Okay. Good evening. This meeting is now convened at five what time is it 05:04PM. This clock by the way is slow by about five minutes just to let everybody know that. I'd like everyone to please silence all cell phones. A quorum of the Board members is present in the auditorium. We will now be joined by a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. To lead us in our pledges, I would like to ask Board Member, Edgar Colon to introduce tonight's pledge leader.
Thank you. Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Rocio Gutierrez is a Westside High School senior and the battalion commander of the school's twenty second Battalion Army JROTC program. She was the first Brigade Command Sergeant Major in the HISD Outstanding Cadet Board and placed among the top six cadets in HISD. She is academically exceptional with all dual credits and on ramps classes through the University of Texas at Austin and a 3.8
grade point average. Kate Gutierrez has been a class president all four years of high school, also serving as the co student body, president for student council. She plans to attend Texas A and M in the fall and major in statistics. Can I Gutierrez? 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. Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you, Cadet Gutierrez. If there are any elected officials in the audience, please stand so you can be recognized. I know we have some HISD trustees here, but if there are any others, I would like to see you well. I'd like to congratulate our newly elected and reelected trustees who were sworn in last week. District one trustee is with us tonight, Felicity Perella, District 5 I see you there, thank you for being here.
District 6, Trustee Michael McDonough, did you see you Michael? District 7, Trustee Bridget Wade, I think I saw you back there Bridget. Let's see. And District 9, Trustee, Myrna Gendry, thank you. I'm sorry, I saw you there. Okay. And let's see, do we have Senator Boris Miles here? I know we have his team, the Miles, Miles scholars for sure. I don't see see, Senator Miles. So great. Anybody else that I missed? Oh, yes. Great. Thank you so much for being here. Okay,
we will now, hear from our public officials, speakers and others who have identified themselves as HISD students or parents. Please note that Spanish live captioning is available for those viewing the meeting via live stream and live Spanish interpretation is available in person in the auditorium. Public comment during school board meetings will only be available to those persons who have signed up to speak prior to the meeting, time per current protocol. Verbal and other disruptions by persons during the school board meetings are not acceptable as
they inhibit the board's ability to connect 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 72 registered speakers tonight who will be limited to one minute each per Board protocol as we have more than 30 people signed up to address the Board. We ask that you stay on topic and refrain from naming individuals especially students as your identity is protected under law but you may name your own child.
I ask that you please respect our procedures and the other speakers and at the end of your comments promptly when your time has expired and the timer rings. I want to note that tonight the Board will not be considering Agenda Item 10, approval of the annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2025. This item will be addressed at the Board's 02/12/2026 meeting. This item should have been approved a long time ago but it was delayed because
of the government shutdown in getting the information that we needed from the government to finish the audit. So we will hopefully have that. I think we definitely will have that on February 2012. Our hearing for speakers will begin with public officials. The first speaker, HISD elected Trustee, Felicity Perea. Felicity, you're up. Welcome. And congratulations. Thank you. Hopefully, I won't do this a lot, but, the pronunciation is Pereira. So we'll we'll get some practice. So I was sworn in last week, as the trustee for District 1,
which represents the Northside, The Heights, and the Garden Oaks neighborhoods. And I'm officially or I'm excited to officially get started. Over the weekend, we sent out over 20,000 text messages to parents across the district. And I've been personally fielding all the incoming responses as well as meeting, with folks before work, very early, and after my toddler goes to bed. So what I can report so far is that a clear majority of the people that I am talking to are not in favor of what the administration is doing. I've corresponded and met with parents who are distressed about the toll that the,
administration's policies are taking on their children's mental health, kids who have lost their love of learning, and teachers who are demoralized, teachers who are actively seeing the light lead their student size. I'd like to remind them from the administration, but to collect additional qualitative data. If you really want to do right by the community, you'll have to do your own research. You've got to consider the alternative hypothesis. I'd also like to call attention to two reports released today. The first from U of H, my, alma mater, where researchers found that students leaving HISD has accelerated during this takeover,
and the most severe declines were actually observed at NES schools. To quote Wila Friedman, the report's co author, quote, In economics, choices are informative. If parents choose HISD schools less, that suggests that they perceive the quality to be going down, not up. The Kinder Institute also released, a report today calling attention to the fact that the hiring of uncertified teachers is slowing down across Texas, except in HISD. To quote the author, researchers at the University of Texas have found students across grade levels and subjects learn less from uncertified teachers compared to educators certified through traditional university programs.
TEA data also shows that sixty percent of uncertified teachers leave public education workforce within five years, compared to about forty percent of teachers certified through universities or alternative programs. On tonight's agenda is the vote to extend the hiring of uncertified teachers in HISD for another four years. I hope you will vote in line with what the research suggests that we do. I should have just received my official HISD email address. There's a delay on that. But once I do, I'm gonna be reaching out to all of you. I'd love to meet for coffee,
and I'd also love to invite you all to come and attend some of these meetings I'm having with parents and teachers across the district. Thank you. Thank you. Did Trustee Savant Marr come in? I don't think I saw him. Let's go ahead. Trustee McDonough, up. Good afternoon. If you don't feed the teachers, they eat the students. I suspect many in this room remember that book or have heard tales of it. Essentially, a primary responsibility for any leader is to never lose sight of the fact that they have stewardship of the lives they have the privilege of leading. As a new District six trustee, I would like to first acknowledge the efforts of our teachers,
counselors, social workers, clerical staff, and all those who show up each day to support our kids. And as we engage with the work of this room, we should never forget that they are the ones doing the most important work each day, and we clap for them. Item 20 of the consent agenda is my focus this evening, and I will preface this with the understanding that the item simply cleans up the language of the policy. The performance contract that has been in place for principals for more than a quarter century predates each of you and has been a point of contention for school principals all along the way. While I do not protest the agenda item,
I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to highlight campus leaders. Doctor Rod Page told me once that the primary job of the principal was to get the job done. In addition to ensuring kids are smarter and stronger every day, campus principals are tasked with feeding the teachers, maintaining a sorely underpaid staff while preserving the confidence of their community. Yes. The principalship is incredibly complex, and they deserve to engage in that work with the confidence that they are seen and valued. The current performance contract allows the district to terminate a principal without cause. Let me repeat that.
Without any reason at all, for nothing. And if a contract is simply nonrenewed, there is no right to a hearing because employees on these contracts have waived those rights. Legal experts have claimed the contract is illegal as the district cannot force you through acceptance of the contract to waive your rights granted to you by state law. My ask to the board of managers is that the contract itself be something that you further learn about. Our campus principals are the leaders in this district. And as someone who worked under that contract, I can assure you they need your interest and your support on this item.
They've earned at least that. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to working with you over the coming months. Thank you. My name is Doctor. Maria Benzon, Elected Trustee for District 5. I'm deeply concerned by the Houston Chronicle article regarding Mr. Miles' role in brokering nearly $1,000,000 contract between a charter network and a consulting firm tied to his personal network. Mr. Miles traveled to Dallas to teach classes to chartered leaders, and HISD families are simply expected to trust that no personal benefit occurred.
Ethical concerns are not limited to direct payments. Influence, access, and future opportunities all matter. This arrangement does not serve HISD students or taxpayers. It undermines public trust at a time when our students need stable leadership, fully funded classrooms, and leaders focused solely on their success. This is not stewardship. It raises the appearance of self dealing. I urge the board of managers to act immediately. First, launch an independent investigation. Second, trustees to oversee it. And three, release the findings publicly.
Our students deserve leadership that is transparent, accountable, and focused on them, not personal networks. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Trustee Pastel Gomez is with us on Zoom. Please go ahead. Thank you so much. I'm in Dallas right now. Apologies I couldn't make it in person. Alexa you've significantly better start to anybody who's youth shopping and listening. But I wanna talk about the agenda item 11, the proposal for $205,000,000 bonds for a CTE center. Because I think this really is a great example of how HRAISD has failed to
communicate with the public and has failed to get any semblance of community input. If this were explained to me or explained to the public, I'm a huge supporter of career and technology education. I imagine I might support it. Yes. But in a in a democracy, we can't just unilaterally say to the community, this is absolutely what you want without any public discussion. This is a great example of why the bond fails, and I urge the board of managers and superintendent and the superintendent's team to make an effort to get in the community and get the input that we need in order to make collaboration happen. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. Now we'll hear from speakers who identified themselves as HISD students or parents. Speakers, please state your name and the topic and when you step up to the microphone, Ms. Smith, you may call our speakers. Yes. I'd like to call all student speakers to the front row. All student speakers to the front row starting with Eliana Gottlieb. Good evening. Last week, five new board trustees were sworn in, people our community elected to represent us. But they still can't vote or make decisions about our schools because the state takeover continues.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Superintendent Miles helped set up a nearly $1,000,000 deal between a charter network and a consulting firm. In that deal, he gave away HIC's curriculum for free. That's curriculum developed with our taxpayer money and district resources. Why anyone would want our AI slop curriculum is beyond me. However, this raises serious questions about transparency and whose interests are being served. Meanwhile, important decisions are being made without our input. While our district is planning school closures and cutting CTE programs,
our publicly funded curriculum is being given away to charter schools at no cost. Elected trustees are calling for an independent investigation. We deserve to know whose interests come first. We need transparency and accountability. We need our elected trustee. Thank you. Anna Gayton. Anna Gayton followed by Adida Sage Bittner. Go ahead. Ana. Miss Ana, do you need a translation so we can understand? Thank you. So I have to site translate. Yes. My time is still short. Hi, my name is Anna Gaitan. I'm a student at Durham Elementary. And I just wanna say that Mr.
Miles and his system of his curriculum has affected, has greatly affected my school And my teachers and my classmates. He doesn't give us enough time to learn and most of my friends have left school because of his decision. This means that school is gonna lose funding. And, you know, we are very intelligent. I know all 66 books of the Bible or sections of the Bible. And I'll tell them to you. It's Genesis, Exodus, so forth and so forth. Please stop destroying our schools,
our our school system. Thank you for hearing me out. All other students, go ahead. My name is Adida Sage Bittner, and I'm a student at YWCA. Last week, I went with my mom to a community meeting about changes to the CTE programs. The auditorium was pretty empty. Parents were worried that changes were being made without families really being informed about the meeting and included in the conversation. As a student at HISD, I would hope that people making decisions about my future would include me in those conversations. It's important to listen to students because you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
In the same way, you can expand a program, but if students aren't interested, they won't take the classes, even if the salary sounds good. Please don't vote to change CTE programs until you truly listen to more students and families. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Aubrey Barr. I'm a student at Northside High School. HISD's support for fine arts is unequal and and frankly unacceptable. Fine arts are not optional. They keep students motivated, engaged, and connected for many of us. These programs are the reason we stay in school at all. Yet across the district, some schools get almost nothing while others thrive.
