Good evening. This meeting is now convened at 5PM. I'd like to ask everyone to please silence all cell phones. The former of the board members is present in the auditorium. Our first order of business is here from speakers to agenda items. Public comment during school board meetings will only be available to those persons who have signed up to speak prior to the meeting time per current protocol. Verbal and other disruptions by persons during 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'll be asked to leave the meeting. We have six registered speakers who will be limited to two minutes each per board policy. We ask that you state your topic and refrain from naming individuals, especially students, as their identity 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 the time has expired and the timer rings.
Our public comment period will begin, with public officials, students, and parents followed by other speakers. Miss Smith, you may call our speakers. I'd like to call our speakers who've signed up for 05:00 hearings. Maria Benzon, Ella Taylor, Melissa Yarbrough, Anne Eagleton, Dorcas Hand, and Lisa Robinson? Are any of these speakers present? Please state your name and go ahead. Dorcas Hand, community member. I'm here to speak for Michelle. She's got twenty six years as a highly respected teacher in HISD, and I can't believe she's here tonight for this reason.
HISD is forgetting a really important word. The special in special education means those students need different teaching. They will not thrive under the regimented NES slide program. Michelle should be in classrooms inspiring students now and moving forward. She should never have been removed. Stop this vindictive travesty. Let her teach. She is the kind of teacher HISD students need. Thank you. My name is Lisa Robinson, literacy advocate, retired educator, and former attorney. Attorney. I'm speaking in support of Michelle Williams as the mom of three HSD alumni and
grandmother of a prospective UK student student. Like me, you are more than professionals in your field, and you are more than members of the board of managers. You are also parents and grandparents. As such, I ask you that you put yourselves in the shoes of the parents of miss Williams' students. What if it were your special needs child required to take a timed test in direct contravention of her IEP? Would you want miss Williams to ignore the laws governing special education? Or what if it were your non English speaking grandchild required to read long reading
passages in English and then answer a series of multiple choice questions? Bilingual students based on their proficiency level? Surely, you would want miss Williams to meet your child where they are on their educational journey instead of blindly following cookie cutter instructions and procedures that do not work for every single student. This was a choice miss Williams faced last fall before she was removed from her classroom. She chose to do what she knew her students needed based on years of teaching experience. The district chose to remove her. Miss Williams appealed and won her TEA hearing in which the independent hearing examiner found
that she had been wrongly terminated. That hearing did not settle this matter, so you get the final vote. Now is your chance to do the right thing. Vote in line with the hearing examiner's findings. More importantly, vote as if your own child was sitting in miss Williams' classroom knowing that miss Williams would always put your child's needs first. Because if it's not okay for your child, then is it okay for any child? No. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to welcome, SABRE representative representative, Christina Morales. She's here. Welcome.
Thank you so much, and good evening. My name is Christina Morales. I represent Texas House District 145, and I serve as chair of our HDCC committee. I'm here tonight because what happens in this room has consequences far beyond these walls. I wanna remind you that an independent hearing examiner appointed through TEA reviewed this case and found twice that h d HISD did not meet its burden. It found Michelle Williams credible.
She found the district did not prove its case and recommended reinstatement. The TEA found itself found that this district violated federal law in how it treated special education students. The very students a 20 a 26 year educated who put children first or override an independent examiner for the second time and send a message to every teacher in Houston that speaking up for kids will cost you your career. I want this board to know that the legislature is watching.
