Do we have a printed Wait. But I don't we haven't seen it. I would I would suggest maybe go to closed session and come back. Yeah. We do. Suggestion as well.
But I do wanna make a clarification. You are voting to accept the goal progress measures, so you're not voting to adopt a new policy. So you can adopt that when we come once you have a chance to review it, you can adopt it today or I'm sorry, accept it today, and it doesn't become part of the board policy. It's just a requirement for a lone star governance for you to accept the gold progress measures, but they belong to the, administration. Okay. Great. At this time, the Board will recess to closed session on 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 considered in the closed session be required, such final action vote or decision shall be taken at an open meeting covered by this notice upon the reconvening of this public meeting or at a subsequent public meeting of the board upon notice thereof. The board has recessed at closed session at 07:48PM on 03/20/2025. Yeah. We're going to do that. Okay. We're going to, reconvene, the board meeting at 08:29,
PM, on, 03/20/2025. So we're back in regular session. And Board of Manager Mendoza just joined us, so we have a full complement. Okay. So we're going to now, discuss item number four, consideration adoption of revised goal progress measures, an item which is item number five. So is there an approval of we already did the loans to our government's monitory, I think, didn't we? The calendar. So let's go and get a motion for number four. I will oh, thank you. I think I've moved.
Yes. Okay. I am moving to adopt. Accept. Accept. Excuse me. Oh, here we are. Oh, it says revisions. Accept. Yes. I am moving to accept the revised version of the GPM recommendation summary that we received during closed session, which I'm holding my hand, as the gold progress measures for those that are indicated in that document. Okay. Is there any questions or comments? Okay. Please vote. Okay. Post it? No.
Okay. The motion passes unanimously. Alright. Let we're now ready to consider other items in closed session. Are there any motions to be made? Yes. Board president, I move that the board, 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 president to complete the sale of the entire property strip to Harris County MUD five eighty nine. I have one additional one. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Are there any questions or comments?
Seeing none, please vote. The motion passes. Do you have another motion? Yes, please. I move that the board approve settlement in the case of HISD versus Sosa case number 423CV02462 in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Are there any questions or comments? Hearing none, please vote. Motion passes. Are we out of motions? Okay. Good, good. Okay. So now we're ready to hear reports or comments from board members. Why don't we start at this end over here?
Any comments or questions? No, you're good? Nothing. Just real quick for the community engagement, you guys have sent, received invitations to our student engagement session. So we are in need of two more board members to sign up. So, I forgot what date it is. It's April 11, yes. So if you are, we need two more. So if whoever wants to volunteer, sign up for that. But we continue to look at, consider organizations to meet with. So as we roll them out or identify them, you'll get additional limitations. Thank you. Great. Okay. No one else has anything. We stand adjourned. Thank you.
Thank you.