This is not a question of interest. This is a question of support. When academic programs struggle, the solution is investment, not elimination. Fine arts deserve the same standard. Cutting programs instead of fixing problems tells students loud and clear that their passion and their growth don't matter. HISD must stop treating us stop must stop treating fine arts as unexpandable. Our students deserve our students deserve equity, access to arts education across every campus without compromise. It's time to fund our program properly and value the students who rely on them. Thank you. Good evening.
I'm here because the district is cutting programs students rely on to succeed. These weren't extras. They were essential. Programs like web development, graphic design, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship gave students real skills, college credit, and the motivation to come to school. Now instead of strengthening these pathways, they're being eliminated. Students at Heights, Northside, and Cashmere are forced to travel across town even though their campuses already have fully equipped facilities. This doesn't expand access, it takes opportunities away. When these programs disappear,
success becomes harder not because students are failing, but because the tools that help us succeed are gone. Our schools should open doors, not close them. I urge the district leaders to restore these opportunities. Thank you. Thank you. Could the first 10 parent speakers please move to the front row? We'll begin with number one, Latrice Ferguson. Hi. My name is Latrice Ferguson, and I'm speaking on item a. I'm excited about the opportunities the BJCC will provide for the students of the district. What I am not happy about is the implementation of a program that can negatively impact schools and students attending their homeschool.
The lack of community engagement and the decision to require busing of students from their home campus where these programs are successfully thriving is not acceptable, especially with the challenges we face currently with the district busing. Historically, community input has been a staple in large scale changes and that has not happened with this proposal. To implement a plan and remove courses from home campuses without researching the impact on current students is in the very least irresponsible. To promise autonomy to a school that is thriving and then remove staples that contribute to its strength is in direct violation of the autonomy guideline that were presented to
us by the superintendent himself. This plan was rushed, the limitations seemed to be vast, and by not involving the community in the process you're in direct violation of your own governance rules. Please table this vote to your due thank you. Thank you. I'm Erin Hasbrouck, a parent. I've been an HISD parent for seventeen years. I've seen a thing or two. Currently, I have two students at Heights and four that are alumni. They range from graduating in the top 5% of their class to being in a self contained special education class. They have enjoyed engineering, business, transportation,
and graphic design at our zoned school, and have all had a well rounded high school experience. Isn't that exactly what a good public education looks like? Why would you dismantle a successful school? My family has seen firsthand what happens when HISD sunsets a program. Resources become limited and teachers leave. My daughter is in the amazing dual credit graphic design program. What reason do her highly skilled teachers have to stay at heights when they know their time is limited? When they leave, how will you maintain her dual credit program? No teacher in their right mind would sign on for a temporary position.
This certainly isn't a student first decision. You must hold mister Miles accountable to the constraints you agree Thank you. I'm Trey Comstock, and I am a Durham parent. It's funny what sticks in my five year old's mind. So we walked to school the other day. She told me about a time that our next door neighbor gave her a fist bump at school and how cool that was. That would have had to happen back in August or September because after 50% of the third grade team got involuntarily sent away despite excellent data, our neighbors pulled their son from Durham to seek greater stability and thriving elsewhere.
My daughter often talks about how she doesn't seem at school anymore and how he doesn't walk with us to school anymore. I know that's what you like to call an anecdote, but it gives narrative to some trends that as superintendent of HISD should trouble you greatly. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Cassandra Folger. I am a very proud parent of a Durham Elementary School third grader. When we were last here, we had lost nine teachers. Now it's 10. The number itself is bad enough, but the impact of these losses is concentrated in three grade levels.
Our third grade has lost three teachers in a grade level of four teachers. Our fourth grade has lost two teachers in a grade level of four teachers. Our first grade has lost three teachers in a team of three teachers. At Durham, most students have two primary teachers rather than one. So for two out of our three most critical tested grade levels, fifty to a 100% of students, my daughter being a 100%, because she has lost both of her teachers, this year and they've been replaced by unaccredited teachers, they lost at least one of their primary teachers.
As a superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you. Thank you. Enrollment of around 500. It's no longer just from the shock at the start. Additional students left within this last week. Many more families are considering, or have already have, options other than Durham for the next school year. I know that you like to brush this off, that the numbers are going down because of deportations, but I promise you that's not what's happening here. Some of the students went to other HISD schools, but the real benefit is to our local private schools who now benefit from these
students' talents and energies. As superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you. Thank you. Good evening. Abby Stargell, Durham parent. A constant turn of faces at the front of the classroom and empty desks that once held friends are the reality for most students at Durham. That you tolerate this and promote a method that makes these kinds of outcomes almost inevitable shows that you fail on a fundamental level to grasp the connection between the emotional safety of a child and their ability to learn. Learning doesn't only occur based on curriculum spat out by AI,
adhering strictly to timers, and converting libraries to packet factories. Humans have other needs than that. You often talk about teachers as interchangeable cogs like factory robots in your education machine. But from the emotional perspective of a child, that isn't true. As superintendent of HISD, what's happening at Durham should trouble you. Thank you. I'm Sarah Maller, a former HISD parent. In 1943, doctor Abraham Maslow published a paper in psychology review entitled The Theory of Human Motivation.
In that paper, he laid out his now famous hierarchies of needs. It had five rungs. To get to the top, self self actualization, where problem solving and acceptance of facts, AKA learning, occurs, you need the bottom four rungs to be secure. You cannot skip to learning and achievement that you want without caring for the whole child, and the environment where you want that learning and achievement to occur. At Durham, this feels so far left behind. And as superintendent of HISD, this should concern you. Thank you.
Michelle Witkowski, former Durham parent. To achieve self actualization, you first need your physiological needs met, food, shelter, and for children, effective caretakers. Two years ago, when Durham performed at its best, Durham, like a lot of schools in HISD, had a wraparound coordinator on campus. Our school is split between a fairly affluent area and an area of greater economic need, So we have a fair number of students who struggle to get all the basics. We have the money to pay you a base salary of close to $500,000
and offer huge pay incentives for NES teachers. But to have a person on campus whose job it is to find housing for an unhoused third grader, apparently, we don't have money for that. And as superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you. Thank you. Dana Ladner, former Durham parent. Continuing our journey through Maslow's hierarchy of needs, to achieve self actualization, you need safety. To the district's credit, after a person hopped our fence, we got by our fences. But safety from physical threats is not the only thing that makes a child feel
safe. With teacher losses, it's clear that the adults in the building don't feel emotionally safe in their jobs. Our teachers are professionals who no doubt try to shield the children from what they are feeling, and they are not feeling well. Let me tell you. However, children are perceptive. They pick up on the stream, and they know that there is something unsafe and toxic about every single district visit to a campus. They feel it, and they know it, and it transcends the principal to the vice principal,
all the way down to every single teacher. And as superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you, and it's astounding it doesn't. Absolutely amazing in the worst possible way. Thank you. The CTE plan could be an innovative idea, but once again, HISD has turned potential into chaos by failing to involve our community. Business leaders are consultants, not community. It is made up of students, parents, and teachers whose voices must come first. Instead, we see the same pattern, closed door decisions, rushed timelines with no infrastructure, and poor communication.
Our bus system cannot support this change. My kids have lost countless hours waiting on broken or missing buses. How can we expand transportation when we can't fund basics like air conditioning? We're told students will miss part of lunch in transit. Which part? Clubs, tutoring, social connection, band, athletics? These matter. This rush plan risks a decline in enrollment and funding that will harm our successful school. I urge this board to slow down, extend the time line, and commit to a transparent, well resourced plan that truly serves our students.
Thank you. Miss Yarborough? 11. Item 13 of the agenda seeks to delay certification requirements for teachers of core subjects, and also claims that HISD will have no uncertified teachers in core subjects in three years. Wow. How do you plan to do that? It says through support, but so far, you have not supported those teachers. My kids' music teacher at Wharton, my students' science teacher at Navarro, and so many others in that category were non renewed in the spring for not getting certified within two years of beginning, only to be replaced that fall by a different uncertified teacher in the same situation.
How does this help the kids? You have this never ending cycle because you have a huge brain drain on your certified teachers and the support you offer to the new uncertified ones is micromanagement coupled with derision. And by the way, I see that pool services is on the expenditures list. Miles says that ZIP code should not determine students' outcomes. So why does Lanier's pool get services while Navarro's pool? Thank you. Could all remaining parents come to the front? We also have two new students who've arrived,
Luca Candida followed by Diego Lopez. You wanna have students first, Luca? I think that it's very important not to waste anything. And just eliminating the CTE programs that exist right now, the existing installations, which the construction cost a lot of money, it will be empty. We will lose our talent teachers that they teach these programs. And the enrollment on these schools will go down. And the kids,
will spend too much time and waste too much time traveling in the buses. Centralizing the services means that less pain occurs in the centers like Sunrise. People that or kids that they can, access these services will need that services and they won't be able to access them. Please stop Mr. Miles and his wasteful actions. Thank you. Diego Lopez? Do we have another student? Okay. Parents, number 12, Ellen Walter?
Every time I mention the libraries, or to be more specific, the lack of open and available libraries in HSED, I'm told that schools do have working libraries and that the kids are able to use them, despite evidence of many libraries being turned into team sitters with little access to the books that used to be housed there. I've heard and seen about the pictures of libraries that have been changed. Books were thrown in the dumpsters. Some were handed out to anyone who could help save them. Even if schools were fully stacked,
again, most of them aren't, it means very little if there isn't a librarian to keep track of the books, recommend new ones for young graders to try, and purchase replacements as needed. Only four books out of the pages of those being submitted to review tonight are from schools that are title one. It doesn't take much to notice that these schools are unable to buy new books for their libraries, yet schools in well off areas Thank you. Hi. I'm a mom of a current Heights High School student who is flourishing. I'm a mom of a current eighth grader who went on a tour at Heights
High School today, and everything at that school right now is incredible, and what she wants. What you are doing will destroy it. I'm a preschool teacher. I'm an advocate for public schools, and I'm a champion for all kids. The buses are an issue. No one has been able to answer our questions of who is gonna be on these buses. Who is gonna monitor them, how is it gonna be possible that they're gonna make it on time in Houston traffic. And the biggest thing that was discussed tonight is that you said at Heights High School that they would miss fifteen to twenty minutes of lunch. Well, that is a social hour.
And what happens sorry. Fifteen to twenty minutes is a big deal when kids are doing tutoring, when kids are meeting with clubs, when kids are playing, when kids are actually having conversations with other students without their phones being present. What is happening is that they are working on their mental and emotional well-being. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Kim Hoyle, parent at Heights. Providing more opportunities for students through BJCC is a great idea, but it should not require reducing existing pathways at our local schools,
especially without properly engaging us. At one of the recent info sessions, a district employee asked me what we expect community engagement to look like, which made me wonder. Maybe you guys just don't know what that should look like. Engagement starts before decisions are made, informing communities early and bringing together a representative group of parents and teachers to meet periodically to discuss options, gather input, and shape a plan that fits their school, working together towards successful implementation.