The community is watching, and Houston's teachers, parents, and families will remember this vote. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anne Eagleton. Good evening. Since we are having a budget workshop after this, I wanted to bring up the concept of how much money are we spending on retaliation against a teacher. If you end up reinstating her for a second time, that will mean twice. All of this money has been spent on attorneys, time, effort that could be spent better,
maybe towards our students. This is waste. We need to be focused on what really matters. I think I'm hoping that the board of managers will consider the fact that our superintendent may have vendettas with people or have such a rigid concept of how people need to behave and be in lockstep with it that it's literally costing taxpayers money because we have to pay out settlements. We have to have legal machinations. All of this stuff costs money,
and I want you to start thinking about all the little leaks of money that add up to big piles of money. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes our public comment for the hearings. Okay. Thank you. The purpose of this meeting is to consider the recommendation of the independent hearing examiner in the matter of Elekstra Gains, teacher at Patrick Henry Middle School. Hearings involving complaints against district employees are to be held in closed session unless an employee who is subject to the hearing requests an open hearing. If both parties request an open session during this hearing,
the board may go into closed session to consult with its attorneys under the terms of Texas Government Code Section 551.071. If any Board member wishes to seek the advice of counsel, please let me know. For the record, Gianna Ortiz is with the Ortiz law firm representing Alastair Gaines, who is present. Alastair Gaines is present as well, twice. Izzy Anderson with Spalding, Nichols, Lamp and Langolis representing the administration is present and Katasha Woods,
HISD General Counsel is also present. Ms. Ortiz, do you wish to go continue in open or closed? Session? Okay. Okay. If any parties are not involved in the hearing, you must leave the auditorium at this time. So please clear the auditorium if you're not involved in the hearing. Thank you. The board is now reconvened in the auditorium in the closed session at 05:49 p. M. Any further discussion? Okay. Board is ready to vote. Let's see if we can get our computers to do that. Okay. Do we have a motion? We need to go back and open before you vote.
Oh, I'm sorry. Do we? That's true. Oops. Thank you. Please open the auditorium doors and begin the live streaming. Live streaming on? Okay, good. The special meeting of the Board of the Houston Independent School District is now reconvene in open session. The time is 05:50 p. M. Do I have a motion? I have a motion, Mr. President. Okay. I move that we adopt the decision and recommendation of the independent hearing examiner, adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law recommended by the independent hearing examiner, and approve the administration's proposal to terminate respondent Alastair Gaines' twenty twenty five,
twenty twenty six one year employee term contract for good cause. Is there a second? Okay. Please vote. Okay. The motion passes with five yeas and one abstention. Letter notifying both parties of the action of the Board shall be prepared and signed by the Executive's Director of Board of Relations as soon as possible. This hearing is concluded at 05:51PM. Okay. Are we ready to begin? Okay. The purpose of this meeting is to consider the recommendation of the independent hearing examiner in the matter of Michelle Williams, teacher at Benbrook Elementary School.
Hearings involving complaints against district employees are to be held in closed session unless everyone who is the subject of the hearing requests an open hearing. If both parties request an open session during this hearing, the Board may go into closed session to consult with its attorney under the terms of Texas Government Code Section 551.071. If any Board member wishes to seek the advice of counsel, please let me know. For the record, Gianna Ortiz is with the Ortiz Law Firm, representing Ms. Michelle Williams is present. Michelle Williams is also present.
Ellen Spalding with Spalding, Nichols, Lamp and Langolis representing the administration is present. Catasha Woods, HISD General Counsel is also present. Ms. Ortiz, I understand your client wants to continue in open session. Okay, great. The issues before the school board are whether to accept, reject or change the independent hearing examiner's finding of fact, conclusion of law, and, and proposal based on the review of the record. We may reject or change a finding of fact if after reviewing the record of
the proceedings before the hearing examiners, we find it is not supported by substantial evidence. If we reject the independent hearing examiners recommendation or make any changes, we must state the reason and legal basis in writing. Ms. Spaulding, you will proceed first. You will be allowed to make a ten minute presentation to the Board, followed by a ten minute presentation by Ms. Ortiz. Ms. Balding, you may reserve part of your ten minutes for rebuttal, and then both sides will be available for questions. How would you like to split your time?
Eight and two. Eight and two it is. You may begin. Thank you. Good evening, mister president and members of the board. We are here tonight asking you to find that good cause exists to terminate miss Williams' term contract based on miss Williams' own, undisputed admissions in the record. This case is about one thing. Can a teacher in HISD tell their principal that they are not going to use the HISD curriculum as written after being directed to do so? And you've already decided that question.