I've seen this work successfully at our elementary school pre takeover, and that's how Heights made the changes to their career pathways several years ago. This is what this administration keeps trying to skip. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Eduardo Brito Waltrip parent. I don't think students should be bussed to Barbara Jordan for two reasons, safety and effectiveness of transportation. It's taken me since the beginning of the school year to resolve my child's two hour bus ride gone from 6AM to 06:30PM. I don't have faith in your support of the transportation team.
As far as the Whitmire Conference Room is concerned, while I'm not a fan of it and think it's a political fellatio, I will do what you never do and admit when I'm wrong. It was done correctly and funded by the alumni and the photo circulating social where before it was covered, and it's able to come down quick if the board votes no. The heat it's getting isn't fair, and that's what happened when people don't have faith in you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Macy Langland. I'm a first time speaker, and I'm from Bellaire High School. The new building for Bellaire High School was built with a generous budget of a
$141,500,000. It should be a pleasant campus for students to feel comfortable in. However, I must unfortunately report that it is not. Whenever a student must go to the bathroom, they face a myriad of challenges. Half of our laboratory options are already eliminated because they simply do not function. Furthermore, a quarter of the stalls don't have locks. You must have a friend with you to hold the door shut, and that's if you have a friend with you. If not, you must stretch your arms as far as possible while relieving yourself, worried the entire time of the door accidentally opening. We can spend as much money on new campuses as we want,
but they will never be sustainable investments if we do not also keep, maintaining them. I implore the board to keep schools properly functioning so students may feel comfortable. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. I'm Malika, and I'm an HISD high school student. Today, we've heard a plethora of critiques about HISD's lack of financial transparency, policies which hurt hurt our students, and our communities. But I'm here today to talk to you about the day to day impact of those harmful policies. These choices which you have made with your power as trust as board members, have significantly hurt our students in a myriad of ways.
Most notably, in the wake of the government shutdown, thousands of HISD students lost the lifeline which kept them fed, SNAP benefits. This was a moment when HISD had a responsibility to do what our federal government failed to do, feed our students. But with a lack of funding and resources to our wrap around services and only resources such as sunset centers, which are inaccessible and required long drives for students and families to get to, students were left to starve. And schools were left to rely on donations and food drives to get them fed.
We should be ashamed of ourselves as Thank you. Speaker number 16, Sarah Rivlin. All remaining adult, HISD parent speakers, please move to the front room. Hi, my name is Sarah Rivlin and I'm a former Northside High School teacher. I went to the recent Northside Community Meeting and I want to thank, board member Janet Garza Lindner and Lauren Gore for being there. Appreciate it. We were concerned that our beloved culinary program was going to be sent partially to, Barbara Jordan.
When we got there they told us no, that wasn't going to happen, but that our hotel management would be dissolved. Our chef said, you know, there's actually some really good jobs for hotel management. So now in the agenda it says hotel management is still going to be there. So, I'm concerned there may actually be a really good plan in place, but we haven't seen it as a community and it's really hard to trust when the plan keeps changing. So Thank you. To those of you who came to community meetings on CTE changes,
thank you. I wanna push back on the idea that only classes tied to what you define as high wage careers prepare students for high wage futures. When programs like graphic design and digital communications are cut, what students hear is that these skills are less valuable. In a world shaped by AI, the most valuable abilities will be the ones machines can't replicate, creativity, interpretation, original thinking. My husband has a master's degree in poetry. I have one in fiction. I can't claim to have a high wage job, but he does. He will tell you that the years he spent learning to think deeply,
work with language language, and wrestle with complexity are skills he uses daily in work that machines can't do. The point is not that the arts guarantee a paycheck. It's that they train minds that can adapt and innovate. If we define career readiness too narrowly, we risk cutting the very pathways that prepare students for the future they'll inherit. Thank you. Thank you. Yanaka Alida speaking on item 15. You are accomplished sales business people, so know that the heart of any fraud detection program is an independent system of reporting like a whistleblower hotline. An employee who knows or success suspects fraud must be assured they don't have to
fear retaliation. But Miles is making sure the ethics and compliance department reports to him and not to audit. In HISD, Mike Miles and Jim Terry hold the three highest offices, superintendent, COO, and CFO. Any fraud report that does not go directly to external audit will ultimately go to them. The revised ethic policy ensures the superintendent decides who investigates the report. He will not consult audit regarding investigations or remedies. Federal grantmakers will not know if their funds are mishandled. Independence, at least for the hotline, is basic internal control one zero one.
As always, Miles says to trust him. You know better than that. This is your city and community too. We need you to look after it as we have no say. Thank you. We have two parents on Zoom. Justin Seinhorst, please, unmute yourself and you may begin. Hi there. Justin Steinhorst, HISD parent. Here to talk about the end of magnet programs at Heights High School and other other schools nearby. I wanted to speak against this. As a parent, just looking at this, action doesn't even make any sense to me, and we're only left to speculate as to why this is going on as parents.
And I can only speculate that some some sort of pet project for trying to build up the Barbara Gordon Center, or maybe possibly overstock it. So then when it comes time for another bond, and I hope I hope we're gonna try to get another bond because the city needs a bond. And then we'll say, oh, it's overburdened. We need to build up this building. Something like that. We don't know. I don't know. I can't stay. We keep taking actions like this. We're going to not gonna build any trust with the community. We desperately need trust in this community, and we're just not getting it. And that's why I'm against this, and I think this is just gonna continue to to kill trust or any kind
of attempt to build trust after we just failed a bond a year ago. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor. Wadhwa, please go ahead. I'm writing to ask the board to strike language in the proposed student code of conduct that escalates cell phone related infractions to DAP placement. This policy turns non violent behavior into exclusionary discipline. We already know where that leads. Thirty three point nine percent of students placed in HIIC's VAEP are African American, even though black students pick up only twenty one point three percent of HIIC enrollment. These outcomes are predictable,
not accidental. DAP placement disrupts learning and increases long term harm, especially for students who already lack support. Expanding pathways into DAP for low level infractions will only lead to inequities. If the goal is safe, focused campuses, we answer its clear expectations and restorative practices, not policies that push more students out of classrooms. I urge the board to strike this language and fire Mike Miles. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our parents and student speakers. I do want to welcome to welcome shout out welcome to Senator Boris Miles.
Thank you for being here and I know you're gonna speak in a little bit when we yes. I also want to welcome trustee Savant Moore and if you would like to, I think you were signed up to speak, you may, if you'd like to come up and say a few words, go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Savon Moore. Today, as a sixth grade English teacher, I was speaking to 10 and 11 and 12 year olds to make sure regardless of everything that they go through outside of the school that they provided the best education. And yet Texas is forty second in the nation for education,
not because us as teachers don't do what we're supposed to do, because oftentimes board members and districts don't do what they're supposed to do. Cashmere High School does not need programming that goes away. It needs to be increased. When you think about programming, you also gotta partner with Union Pacific. We have transportation issues. When those kids go to Barbara Jordan, are you gonna make sure that they receive lunch at Barbara Jordan? I'm running for Texas comptroller because we don't have a budget that is educating our
children at the best ability. They're too under they do not receive the best education. And once you leave this place, many of you will go to your mansions, and you will go to the best of the best, and your children will have the best of the best. But the kids behind us that I teach every day, they have nothing, and it's your decisions that could change that. God bless you and God bless the entire team. Thank you. Okay. Before we move into our, to the meeting business, I'd like to invite the board members to share the reports. Who wants to go first?
Anybody, talk about Michelle, you have anything? No? Anybody over here? Don't mind, Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanna say I'm looking forward to graduation that's coming up for our seniors. And so that's a very happy occasion. And, if any of you wanna join me, please do. I'd like to next, I'd like to invite Elizabeth Halley. Elizabeth, I saw you over here somewhere. Where did you go? I believe Ms. Hallie had to leave but she left calendars for the public. Okay, great. Right. So Elizabeth Hallie represents SPARK, the SPARK School Park Program and there are calendars I guess in the back and
board members are going to get them as well. So, thank you. You. I will now have, recognitions and reports, from the superintendent. Mr. Miles, you have the floor. I'm so sorry to interrupt. We have three special guests, the Girl Scouts are here. Did I miss that? Oh, I did. I'm sorry. Sure enough. I need my glasses. Next, I would like to, recognize the Girl Scouts, San Jacinto. We have, Lexi Ramirez. Please come up here. Sorry about that, Lexi. My name is Lexi Ramirez. I'm a cadet with troop one four five one three two from Billy Ragan K through eight. Being a Girl Scout is one of the things I'm most proud of,
and it allows me to have many cool things, new experiences, and helping my community and making some awesome friends along the way. On our behalf of all Girl Scout all Girl Scouts at HISD, I would like to thank you for making Billionaire and k through eight a a place where Girl Scouts can make themselves being confident who they are in our community and the world a better place through Girl Scouts. We brought you each each some Girl Scout cookies as well as as well as
sweet tokens of our appreciation for all your Girl Scout support. Thank you. Thank you. What a great job. We appreciate what you do every day. Thanks. Supergett, I think you're up. Thank you, President Campo. I would like to ask Najah Callender, Deputy Chief of Family and Community Partnerships, to come to the mic. Najah? Good evening. Good evening. I wanna start by saying happy school board appreciation month. Thank you for your continued leadership, your dedication to our students and families in our community. As we approach the MLK holiday all over the district, we're celebrating doctor King's legacy thank you through service.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the MLK Junior Oratory Competition, proudly held in partnership with Foley and Lautner Law Firm. The competition honors MLK by encouraging students to develop their public speaking skills while reflecting on the themes of leadership, service, and social justice. So let's take a look of what our fourth and fifth graders can do. Uh-oh. Nope. Thirty years ago, in partnership with the Foley law firm, they started the MLK oratory program really focused on HISD fourth and fifth graders.
They write their speeches, then they work with their coach, and their coach helps them with the delivery. The prompts are usually what would Martin Luther King Junior say about hope or about, our current state of affairs or how could he rally the troops. And so the the students take those prompts, they write a speech, and they work with a coach to deliver those speeches. And you're talking about amazing, amazing performances from our students. We may drive, but there is good work to be done. I'm always struck that they have such a great understanding of not only the history
and Martin Luther King's life and his writings, but also, they just always And to think that they're fourth and fifth grade students is so impressive. It really makes you, know and believe that our future's in a good spot. By for our fourth and fifth graders, I encourage you to join, and we also live stream it. So, great it's a great competition. Joining us here tonight, we have students from the Miles Ahead Scholars Program, an academic and college readiness honors program in HISD. This program was led by an initiative, started by State Senator Boris Miles, who's also here with us.