Under Texas law and HISD policy, the superintendent sets the curriculum for the district, and the principal sets the curriculum for his campus. And if a principal tells a teacher that the campus will use the HISD curriculum, then the teacher must execute that curriculum with fidelity. So we are asking you to find that good cause exists to terminate Ms. Williams' contract because she told her principal in writing, that she would not use the HISD curriculum as written. And that's not her choice.
In fact, on the record, she admits the superintendent sets curriculum for the district, the principal sets curriculum for the school. So let's step back and look at some background. Miss Williams was a teacher at Benbrook Elementary beginning with the 2425 school year. After the 2425 school year, we saw many schools in HISD with incredible gains in their student outcomes and accountability ratings. Not so for Benbrook Elementary. Benbrook's accountability rating dropped significantly from a b to a low c and dropped in
every domain. Therefore, as with any HISD school that sees such a significant decline, changes were made. Benbrook got a new principal. That principal informed the staff, including miss Williams, that they would be using the HISD curriculum. Miss Williams immediately dissented and therein ensued a tug of war between the principal and the teacher, as you can see in the record and the hearing examiner's recommendation. The principal coached and directed miss Williams on a regular basis to comply with the curriculum,
and miss Williams responded, disagreeing and telling him why she disagreed and disagreeing and disagreeing. Now miss Williams admits that during this tug of war, her principal directed her more than once to follow the HISD curriculum. And she admits that as a teacher, she's required to follow the directives of her principal. However, despite these these admissions, on 08/19/2025, miss Williams sent her principal an email, and that's HISD exhibit 13. And it read in part, I will not use the HISD as written because it doesn't meet the definition of
high quality. I rewrite the objectives and add visuals as needed to make the content comprehensible for the approximately 40 plus emergent bilingual students I currently teach. Now in the hearing, miss Williams testified that she left out the word curriculum, and what she intended to say in her email was, I will not use the HISD curriculum as written. And it is for that blatant, undisputed, admitted refusal to follow the HISD curriculum as directed that we are asking you to
find good cause exists to terminate miss Williams' contract. Now as you saw, the hearing examiner has recommended that miss Williams' contract not be terminated. She believes that miss Williams' conduct is remediable. Two important points about the hearing examiner's recommendation. First, Texas law is clear that while the hearing examiner finds the hard facts, it is the board, It is you who makes a determination as to whether those facts constitute cause, good cause for termination. And second,
in order to make that determination as to whether there is good cause, you rely on the findings of fact of the hearing examiner, which we're not asking you to change. But you may also legally rely on the undisputed evidence in the record. And that undisputed evidence in the record is what we are asking you to rely on. So here, the hearing examiner, after looking at some of the facts, recommended that miss Williams continue be employed because her conduct was remedial remedial remedial. Well, while the hearing examiner took great pains to go through over a dozen communications between
miss Williams and her principal between August 1 and August 28, the hearing examiner completely skipped over exhibit 13 statement, the August 19 statement that miss Williams will not use the HISD curriculum as written. A statement that it is undisputed that she made. And you are allowed to consider that undisputed statement in determining that good cause exists for termination. And that's what we're asking you to do. The document in front of you with HISD's proposed changes is long,
but it really boils down to two things. One, did miss Williams have the right as a teacher to tell her principal she wasn't going to use the HISD curriculum as written and that she was going to rewrite the objectives? And two, should HISD have to remediate that conduct? And let's talk about remediation. The commissioner of education has held and been very clear that you don't have to remediate a failure to follow directives, and you especially don't have to remediate a blatant refusal to follow directives. Miss Williams told us in writing that she was not going to use the HISD
curriculum as written. That's a blatant refusal. That's not remediable. That's someone who doubled down on their refusal to do what is required by law, by policy, and by directives. And it is this it is the opinion of this administration that if a teacher tells us they are not going to use the HISD curriculum as written, they can't work for us anymore. We can't sit around and wait to see if they change their mind and decide to use it. We don't have that time. Time on task is too precious for our students. So what do I think you'll hear from miss Williams?