So I know he's been acknowledged. These young men represent Cashmere, Worthing, and Wheatley High School, and they have yielded an impressive set of accomplishments, including earning a record $4,300,000 in scholarships this year. We have We have, our senior scholars here today. They are noted by their jackets and their ties. You get your jacket and tie as a senior. And the program really is about rigorous academic instruction as well as college career readiness experiences. So the MOS students are leaders in their schools. They've been engaged, for the four years in all sorts of community service.
And this weekend, in recognition of MLK Day of Service, the MAS students will be over at McCullough Farm volunteering, thinking about Monday as a day on instead of a day off. So I'd like to introduce you to a student, in the program. I'm gonna ask Jeremy Stewart, who's a senior at Cashmere High School, to come and introduce the program to you. My name is Jeremy Stewart. I'm a proud Miles head scholar. I go to Cashmere High School, and I'm a senior leader. So first, I wanna start off by saying thank you to senator Boris Miles here as he established he founded the program. I appreciate him.
I wanna say thank you to you guys, the school board, for this opportunity that I have today as a Modelhead scholar. I wanna say thank you to superintendent Mike Miles for supporting Miles at Cashmere Wheatley and Wrayden High School. So I wanna talk about the impact that Modelhead has had on me personally. So I would say leadership. Back when I was a freshman, when I first came to high school, I wasn't really a leader. I was a follower. But in Miles Ahead, I gained leadership skills and I'm able to do things like lead my peers and my underclassmen in Miles Ahead Scholars. Exposure, I've been able to go to to a different my first time being out of
state, my first time on a plane was with Miles Ahead Scholars. So, my first time I went to Yale, a program called Yale Young Global Scholars. And it's just it's great because I was able to really experience these things, due to Miles Ahead. Oh, I had no experience to meet. And lastly, guidance. You know, at Miles Ahead, I've had several different mentors and I would say that, being in the program, I've really learned. I really am learning and I'm about to be a man as I go into my into college. Thank you all. The, young men in the program with us tonight are, going to, debrief the board meeting over dinner.
So they're they're gonna, skedaddle out, but I wanted y'all to know that every opportunity they're taking a chance to learn. Finally, a year ago, we will launch HISD Now to give our families and our community a trusted place for accurate information directly from the district. Since then, one of the things we've launched is our campus close-up series, a weekly feature that takes our schools, takes people inside our schools and highlight the great work of our principals, teachers, and students. Today, we're proud to welcome the staff from Austin High School, Thomas Middle School,
and Briar Grove Elementary. They are our featured campus close-up schools for the for the month of December. We're gonna take a look at their video. Oh, we'll wait for their exit. I'll start the video and then we'll have them stand. Highlight select schools across HISD. In December, we went to Austin High School, Thomas Middle School, and Briar Grove Elementary. We kicked things off at Austin High School. Principal Lucio Rodriguez gave us a tour and showed us the programs helping students thrive that prepares them for college and careers. I chose to go in the welding program as a backbone after high school.
We also heard from teachers including one who once walked these same halls as a student and is now giving back in the classroom. I graduated from here also through the program and, a lot of times that interaction with the kids there is kind of what lets them know whether teaching is something that they wanna do. Week two took us to Thomas Middle School. Principal Shanika Mitchell showed us how strong campus culture helped earn a new b rating. We talked with the teacher of the year, Trey Muhammad, about navigating change, support from her admin team, and growth as an educator. But if you just put one foot in in front of the other,
take it moment by moment, day by day, and trust your leadership. And we wrapped up the month at Briar Grove Elementary, a diverse dynamic IB campus focused on critical thinking and global learning. We heard from the IB coordinator, enjoyed a special cheer performance, and talked with educators about the strong support and growth happening on campus. I feel like everything about being in HISD was like a transformation. I was definitely looking for like a push and wanting to grow. What I like most about cheerleading is that you can dance and it's a good hobby because it's kinda like a workout. Three schools,
one month, and so many incredible stories across HISD. The staff from these schools to stand and just recognize them. Each month, we will bring, the next group of of, campus close ups here. So thank you all very much. Senator Miles, would you like to come up? And I know you're I know that your, young men are getting ready to go to dinner, so we'd love to hear from you. And congratulations on such an amazing program. Thank you. And let me say, as mentioned, I am state senator Boris Miles, and I'm honored to be here with HISD, superintendent Miles, and the trustees, and the community to honor these young men of Miles and Scholars,
of which I'm so honored that in 2019, it was named after me. Thank you. But, this program is an academic program I could to support college career counseling, mentorship, enrichment, and development programming so these kids are scholars and are able to compete with other strong college applicants across this country. This program has already paid off in dividends. Last year's class, as you heard, of 23 graduates received over 400,000,000 doll $4,000,000 in scholarship offers. This class already with early applications already received over $1,000,000.
Over $1,000,000. And trustees and and community, we know that's gonna rise because that's just on the pre applicant applications for college. Okay. So, you know, these aren't just numbers. It's powerful statements and testimonies with relentless dedication and sheer hard work of these young scholars. Words cannot describe how proud I am of these young men and the success that awaits them. I wanna thank the Miles Head Scholars program director, Warren Exley, and his entire team for all their hard work to prepare these young men for
a bright, promising future. And once again, thank you, HISD. Thank you, superintendent Miles, and thank you, trustees. And more importantly, thank you, community. Thank you, boys. Thank you. Alright. Well, thank you. Miles is here. One more student speaker. Is it a right speakers? Absolutely. Thank you. Hello. My name is Diego Lopez, and I am a student at Northside High School. When I got to Northside, my teacher school explained things, and they could make their own lessons. It was easier to understand. When my school went NES, this changed. When the teacher used the NES slice, sometimes the answers are wrong,
and then it gets confusing because the slice shows a completely different answer and the teacher is explaining a different answer. Before NES, teacher could take the time to explain to a student until they understood. Now we have about a minute to solve any type of problem. For example, when I did my mathematical problem, I was on the third step, and by the time that it was over, we had to move on and the next slide was a whole different type of problem. I learned better before NES. Else. All right. I want to thank Najee Callender for organizing the Miles Ahead Scholars and the other
events that we had tonight. Appreciate that. This month is a Board Appreciation Month, and I'd like to just say, I'd like to extend some gratitude to the unsung heroes supporting the HIC transformation. This month is not only Board Appreciation Month but it's a chance for us to express our sincere appreciation to the Board members. We know it's not easy. It's particularly demanding during a transformation and I recognize the added complexity, scrutiny and responsibility that accompany this moment.
And I want to acknowledge the professionalism and resolve with which you continue to serve. Thank you for your leadership, your commitment to Houston ISD and your willingness to navigate these challenging times with the continued focus on our students and our school communities. And then going off script, I just want to say, you know, I work with you and I've worked with lots of boards over my time. I've been on many different boards, not school boards. And, I know how professional and how much commitment you have and what you're actually doing for this community. And this is a particular moment in HISD's history and the history of the city.
There's never been a takeover or intervention of this size and magnitude. And there never has been a time where it is more urgent because of the changing environment. So many different variables over the last few years and over the next several years. The future is changing quickly. And if we didn't have a board like you to first really help to really help, raise student achievement and also get kids ready, so many more lives would not have been changed. You are changing lives. You know that.
You face the criticism. Well, I won't say anything about that. You you face you face the criticism and still you persevere. It's impacted your families, it's impacted your personal lives, you know, who knows, maybe even future job opportunities, and it goes unsung. And so at least for one moment in time, I hope people will recognize the sacrifice you're making and I really appreciate it. Thank you, Board members. So, Mr. President, for my superintendent's report, there's two parts. I'd like to talk about the family sentiment survey and
the outreach to the families and what the families writ large across the district feel about their schools, about the district. And I want to bring up our really unique team of folks represented by Matt Sawyer who did the survey and who did some of the analysis. Matt, please. I want to caution the audience tonight again, this is about being able to hear the speakers so that people who are watching
online and who will watch it later can hear them. So you're when you interrupt that, that negatively impacts the ability for people who aren't in this room to see what's going on and hearing these speakers. So I'm going to remind you one more time or one time, just please respect that and then we'll go forward. So thank you. Thank you, superintendent Miles, President Campo, members of the board. I'm excited to be with you here tonight to share the results of the twenty five, twenty six Winter Family Sentiment Survey. This survey serves as a core listening tool for us here in the district and
helps us understand the lived experiences of our families across the district in their schools and their perceptions of the district overall. Tonight, I'll focus on three things. I'll focus on our survey design, our participation, and our key findings. When we designed this survey, we had three goals in mind. The first was that we would have a result that was valid and representative of the families across the district. We wanted insights that could be aggregated at the school, division, and district level, and we wanted to ensure that we heard from at least 20% of the families
that we surveyed. I'm proud to say that we accomplished all three of those things. Using recognized survey design best practices, we ultimately earned a 25.7% response rate. There are four key takeaways I want you to think about this evening. The first is that we heard from more than 11,000 families across the district. Each shared their lived experience, and we're grateful that they did. Overall, nine out of 10 families in the district expressed overall positive sentiment about their experience in the district. 84% of families told us that they would recommend their school to other families.
And finally, two out of three indicated that they believe the district is headed in the right direction. When we were putting together our sample design, we ultimately wanted to look at best practices and identified that participation target of 20%. As I shared, we're excited to have landed above 25%. Our survey started with more than a 153,000 students, across participating campuses, which were all of our campuses except for Texas connections, charter campuses, and private students. Those 153,000 families or students belong to about a 104,000
families. We ultimately then invited about 43,000 families that were selected via a documented, repeatable, random process to participate in the survey. We heard back from more than 11,000 of them. Critical first step in a survey like this is to ensure that your sample is representative of the district. And so I'd call your attention that overall, our survey, our sample, again, that was randomly selected was, was representative roughly of the district. District wide, we were excited that our responses more closely mirrored the population of the district than
in our May survey. This was a key improvement and was made contactability of our families, through deliberate efforts by our campuses to ensure that we have good contact information, and through our implementation of Parent Square, which has given us a more consistent and reliable way to communicate with families across the district. I just wanted to quickly highlight the fantastic rates of participation we had from across the district. Here were our five highest schools that had the most participation, but I would highlight that even our campuses that had the lowest participation still outperformed our district average in our May survey.
Nearly 91% of our families across the district indicated on their survey, that they had an overall positive sentiment. Now you might say, what does that mean? And ultimately, what we did is we looked at each one of those surveys and we aggregated their responses. And we said if the majority of their responses were favorable, that is a favorable survey. If the majority were unfavorable, that would be an unfavorable survey. More than 91% of our families had more positive things to say about their school and the district than not. We evaluated a survey across five domains that were represented on every single survey.
And then for families who had a student that participates in special education, they received two additional questions as part of a special education and support domain. Across each of these, we can see strong participation, and strong results indicating, overall positive sentiment here in the district. In the interest of time, I'm gonna move quickly through the domain specific slides calling out overall favorability. In your packets, you have this information in addition to the question level detail, broken down for each domain. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them as we move through those results.
Our first domain, academic challenge and quality, eighty seven percent of our families believe that their child is learning as much as they expect and what is being taught meets their needs. In our safety and belonging domain, nearly 91% of families indicated that they believe their child is physically safe at school and feels welcomed and included. We take our students safely seriously and are always working to ensure that our students are safe. Matthew, can you on this slide, can can you just say a word about the breakdown and then you don't have to say it again for the the next Absolutely.
Which breakdown would you like to say? I mean, you can go back one or you can do this one. Just so people know what they're looking at. Absolutely. Happy to. So as we look at this slide, all of these are the aggregated totals of favorable, neutral, or unfavorable responses on each of these questions. And so you'll see in our total responses, there are 21,000 there. That's more than our 11,000 surveys and it is because we are aggregating two questions. I'm at the next slide. The next slide. Because you didn't you didn't explain this type of slide. Absolutely. So on this slide, what we have,
is the overall perception there on the left population, we group those into others so that we would be able to glean statistical insight, from those smaller groups, while still protecting anonymity at the, lower levels. Our school progress domain, nearly 83% of families responded that their child is being well prepared, they would recommend their school, and that they believe that their child's school is improving. Where I would dive in specifically is this question about I would recommend my child's school to other families. We know that there is no higher, admonition than being able to say to your friends and loved ones,
I really think you should join us, at Inter Elementary School. Ultimately, 84% of our families are indicating that they have faith that what is happening on their campus is something that they want others to be a part of. Our district perception, two out of three families believe that the district is headed in the right direction. An area where we've made considerable investment this year in communications as I shared with improved contactability and the implementation of Parent Square, nearly 90% of our families across the district feel well informed about school events and activities. And finally Can I ask a question?
Yeah. Absolutely, please. So you sent out 40,000 surveys. Yes, sir. 43. 43. How many bounced back or did did virtually all of them get out there and get The vast I know you only got 10 11,000 responses, but were were some of those not received or do you believe that people received them and just didn't respond? Do you have any feedback on that? Absolutely. I'd be happy to get specific numbers and follow-up with you afterwards. A significantly greater number of surveys, were successfully delivered to families this year than they had been in prior. But I'll get the specific numbers for you. Thank you. Yes,
sir. Finally, in the special education support and communication, eighty two percent of families with students receiving special education services indicated that they feel their child's learning or support plan is being followed and that it's being communicated effectively. Can can you go back to domain five, please? Be happy to. So communication is something that we've heard a lot about in these meetings. You know, it's consistent like a consistent narrative to engage in better communications with the community. This survey result would suggest that people the overwhelming majority of people, nine out of 10,
perceive it to be not just sufficient but favorable. What are we doing? And, again, maybe that's a positive evolution from previous times when this type of survey has been administered. I I don't exactly know, but I'd imagine it is given given sort of what I hear. So what are we doing that's working and how can we build on the things that we're doing that's working so that this is 98. Right? So, you know, I because I I appreciate the the commentary in the room that we get meeting after meeting, and I wanna make sure we're doing everything we can to improve our communication.
And it seems like we're doing all the right things, but we gotta, you know, continue to build on what's working. So I'm curious to get a sense of what have we done since the last time this was administered. Let me start there if you don't mind and then just add if you need to. Yes, there's a lot of things that we've done over the last year that were made better or easier to do because of the cleanup of our data. So when you don't have good emails or accurate emails or phone numbers, when that's kept track at the building level and there are 15 different platforms to
communicate to parents, over time that data degrades. New principal comes in, an office manager leaves and all of a sudden people transfer come in and come out and that data is not very good and we have a hard time communicating. But since we got our data integration really strong a little over a year ago, we started ParentSquare just seven or eight months ago. ParentSquare is one platform and it gets a lot of information out there. There's lots of links. We cleaned up our website,
used to have 88,000, you know this, pages, and it was more geared to internal audience than external. That got cleaned up and that was done about six or seven months ago. And then about a little over a year ago, we started HISD Now, which is a stream service you've seen bits and pieces of it. But because of that, we're able to communicate, lots more effectively and relatively constantly. So HISD now is streamed twice a day and then it's repeated another time during the day. It gives out information and you get to see just like you saw a little
bit today, the news, the HISD news, the the kids, the teachers, the principals, the events, the sports. You also get a lot of information through Parent Square. On top of all that. In English and in Spanish too. Yes. One of the live shows is in Spanish, live in Spanish. And then on top of all of that, you have things that the communications department has done and other people where we invite parents into the schools, we call it, into various schools, not just their school but other schools,
and we've had a steady stream of of that. It's called beyond the grade and we've been doing that since since November, right after Thanksgiving rather, last year and other meetings. So there's been a lot of work to overcome some of the negative social media and we've been at it and you can see the results of this. I think especially with being live in Spanish, we have our Hispanic families you can see and it's about 63 or 64% of
the population of the students is Hispanic, they have the highest, favorability rate in the in the district. Well, I I think that's amazing. Thank you, superintendent Miles. And I would encourage families who may be in this 12%, to if you aren't familiar with some of the communication tools because it sounds like it's digital, it's accessible at their convenience in their phone, in their computer. Especially ParentSquare and HID now. Yeah. They they should, you know, encourage everybody so I know this is this is recorded, to to take a look at those those,
mechanisms that superintendent Miles referenced and and and let's improve this number. Thank you. In closing, I would share a sincere thank you to the parents and caregivers that made their voices heard through this survey. We're grateful for your feedback. It matters. It helps us shape, the direction of our district. To our teachers, our principals, and our school teams, this positive sentiment in this survey is a reflection of your commitment, care, and the hard work you do every single day to create welcoming, supportive learning environments for our students and families.
This data gives us both affirmation and responsibility. Affirmation that our efforts are making a difference and the responsibility to act on what we've learned through it. We're proud of the strong foundation we've laid. We're more energized by the opportunity to build on it and as we prepare our students for 2035 and beyond. With that, superintendent Miles will now share his foundation, how this foundation is shaping the future direction of our district. I think we have a few more questions. So, go ahead, me. So I do. Thank you. Thank you for presenting. One question is is was it in English and in Spanish?
Yes. The survey was available in both English and Spanish. Great. The other thing is, I heard during the visits, the community visits that we did last week or so, that the HISD now was actually a result from being in the community and the community's feedback on needing something else. And I think that's wonderful because I think it goes to your point that we do listen and that that was something that came from that. So I think that's great. My last one is, what do we do with the information that may not have been positive or may have been a comment that said, here's what I'm I'm experiencing.
What do we do with that? Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for that question. This is just the beginning of us as we dig into this information, this data. We're excited over the coming weeks to share it with principals, division leaders, and others across the district so that they can dig into it, glean insight about what's happening on their campus, and then form action, around what they're hearing. Yes. And let me add to that. So at the at the school level, every school's represented, yes, but it may not have enough of a certain subgroup to be actionable, meaning, it may not be statistically relevant when you have such a small sample size.
Still, it's good information for principals to have for every single response that they received. At the district level, I gotta say these numbers are incredible for an urban district and it's even more incredible for an urban district that has been under intervention status. Still having said that, it's we want to do better and you can see at certain subgroups on certain questions, we can do much more. So it helps us target
our outreach. Everybody needs outreach but we can do additional outreach to those subgroups on certain questions that felt, less favorable, and and we can always work on that. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Matt. I'm gonna out myself and tell you that I took the survey. I'm a parent. Thank you. So I have a couple of quick questions here. One, what is the cadence of the survey? Will it be administered again this year or next year? Will it be the same 10 questions every every time? One of our goals as we designed this round of survey was to get to
a stable survey tool that would allow us to keep it consistent over the next several administrations so that we can glean trend information. Well, as an over thinker and as a parent of a sixth grader, obviously maybe I shouldn't say this out loud in front of everyone here, but, but the question of is your school improving? As a sixth grade parent, it was very hard to answer that because I'm not as familiar, but I do want a school to always improve. We can always get better, but I was not as familiar with maybe what was happening on campus in the past. That might be something to to consider that not all parents may be as familiar
with what the status of things were in the past. Not necessarily a need to change a question, but just something to consider. And I have a question about PASCP. PASCP is another, I would call that a family sentiment survey as well. How does that interact with or does it interact with this survey? So, it is separate from this survey. We look at and partner with, our family and community engagement team who I believe does PASCP. And so we'll look at those results. What I believe Naja has shared in other spaces is that these results are largely consistent with the results on PASCP.
Wonderful. Which leads you to my last question, which is, is it possible, the superintendent to get a, a census of all the survey tools that we use? So PASIP would be one, this is another. Yes is the answer and thanks for bringing that up because we also do, principal surveys, we do teacher, or climate surveys of schools and for certain teachers who volunteer, we do student surveys of, you know, the classroom environment, the instruction, the rigor and things like that. But teachers have to volunteer for that and we can get you that data as
well. We'll be doing that during the distinguished teacher review process. So, there's there's lots of surveys that we do. This is just one of them. Back to the improving, is your school improving? We we may, and we'll debate this with the team, but we may change the main survey to June so that they have the latest data because that might help them on their child's NWA or their child's STAR or something like that. That might help them answer the question. Thank you. Thank you so much. And one other thing on the survey,
I have to say to the to the staff, I know you also work really hard in your departments to take care of our kids and families, and it must be a little rewarding to see the the sentiment that your hard work is paying off. So hats off to you, and I just need just one person to say amen. Alright. Let's see. Alright. I know this is going a little longer for superintendent's report, but it's important oh, thank you. It's important, to every once in a while really think about where we are and the big
things we have to do moving forward. So, I know we don't want to be here too long tonight, but, if you don't mind, I think I'll take thirty minutes. Is that clock running on me? Right here. Okay, good. Okay. Good. To talk about the future and what we have to do, for our students to be prepared for that future and then also, how the heck are we gonna pay for this? You know, this picture, at the workshop I'll show actual video clips, but this picture will either excite you or scare you,
and that's the way of the future. This notion of, humanoid robots and the technology moving fast scares some people and then excites others. In any case, we will have an AI enabled world. That is happening. It's going to happen. Whether we're afraid of it, whether we like it, that's going to happen and our kids will enter a world that's different than the world, you know, of course the world I exited, that's a long time ago from high school, but even our recent graduates from five years ago,
that world will be different. And especially if you think about not just our high school graduates, think of our middle schoolers right now, our elementary kid right now. What do employers need most? I look at reports all the time about the future and the latest couple, one from the World Economic Forum done in September, just several months ago. Human centric skills, analytical thinking, creativity, leadership, resilience, are becoming critical in an AI enabled world. This one is from McKinsey and Company,
many of you know this company. The future of work just a couple months ago. Nearly every occupation will experience significant shifts. Highly specialized automatable skills such as accounting and coding face the greatest disruption while interpersonal skills like negotiation, coaching are least likely to be replaced. Most widely used skills though, problem solving and communications will evolve as humans increasingly work in partnership, in partnership with AI. Now, having said all of that, reading, writing, math, and science, I've not seen any research to say that that's not an important skill in the
year 2030 or beyond. And so, obviously, yes, we have to continue to do reading, math, science, as core subjects. I want to remind, everybody that the vision for the intervention was set two and a half years ago, and this is it. That we had two big parts to it. Significantly narrow achievement gaps, which means we had to grow our reading proficiency and our math proficiency and science proficiency, especially with our underserved population and the kids who were not proficient at the time.