Well, I think she'll tell you she followed the curriculum mostly to the extent she could. Well, that's not good enough. Your students don't have to follow the code of conduct mostly. You don't drive down the road following the rules mostly. She will tell you that she believes the curriculum was illegal, and she complied to the extent it was legal. Well, there is zero evidence in the record that the curriculum was illegal. In fact, the undisputed evidence in the record is that the curriculum had received all required approvals by the state of Texas.
She's going to tell you she filed TEA complaints, and she did. However, those TEA complaints didn't have anything to do with her classroom or the curriculum. They had nothing to do with what she was supposed to do in teaching the curriculum. And, of course, she's going to tell you she was retaliated against, but you can see in the hearing examiner's recommendation, even the hearing examiner didn't find that to be true. The bottom line is miss Williams told her principal she would not use the HISD curriculum. That is not her choice. And if she's not gonna use the curriculum with fidelity,
then she is not someone who can teach here. And we ask that you make the changes to the hearing examiner's recommendation and find good cause exists to terminate Ms. Williams' term contract. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ortiz. You may make your presentation to the board. The clock not working? Would you is it good? You good now? Okay. I see it now. Thank you. Good afternoon. The district asks you to relitigate in ten minutes what an independent hearing examiner heard two days of evidence on and convince you that she got it wrong.
A hearing examiner who spent sixteen sixteen years as an administrative law judge for the state of Texas. And in ten minutes, the district wants to convince you that after hearing two days of evidence, she got it wrong. They want you to disregard over 20 pages of findings and conclusions, and they want you to fire Michelle Williams tonight. But the hearing examiner did not get it wrong. You need to reinstate Michelle as the recommendation demands. It is undisputed. The IHE concluded the district failed to meet its burden. The evidence did not support the allegations made.
And even if the administration had proved any of the allegations, which it did not, she was given no opportunity to remediate perceived deficiencies. Your lawyers wanna convince you that based on one email, Michelle Williams refused to implement HISD curriculum, but that is not the case. The evidence showed that Michelle Williams agreed to and did implement HISD curriculum in a way that complied with the law. She raised concerns about the curriculum pacing,
and sequence, the fact that it does not permit her to accommodate special populations, emergent bilinguals, special education, gifted and talented students. She raised these concerns verbally and in writing, and she said she would implement the curriculum in a manner to comply with state and federal law. That's what the recommendation found, and every single one of the findings in that recommendation is supported by substantial evidence. You are powerless under the Texas Education Code 21 dot two five nine to change
those findings. You are not allowed to consider undisputed external facts. But even if you were, imagine firing a twenty six year educator for one line in one email and no evidence that she refused to comply with anything. And in fact, the overwhelming evidence suggesting that in fact she did. And in fact, when no one at the campus, not the principal, not the ED, not even HR would listen to her concerns about the failure of the HISD curriculum,
she made her complaint to TEA. And TEA substantiated Michelle Williams' complaint and concern that HISD is failing to implement IEPs, and that is in the record. And as respondents exhibits twenty four and twenty five. So what are we doing here? The evidence showed that TEA said HISD is failing. TEA never said Michelle Williams is failing to do anything or refusing to do anything. And within days of her complaint to TEA, she was removed from the school, and in fact, she only worked this school year seven days at the most
before she was removed for a single line in a single email. How was seven days enough time to decide if Michelle Williams has refused to do anything? It's not. And your former chief of HR testified that six to seven days is not enough time to coach a teacher up. So what's really going on here? This is the second time Michelle Williams has been through this gauntlet. The second time you have paid lawyers and independent hearing examiners to try and get rid of Michelle Williams.
And the second time administration has failed to meet its burden to prove a case against her. The evidence at trial showed what's really going on. Mike Miles knows Michelle Williams. The evidence bore that out. The evidence bore out that she is a problem for him. Witness witness testimony said, she speaks at board meetings. She speaks to the media, and she makes complaints to TEA. She speaks for the children and the teachers in this district. She speaks truth to power for the powerless,
And that's the problem for this administration. The evidence showed that she is highly effective teacher, that she has been at all times respectful and professional, that she acted consistently with her duties to this district and to the children it serves. Any argument about refusal is a pretext and false. You cannot change any of the findings of fact. All of them are supported by substantial evidence. You should not follow your attorney's advice to change findings to conclusions. That too would be reversible error on your part.