And that took a lot of, energy, investment, and commitment from teachers and staff to get that done. And by the way, we are getting it done in spades. Today is the reading NWA. Yesterday was math. We'll have a full report for you next time. But I'll just give you a teaser, a trailer, and that is, they're up again, well above what the nation's students did, and so we'll report out on that. So closing gaps is important. We know we gotta keep doing that. But there's always been prepared students for year 2035.
And now that number, year 2035, should probably be lowered because it's happening even faster. This was a slide that I put up two and a half years ago at the very beginning. There's nothing that I've seen in the last two and a half years to make me change this slide. This is the last generation of children that will go through public education before the skills gap is locked in for the next thirty years. And I've said this too, if you don't attempt to envision and act upon some likely future, then any path forward will do, and it's likely to be the path you're on. This is the problem of traditional public education.
They're always behind, the technology and the jobs. So, what will be a likely future? This envisioning, this view of what the future will be in near future is not really that dramatic. I think if you had to put your own list together, it would be very similar to the list I have here. AI will accelerate changes in the workplace. I don't think that's any news to anybody. Workforce demands will outpace school adaptation. Not ours, but writ large. Large school systems will resist transformation.
School choice and fragmentation will etcetera. This has been happening in the last few years, it's about to happen more. We're talking about vouchers, school choice, virtual schools, Katie is opening one, Conroy. We have a virtual school, we're opening another. So school choice and fragmentation will accelerate and in that kind of environment, advantages accrues to families with social capital. Traditional assistance will absorb the growing strain. If people leave for vouchers or charters or homeschool, then often the people who are less resourced have to go to their traditional public school and if that school isn't doing well,
even if it is doing well, it will have to absorb that strength. Some students are gonna exit school for work credentials. That's a phenomenon happening since COVID, and that is, partly due to the gig economy. The more the gig economy grows, lower income job, the amount grows. Some students will exit school for that, or for credentials like vocational ed or industry based certifications. Demand grows for fewer high skilled jobs. Leaders will call for reform, but in most places, structural change will lag. So,
if this is true or even partially true, does the school system, does HISD and every other district but does HISD have any responsibility to prepare for that? I think the answer is yes clearly. So doing Read and Write Math Science, yes and what is the question. And to answer the what, you also have to think about what is our competitive advantage in an AI enabled world? Again, the premise here is that AI will be ubiquitous
in a few years and it will enter every single occupation and trade. And so what is the human competitive advantage? These are they. Values. Empathy and trust and authenticity are human values. Orientations. AI is not is not and may not ever be cause driven, because causes are, in some senses, illogical. The benefit cost ratio isn't always there. But people, humans, will do a lot for causes,
even though the monetary value is there or some other value is not there. Maybe we can stop the talking back here just to be professional. The second orientation is serving the common good. What does that mean? Only humans can really describe that. And that calls for value based judgment, moral reasoning, and continued innovation and improvisation. But there's also skills related to that. Working in teams is one. Applying perspective and framing. Right now, AI relies on framing and good framing prompt engineering.
I use ChatGPT all the time, but ChatGPT cannot frame the responses that I want. I have to frame it. I have to apply the ideas for it to give me a response that's accurate. Adaptive learning and improvisation again, and then most important is leadership and decision making. I hope and I believe that the world, at least in the next ten years and maybe hopefully longer, will not allow A. I. To do a lot of decision making
or leadership activities. That will rely on us and that will rely on our students who enter the world to have better leadership and decision making qualities and competencies. All right. With that preamble, so what are we going to do about that? Well, truthfully, we've already been doing things like that. These are the design principles that started this district two years ago. Design purposely. Because if you don't have a purposeful design, whatever you're doing is the design. Every system is designed to get the outcomes it's getting.
It's designed either purposefully or not. For example, this district was not designed as instruction as its main driver for achievement. But now it is, and this is the list of design principles that, I put out two and a half years ago. And just because there's too many words on the page, I just took these two from that list that apply to what we're talking about now. So we have got to ensure that our students not only do reading, writing, math, science, of course subjects, yes.
And what? And the experiences that will give them perspective, leadership, decision making, empathy, problem solving, innovation, improvisation. Those things that we're talking about is needed by the workforce. And this is not anything novel. If you read what the workforce is requiring, we've talked about durable skills for over six years in this country in the education profession. And then the second bullet we have already started working on, but that is we've got to double down on skills that are related to year
2,030, year 2,035 competencies. That's what we need. So, the HISD 2026, what we're doing, we're calling Accelerated Houston. We're rolling out over the next several months and we've started talking about this since Convocation. I don't know if you recognize this. One of the slides I put up in Convocation was this slide, except there's a couple changes to this list. But we've been talking about this for a little bit, planning for quite some time. We'll be rolling out in the next two, three months,
a lot of this. And yes, a lot more information going to the community, a lot more information going to the Board, of course. We have a workshop on the twenty ninth where we'll dive into some of these a little bit more. And these are the things we need to do. I'm not going to go over all of them because I don't have the time, but upgrading programs of study, the CTE centers we've been talking about, the renovation of Barbara Jordan that has been completed or almost done. I think it'll be done next week, the building there, and then the breaking ground of the new wing or the new building at Barbara
Jordan. The South Side Launchpad that we're talking about for the South Side Career Tech Ed Center. We're talking about college pathways. Chief Hull will give you a little bit about that, but we're trying to make sure that everybody can earn an associate's degree while they're in high school. And we're talking about expanding the two plus two, programs with I had a meeting with Texas Southern University just two days ago and we meet with HCC regularly and all kinds of efforts being put into place to get our students not just career,
but also college ready. Both. Planning for voucher students, we haven't talked a lot about that, but as that rolls out, if we have more places in our Career TechEd Centers, for example, that's just one example, then we might invite a voucher student who pays money to attend an open spot in one of our CareerTech centers. Integrating AI, we're already doing that. I know that gets poo pooed a little bit by some people and some people other people are afraid, but we're doing it in a way that makes sense and that will help us
become way more efficient just like every other industry and business in the country. Eighteen eighty two partnerships, we'll talk a little bit more about that. But you already know that we've started with four who are in the process of deciding whether they want to sign a contract and developing a contract to work with the Board to become an eighteen eighty two partner. By the way, again, every student that isn't an eighteen eighty two partner, the district gets about $1,000 per student,
for that. Virtual schools, I told you we're piloting one for next year. We already have Texas Connections. Other districts are doing that already. You've read about that. Accelerated math, we plan to make sure that our kids are even further accelerated. You're gonna be impressed with the NWA scores, and I know you are impressed with the STAR scores. Our math growth has been incredible. But now we're gonna push even harder. Because the future is now waiting for us and we're going to our kids are going to need that. So we're going to push even harder to raise the rigor and to get kids,
into Algebra I by the before they get to high school. More and more. So you'll hear more about that. And then finally, Future II. I do want to spend just one a few slides on Future II because even though I mentioned this at convocation, there hasn't been a lot of information. I know the board has received the concept paper, but you know, it's 20 pages, so you can be forgiven if you didn't read all of it. But let me just go through it. I know my staff's laughing because they get concept papers regularly and half of them only read it. So,
it's okay. Future II. We are going to pilot two schools, two Future II schools next year. Two K-eight schools, not two are not K-eight now two K-eight schools, and the program is core subjects, yes, again, rigorous core subjects. If they are not proficient, then they will take the NES core subjects in the morning. If they're proficient, they'll do an online platform, so they'll be accelerated, not NES on that side.
Same school. They will all have coursework. This is just fifth grade, fifth and sixth grade. Every grade is a little bit different. Coursework design thinking, using AI tools, study of cultures and how things work this is semester long courses. So design thing is semester long. So they take these four in a two year period. And then, after school, there's, we call them workshop. We kind of come up with a better name than that. I just, you know, I guess I don't have the innovation and imagination that I should. But we call them workshop for right now. But kids have to play a musical instrument in order to move out of the
fifth and sixth grade. Out of sixth grade, going into the seventh and eighth grade. If they already play a musical instrument, great. If not, then we'll provide that. We'll help them. If they already participate in team sport, then that's fine. They check that box. If they don't, we'll have team sports for them after school, so forth and so on. The biggest thing, though, is these experiences. Remember, we want those things like framing, perspective, understanding cultures, innovation, improvisation the things that were on that sheet that, we think kids will need when they graduate. We don't want to wait until tenth grade.
We want to start in third grade, for these sorts of things. So these are some of the themes of the experiences. And then, these are the experiences for fifth and sixth grade. So, there's all kinds of things that will help their leadership decision making. That's by the way, these two slides are just half of them. There's too many, so I didn't wanna, you know, put too many on there. So, all of these things will help with leadership decision making, perspective, understanding cultures, being empathetic, all these things are what you see on the screen.
And this is two hours every day, one hundred and eighty days, in a Future II school. Not counting the workshops and stuff. The team sports, the playing an instrument and all that, that is also happening. So this is exciting. I've rolled this out in a couple of places and folks are excited about it. Yes, sir. And then I'll finish up because I think I've said seven minutes. There's a time thing, so I wanna make sure I'm I'm not keeping folks. One one program that you didn't mention when when I went to the community meeting at Northside High School was incredible, and I think we should do an HISD now thing on it.
It's like third time I've said it, which I know it's happening. I know. But I'm I'm talking to What program is that? But there's this thing called the UT on ramps program. Oh, yeah. It is incredible. And at Northside High School, they have their first two students graduating through that program ever. And these two students are super proud. The principal's super proud of this. But the thought is and, you know, it's I mean, it's really amazing. No cost, no eligibility test, you don't need to be GT, you don't need a special designation, that that you get full college credits,
you get a GPA boost when you when you take the and it's from UT Austin. Right? And it's kids are pumped about it. And we've got our first two coming through the program. So it's to the point this list of things you've brought up, this one slipped through the cracks, but it's amazing. Yeah. And that's I mean, there's too many things to list, but, Chief Hall is going to be talking about that, in just during her session. So but yes, those are the sorts of things we're doing. And you're going to see why so many more kids are getting college credit and
industry based certifications in the next presentation or later on when you call for her. Yes. And then let me let me finish after this, then we'll take questions. I can wait. No. No. You go ahead. That's it's alright. You said two k eights. What are you thinking about in terms of size? Like, how many kids? Yeah. So, obviously, this is we've got a market, we've got to advertise, most likely around, if you can't, not just a three through eight, somewhere around, six fifty kids. And would you build up or it would open with all the grades?
Open with all the grades. This is just so fantastic. You're speaking all my love languages with this. I'm so excited to see this implemented. Great. Now, off of Future two and just back to Accelerate Houston. All these things cost money. Career tech ed, even expanding it, like even upgrading the health sciences. You're talking about mannequins and the hospital beds and the blood pressure units, the modern ones, and all of that. Talk about automotive. You know, when you want to build an automotive station that's also tied to electronic vehicles,
So now you're talking about the diagnostic equipment. I think you're talking about $175,000 per station for automotive, so forth and so on. I think you get that. The future, too, this is going to cost a little bit more money, not a lot more, but some and on and on. And so that's a need. I mean, we can keep doing what we're doing. And what we're doing is not bad, by the way. We are closing the achievement gap, we're raising proficiency, more kids are getting to college, etc. Etc. But that's not enough for a different world in the workplace. We've got to do more.
And so let me give you the financial situation. I don't think I mean, this is not news to anybody. This is our state revenue and the orange is what we lose because of the drop in enrollment. Let me zoom in. I didn't want you to the scale was already at one. Let me zoom in though. So last year, we lost $60,000,000 from loss of enrollment. This year, dollars 72,000,000 total. Next year and this is a wild guess right now, guys, because we don't know what the immigration policy will be,
we don't know what vouchers effect will be, we don't know how many people But here's the bottom line: somewhere between $50 and $60,000,000 a year is what we've been losing and we're going to continue to lose that unless things drastically change and we don't know when that might be. And you can see the state revenue, even without enrollment, hasn't really gone up, except next year it will go up a little bit. And this year we went up just a little bit too based on what the legislature did, which is, you know, which we're thankful for. But you can see since twenty one-twenty two,
total revenue from the state, even if we had all the kids, would have been lower. But, this orange part, it should does concern me and I know the Board. So what are we going to do about that? Again, we can maintain what we're doing just by cutting back. If you lose enrollment, you know, there's things you can do. But, if we want to do more for our kids and get them ready, we're going to have to find revenue. And that revenue, I'm estimating, is probably $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 a year, at least. So,
we're going to be looking closely at funding sources and these are some of them. So, you know about maintenance tax notes. You know about PFC bonds. But we are going to have to look at school consolidations. Every school that closes is that we close or consolidate is $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 So, you know, if we did 10 schools, for example. And we've been low to do that, but, you know, we know we have to at some point. 10 schools would be somewhere around $15,000,000 in revenue. Enhanced teacher incentive allotment,
you know about that. Right now we get about $15,000,000 for our pay for performance plan. And if we do if we continue down that road and do which we are that'll bring in $25,000,000 maybe $30,000,000 Curriculum resources, a lot is left on the table at TEA. So TEA has funding for a lot of things, but you have to, you know, engage those things. So, for example, curriculum resources, there's curriculum that, resources that we're leaving on the table. Eighteen eighty two partnerships I already talked about that,
but if we can have more eighteen eighty two partners, that's $1,000 per student. 500 students, dollars 500,000. Dollars 1,000 students, dollars 1,000,000. I mean, you can do the math. That's a lot of money that we're leaving on the table there, too, for something that is pretty I wouldn't say easy but something that can be feasibly done. Resource schools that's schools that are struggling campuses where you put in a new model. And so we're right now debating with DEA about whether NES could be qualified as
a new model, for struggling schools. And I think we can do some work on that. School action funding is an innovative program for new, for schools new programs for schools. We already take advantage of some of that, but we're going to try to do more. And then greater efficiencies in the district, of course. There's not a lot you know, we've cut a lot at central office and at some point you can't then you get to muscle, not just fat, and we're about there. Still, there are some things that we can do. We think we can be much more efficient, transportation being one of them. Is where we can gain some efficiencies.
And then philanthropy, that's not a you can't rely on philanthropy as a way to carry you forward. But seriously, there is a way to get $4 or $5,000,000 a year, over the long haul and that, you know, that's a lot of money, still. So, the moral of this story is we're going to have to find, more resources. And on the twenty ninth, I hope we engage in a good discussion about, what makes sense and what can we do feasibly to get that. Who has the first question? Superintendent, can I assume that the four high schools that will hopefully go into these eighteen
eighty two partnerships, that will result in at least locally revenue boost for those schools? So, yes and no. The no part is the money for eighteen eighty two partnership comes to the district and the district agrees or doesn't in the contract, what part of that $18.82 extra dollars is what you're talking about, goes to the school. So not all of it will go to the school, but some of it will go to the school and that's the yes part. So we're going to talk, do a deep dive on all these items on the twenty ninth, right? So I mean,
how does an $18.82 work and what are the positives and negatives and all that? Yes, what's the benefit cost ratio of that? What's positive for the school? What's positive for financial Okay. So I'm just gonna caution, board members that let's not get in the weeds here. Okay? Because we're gonna have a weed party on the twenty ninth. Yes. And you can tell me if I'm in the weeds. I assumed on curriculum resources that we like, if it's detailed, we can wait. But how do you maximize more than what you're how do you get more than I thought, like, if you got if you did the state approved,
it was just done. Like, how do we get even more? Like, how are you expanding that one? Yeah, so there's, depending on the curriculum that you choose, you're, you're able to get more, like $20 per kid based on the curriculum that you choose. The state does try to, help all the districts and they also try to incentivize the use of their curriculum. We're using HISD curriculum, but there are other curricular resources that we could take advantage of that would come with some funds. And also, if we choose what's called, OER,
What does that stand for, Kristen? Open Education Resources, thank you. Then we can stop paying for these all these licenses that we pay for, which is the biggest cost for us right now. I have an easy question, and then a couple of other ones. Three questions. Give me the top line again, Accelerate Houston versus Future II. I'm a little lost as I heard a lot tonight. So Accelerate Houston is just kind of the big umbrella of all the things we gotta do to get our kids moving forward that we that we will start.
And we'll hear more about that. You'll hear more about each of those, especially on the twenty ninth, but not only twenty ninth. We're gonna be talking about it for the next three months. Gotcha. I didn't wanna start mixing up terms. Explain a little more about what you meant by planning for voucher students. Yeah. And again, I don't want to get into too many details and part of it we don't really know. But one idea, when vouchers came out and got passed, we also started thinking, Look, if we lose students there, we're going to lose revenue, that's true. But, we also have opportunities to continue to educate kids,
because our competitive advantage to private schools and charter schools is that we can do CTE better and more efficiently than anybody else. So private schools or charter schools, you know, one off schools cannot do these huge CTE programs that I'm talking about. So, we can recapture some of that money and at the same time educate some kids if we have open positions, where we say, Look, we had 10 open positions in welding in the afternoon at Barbara Jordan I'm making
this up at Barbara Jordan. You know, if you want one of those slots, it's gonna cost you X voucher kit. Obviously, for our kids, it's free. Last one is, when you were talking about AI and, the example of the what students need to be able to know and do in order to get accurate responses, That's sort of prompting. Yes. Uh-huh. The example I'm wondering about as well, and I didn't see it highlighted, is around questioning the result. The knowledge and and and skill and capability they need to question the result.
This is something that we experience at work right now and why we're cautious about using it. So I wanted to hear a little more about that. Yes. So, in order to know how to question, first of all, you have to you really have to understand information literacy, the use of information, problem solving, decision making, and critical thinking. All of those things. And we have been using art of thinking in 130 schools 85 schools from the start and 130 for two and a half years now. Three times a week,
ninety minutes each time. So, yes, if we don't want kids to just go to CHAT GPT, type in something and just take the response, I mean those of us who use CHAT GPT and it's research too, it's not just that, understand that there's hallucinations, although that's decreasing. But there's a regression towards the mean because the information out there is collated and it arrives at some answer if you don't frame it right, it will give you its answer,
which is not the answer you want, or not even the answer to the question you want. It's the answer to the question they're trying to solve. So, and it requires people in an information age to be good with information. It requires critical thinking. It requires an understanding of fallacies of logic. And so those are the things that we teach in information literacy, problem solving, critical thinking, and we need to do even more of that. So, it's not just prompt engineering, although that's a big piece of it for younger people.
Thank you, Superintendent. Is the idea that as a board we will develop a plan of action with some of these I know the list isn't comprehensive, but we will have a plan of action of, board items to adopt over the course of the next couple of months or so? Yeah. So there there are certain items that we need the board to adopt. Yes is the answer. And then, you you are used to receiving and you will receive a district action plan in the in February. And then at some point,
probably in February, I'm looking at you, Rick, because you'll be the you and the Board will determine when we will have our first, budget workshop to go over the budget assumptions methodology, which are tied to the district action plan. So that plan will also identify the things that need board approval and the other things, the other action steps that'll happen. So, and then I know I teased about the concept paper, but the concept paper also has certain steps in there that have already been outlined for several different things.
And do all of the decisions need to be made before the board votes in June? Yes. So the decisions that impact the budget for sure have to be done. And in order to work on these things for next year, we're going to need, the board votes that are required to happen. And then the money attached to it, which is what you will or will not approve in June, because that budget has to be actionable. In other words, tied to the actions that we plan to take.
Thank you. Okay. Sounds to me like there's going to be a lot of things on the table and we're going to get deeper into it on the twenty ninth. And it's going to be really important for a lot of communication and a lot of information for the community about what's going on because these are new things and that have been and some of them aren't new like the teacher incentive allotment. I mean for years we've left millions and millions on the table that the TEA would fund that we wouldn't or that we as the district didn't just take advantage of. And so what we need to do now knowing
that our revenue over the last three years has gone down $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 per year and it's not going to be any better in the next three years likely just because of demographics and vouchers and all the other pressures that you have outlined here. We have to look at every dollar we possibly can to create value ultimately to fund these important things for our students. So I encourage everyone to be here on the twenty ninth and to really be ready to dig into some complicated, controversial, but very important decisions that will have to be made on how do we increase
how do we fill that $50,000,000 $60,000,000 revenue hole and continue to invest in these in our students and our teachers. So all right, thank you. All right, thanks, sir. Okay, I think we are now ready to hear from all of our remaining speakers who have signed up to address the Board. So are we ready to go there, Smith? So you can go ahead and start calling people. Could we have speakers 38 through 48 come to the front row, please? And we'll start with Charles Collins. Charles Collins. Go right ahead. Good evening, Charles Collins, former teacher of Charles George College High School.
I speak to consent agenda item 15 because it relates directly to my case. Although the board overturned my nonrenewal in December 2024, A subsequent term contract was never offered. I was instead harassed, threatened, and subjected to fraud by HISD administrators in violation of consent agenda item 15. I filed a complaint in federal court because over 22,000 and false overpayments were created without my knowledge or consent. And there is more than a $50,000
difference between pay periods just two weeks apart. Serious allegations have been made against me, but none of them are true. So I asked the board to to consider consent agenda item 15. Make sure administer Thank you. Thank you. Miss Nuncio, go ahead. Miss Nuncio, go ahead. Good evening. My name is Carmen Nuncio. Mister Mike Miles, I would like to know why you are pushing our kids our students from the culinary arts program to Barbara Jordan from Northside High School.