You cannot substitute your own judgment for the findings made by the independent hearing examiner. There is not a single finding in the recommendation that would support good cause. And after all that, you have one job tonight, and that is to reinstate Michelle Williams. But it is not just about that because no decision that you make from that dice affects just one person. This decision affects every child in a special population, every emergent bilingual, every special ed child, every child with an IEP who gets extra time on assessments,
and every gifted and talented child, and every teacher in this district who has a moral, legal, and ethical duty to serve those children. If you act to fire Michelle tonight, you send a message to all of those people. You need to reinstate her, do what's right, and put an end to this behavior on the part of your administration. And I'd like to give the rest of my time to miss Williams. Thank you. Miss Faulding would like you to believe that I refuse to implement the HISD curriculum. That is not factual. What was said in the email is that I didn't wouldn't implement it as written
because I had 40 emergent bilingual students who were transitioning from an a bilingual class. HISD has failed to implement the IEPs of students. I had a student in my classroom who was on whose mother was undocumented, contracted arm and leg from cerebral palsy, and mister Hurd would not allow us or me to accommodate this student or the other student that was in my class who was special education. She would like you to believe that I cannot change the objectives.
Chapter one forty nine of the Texas Education Code, teacher standards states that I can. Also, chapter 74 of the Texas Education Code for emergent bilingual says that the district has a duty to teach students according to its their proficiency levels is what I did. I complied with law. Miss Spalding would like you to believe that I did not. I did not refuse to implement the curriculum because that is law. The ATICS is our our curriculum,
and I implemented that with fidelity. She would like to have you all believe based on one single sentence out of 12 emails, which she stated that I refused to do that. I have been teaching for twenty six years. I have never in my life, my teaching career been asked to violate law yet I was asked by your administrator not to teach the children how to read in English. That's what miss Spaulding failed to tell you all,
which is also in the record. I was teaching science of reading and I was told by the then assistant principal, oh, we don't have time to teach the kids how to read. They tried to force me to give long English passages to students who could not read in English. This was their first year. We have a duty to teach all children. It is not HAISD's responsibility to pick and choose which students get thought get taught. Thank you.
Miss Balding, you have two minutes. Thank you. Let me be very clear. We did not ask you to disregard any true finding of fact. We asked you to look at the findings of fact and see how many times this principal coached and directed miss Williams to follow the HISD curriculum. What we asked you to do was rely on the undisputed evidence that miss Williams told him that she wasn't going to follow it as written and that she was going to rewrite the objectives. And if a teacher tells us that, we are entitled to believe the teacher.
How do we know she wasn't going to implement that curriculum, art curriculum, superintendent Miles curriculum? Well, she told us so in an email. And when her lawyer got up here just a minute ago, her lawyer said the same thing. She implemented it mostly. She did not comply with the superintendent's or the principal's directive to implement the HISD curriculum with fidelity. It's no doubt that miss Williams has opinions, and it is clear in the record that she believes her way of teaching is the right way of teaching. However, in HISD, under the law and the policy,
the superintendent gets to choose the curriculum. She admits that, but then she won't do it. I do want you to look at her TEA complaints. You will see that neither of them had anything to do with her classroom. One was about the NES model and one was about the SLC classroom. Neither of those were her. HISD has made tremendous progress since June 2023, and we've done so by having a process and following our curriculum with fidelity. And if you tell one teacher that they don't have to follow the curriculum as
written, you might as well let all teachers not follow the curriculum as written. And that would be a travesty to all of the students who have made incredible gains, including all of the emergent bilingual students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Are there any questions? Yes. Thank you, mister chairman. I'm curious. What what what is the proposed standard that you guys think is appropriate for teachers who feel like they're teaching a curriculum that is, you know, outside the bounds of what they their professional judgment? Like, what what is it up to the individual teacher to make the assessment?
Like, how do you at scale, how how do you believe that determination should be made? Is it in the mind of the individual teacher? Is it in the principal? Is it in the district? Like who gets to make the final call as to what works and what doesn't? And then that's sort of part one. And then part two is given the successes of the curriculum since you know, over the last couple years, do you do you still would you would you make the same decision today if you were put in the exact same classroom today with knowing that the curriculum has had successes for thousands of kids in dozens of classrooms,
would you would you do the same thing today? Like, do you still have the same opinion? Is it working? It's gonna be a button. Is there a button? It's a little screen. Do you see it? No? Your first question is the Texas Education Agency is the authority on the law, and I follow the law. You know why I know I'm following the law? It's because the Houston Independent School District taught me to follow the law. Miss Spalding would like you to believe that I'm not. Yes. Mister Miles may set the curriculum, but the curriculum has to be in line with the law,
and it's not. So that's the first thing. Your second question is is subjective. The curriculum has not had successes. The teachers have success. Mhmm. And they change the curriculum all the time. That's what she's not telling you. And I have taught under other curriculums. I've never used their stuff, And I have had successes. You know why? Because your chief of school said I was the high performing stu teacher at Benbrook when mister Hurd took over. I just wanna understand how you think. I mean, this is a really important point.
I wanna understand how you think about this. So on the first question of who ultimately gets to make the call with with respect to the to the play finish looks like. With respect to the curriculum in the classroom, is it is it the the individual in your opinion, is it the individual judgment of the teacher in the classroom who receives a directive from a principal who gets to make the ultimate call as to what qualifies as a valid curriculum or not? TEA does. Did you consult with TA before you made your determination? Yes. I I I looked at the law.
I I know chapter one forty nine under the teacher's standards. It states what we're allowed to do. Also, we have other laws that support our professional judgment. It's the law. It's not my opinion. And I provided those laws to mister Hurd. Mister Hurd ignored them as did everyone else. It's not my opinion. She wants you to believe it's my opinion. It's the law. Thank you. I think to follow-up what she's also what occurred here is a compliance with the
curriculum, with adjustment to create sheltered instruction, create a time for special education learners, which is curriculum is and miss Williams could tell you better, but is the the content. Right? But the accommodations are an overlay always, and we can't waive that because of a curriculum that the superintendent has chosen. We always have to serve those special populations. Populations. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Parties have completed their presentations, and it's now time for the board members to make our decision on the issues
before us. We are going to take a closed session here. So the board will now recess to closed session under Chapter five fifty one of the Texas Government Code, Open Means Act, subsection 551.004 through 551.089. Should board final action, vote or decision on any matter considered in the closed session will be required. Such final action, vote or decision shall be taken at the open meeting covered by this notice upon the reconvening of the public meeting or at a subsequent public meeting of the Board
upon notice thereof. The Board has recessed in a closed session at 06:19PM on 04/23/2026. Thanks. This special meeting of the school board of the Houston and Penn School District is now reconvene in open session. The time is 06:32PM. Do I have a motion? You got to read it. Make sure your thing is on and get your mic closer to your mic. You're right about now. There you go. Okay. I move after careful consideration of all evidence that the board approve all changes to the independent hearing examiner's recommended findings of fact and conclusions of law,
no matter how labeled, as set forth in the pleading submitted by administration titled Decision of the Houston Independent School District School Board proposed by administration for the reasons and legal basis as set forth in such pleading and that the Board vote to adopt the hearing officer's recommendation, findings of fact and conclusions of law as amended by the pleading and consistent with this motion that the Board terminate Michelle Williams' term contract for good cause and terminate
her employment effective immediately. Okay. We have motion and a second. Please vote. Motion passes. A letter notifying both parties of the action of the board shall be prepared and signed by the executive director of board relations within ten days. This letter shall include the findings of fact, conclusion of law of this school board, and any grant of relief obtained. Furthermore, the letter shall state the reasons and the legal basis for the rejecting or changing of the findings of fact or conclusions of law proposed by the independent hearing examiner. This hearing is concluded at 06:34PM.
With no further business to discuss, this meeting of the Board is adjourned. The time is at 06:34PM, 04/23/2026.