What gives you the right to make decisions on what's best for our students without input from the school and our community? What gives you the right to treat our teachers and principals so badly? They should be treated with dignity and respect. I mean, who died and left you in charge? I hope you release the emails that the media is asking for so maybe we can find out what it is that you're hiding. Then maybe we can get a superintendent that cares about our kids and not about
the almighty dollar. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm here to highlight two of the many problems associated with HISD plan to remove key CTE programs from Heitz High School and relocate them to Barbara Jordan. First, this proposal strips Heights of programs that are deeply embedded in our school's academic identity. These aren't just electives. There are multi year sequences that give students purpose, belonging, and mentorship opportunities that will be lost with the transfer. Second, the plan relies on kids traveling in Houston traffic,
which create major major barriers. Students in band AP will struggle to leave campus for hours at a time. Many students, especially ninth and tenth graders, will simply look access lose access altogether. Moreover, a quick search within HISD website on transportation efficiency using mister Miles' favorite tool, AI, reveals, HISD is extremely cost inefficient, and the district, meaning you, the board, reveal transportation as one of the most important systemic Thank you. Hi, I'm Tracy Liseski. I'm here to speak to the importance of community engagement,
both how it pertains to agenda item four and to the broader CTA changes that the administration is undertaking. Engagement is more than a tick the box exercise. It should be meaningful, thoughtful, and most importantly, two way. QDs were surveyed to provide feedback on the now complete engagement process. I've shared the results with you via email and through board services. Other respondents, sixty three percent were unaware of the meetings and only 39% were able to attend. The overall rating of the engagement process on a scale of one to five was 1.6. Clearly, the community feels this limited engagement was lacking.
Engagement isn't a bad thing. It allows buy in and support, and it keeps families in HISD. I ask that you table agenda item four until proper engagement has incurred. I ask that you hold the superintendent accountable to constraint three as he moves programming to Barbara Jordan and to continue the engagement process as the engagement as the process moves forward. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Maurizio Eta. I'm a father of Doorham Elementary. To achieve cellularization, you need to love and belonging, and this is the hardest about what's happening at Doorham. With each teacher and student lost to the toxicity of the environment,
each remaining child losses another one with their connections necessary for human thriving. The teachers and students who are still are loving as they ever were. The new teachers try hard, kids make new friends, still human relationship aren't interchangeable. The five year old noticed that her neighbor isn't there to give her a fist for him. The first grader wonder where the teacher went. The third grader struggles to adjust to a person that they don't know. The veteran teacher has to constantly redo the grade level team building process.
As a superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you. I have three daughters and you're causing nothing but trouble to them. Please help us stop destroying our district. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Christina Garcia, Durham Elementary parent, continuing the cohesive speech. Finally, to achieve self actualization, you need esteem, which is self esteem, confidence, and respect. This is where your entire method seems designed to achieve the opposite. If you succeed at your DOL, you seemingly get punished as less deserving of attention and are instead subjected to a world of silence and worksheet.
If you don't succeed, you suffer the daily embarrassment of everyone knowing that you didn't get it as you have to stay in the classroom. Meanwhile, teachers can be humiliated by administrators in front of the students at any moment. What sane person would describe this as an environment to allow people to achieve esteem? And remember, you need all the rungs to be able to learn. As superintendent of HISD, this should trouble you. Thank you. My name is Brianna Mohan, I'm a parent and I'm reading this on behalf of another parent, Jessica Gumbel. I want to talk about what's happening to my five year old daughter who was
previously at Mesos Academy, a Montessori school and now at Poe Elementary and HISD school. Every single morning, it is heartbreaking because she is in tears saying she is scared to go to school. She tells me her teacher is always upset with her and that she's always scared of the work. Her fear was even happening even before her previous teacher left. That teacher left Poe because of the mental health strain caused by the district's new curriculum. She told us this herself. I wasn't mad at her for leaving.
I felt bad for her. The stress the school was causing the teacher was affecting my daughter's mental state as well. I even kept her home for a whole week in the fall semester to protect her mental health. At Poe, we have lost all the kinder teachers because they didn't sign up for this Thank you. Hi, Ann Eagleton, taxpayer. I am absolutely gobsmacked by the superintendent's presentation. Given the fact that we donated curriculum to a charter a Dallas based charter school, I thought we were rolling in money. But now I'm finding out we're broke.
We've lost so many students. We lost $72,000,000 Why are we giving away curriculum when we have to sell land to pay the light bill? This is bonkers. There's no other word for it. It's fiscally irresponsible. We need to have an investigation as to what mister Miles' arrangement was with ILT and Education Partners. Trust but verify was something Ronald Reagan said. I don't quote him a lot, but I think he was right about that. We need an investigation
because we really don't know what happened. He says he didn't get paid, but I haven't seen his bank statement. So I can't confirm that. Thank you. Could speakers 49 through 59 please move to the front row? Speakers 49 through 59 please move to the front row. Do we also have Norellis Rodriguez, miss Lucas Roberts, or Laura Henry here? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Great. Go ahead. If nine out of 10 families were truly satisfied with the direction the district's going, you would not have lost 13,000 students in the last two years. I'm not ever going to say bad things about my child's school because I don't
wanna hurt the school. You don't get truth when people don't trust you. Working in teams, applying perspective and solving problems, you think the district curriculum allows for human advantage? Those skills are found in the non testateiques that HISD teachers aren't allowed to touch. As a teacher, I work with test data in one hand and a full range of literary expectations in the other. Students can make an almost perfect star score on the STAR essay as long as they are trained to memorize sentence stems and can identify some text evidence. They don't have to be able to correctly write a sentence.
Eliminating multiple choice distractors does not mean a student comprehends. The test doesn't care. The teacher does. Miles is not curious or reflective. He's an entrepreneur with a product to develop. If you were the kids, be more curious, more reflective, and more skeptical. You are all Thank you. Sister mama Sonia, what's a library? During an after school program, a third grader asked me, what's a library? And we sat in the room formerly known as a library that was filled with books. I gestured around and say, here, take a look. You check these books out, take them home and read them and bring them back.
His eyes widened. No, ma'am. We can't do that. We get in trouble even if we touch these books. My eyes watered at his words. And for a brief moment, I traveled back to enslavement. When my ancestors and ancestors faced severe penalties for just wanting to read, they were penalized, chastised, agonized, traumatized for just having a book. They faced brutal beatings, flipping, latching, mutilations for just having a book. Thank you, Mike Miles and the board of managers, for reviving this. And in honor of the birthday of doctor Martin Luther King,
I too have a dream that one day, I will wake up from this nightmare and all of you all will be gone. Thank you. I'm Christy Michelle Brewster, your retired school nurse. The waiver request for remote homebound instruction, is that for all of the students or just a a certain situation? And what about our face to face? You are you gonna eliminate that? Community services school handles that particular homebound, a very needed program for our at risk students.
Without that, because of medical issues, they couldn't go to their regular school. A lot of them would drop out if they didn't have another option. Face to face is a wonderful learning. I'm a a product of face to face. But if you're going to keep it, let me just make a recommendation. Since I walked there through 2022, we need a new principal. She's disrespectful to your vendors who you have to get contracts with, not not to mention your teachers, and she's not allowing the services to be rendered as needed. Leopards have no change in spots.
If she did it then, I bet she's do Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Aileen Harrell, attend item 11. At your behest, I attended community meetings, helped write the 2024 Bond Community Advisory Committee report, and stood at this podium with the uncomfortable truth that CTE centers were met with the most skepticism by the community. Stakeholders were clear. Health, safety, security, renovating, and right sizing this district. Our needs in CTE centers right now, unfortunately,
are wants. That was when a CTE center cost $125,000,000 Your job is to represent the vision and values of this community. There were no conversations with the stakeholders before you voted on a $182,000,000 PFC bond, which was a rebuke to the community. And now the budget is $2.00 $5,000,000 Has any of you asked publicly how the cost of a CTE center has gone up $80,000,000 and
Thank you. Thank you. Come on, doctor Pam. Doctor Pam Boblin, and I'm here to say vote no on item four, which is intended to gut on campus CTE programming that creates a disruption in our, children's instructional day that was so highly exaggerated before. Stop breaking what's not broken. I resolve as part of my New Year's resolutions to have librarians on every campus. I resolve to create legislative guardrails on takeovers to prevent robber baron policies.
I resolve to expose all levels of academic corruption designed and and disguised as quality instruction. Prepare the future for TED Talkers, not TikTok. I resolve to help any community under threat of takeover to understand the playbook. Prepare them to fight the battle in our new project 2026. Thank you. Michelle Williams, Houston Education Association.
Unfortunately, none of you all thought enough of the North Forest community, the Northeast community to even show up for their meeting. So here's three takeaways. Black parents do not support this plan. Period. The CTE teachers at North Forest High School knew nothing about this. They were flabbergasted. There are 240 kids in the automotive program and your little person that was there said they were sending four buses. You all can't even pick the special ed kids up on time. Also, a bus driver told me that you all only have liability on your fleet of
buses. You you have children on them. So before you, make this formal, which you're gonna do it anyway, just know that you are destroying our school district. You're destroying kids' lives and parents' lives because you're listening to someone who has no experience in education. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Anthony Collier, and I'm here to register opposition to the plan to eliminate or move some CTE programs from the 10 high schools closest to the Barbara Jordan CTE Center,
which will force students to spend up to an hour on buses two to three times a week to access classes that are often already available on their home campuses And to register opposition to approving another lease revenue bond that bypasses voters to build a second CTE center when families and educators have been clear that HISD should prioritize fixing aging HVAC systems. Thank you. These, new eighteen eighty two partnerships,
y'all don't even require an audit. But my head exploded when I hit the fine print where the words generally accepted accounting principles gap are replaced with generally accepted standards for fiscal management. That's not even an AI hallucination. That's a Jim Terry hallucination. And if you search it, AI actually replies with the real thing, GAAP. Y'all are like, I don't even wanna know what y'all do with the money. And Miles just admitted the payoff for this thing is peanuts, like $500,000
to give away our magnet our flagship magnet high schools with no guardrails, no financial oversight, not even an audit. And every night y'all come in here, hey, coach Miles. What's the play? We're just here to execute. And every policy gives him total discretion. You're supposed to have a policy committee and an attorney. You're supposed to write them. Thank you. Thank you. Your time's up. Appreciate it. Hello. I'm Madeline Pearson. I'm a Northside alumni and a first time speaker. I'm here on behalf of a concerned parent who's worried about the CTE proposed changes.
Here are their words. With many of the CTE programs being moved to Barbara Jordan, it would be detrimental to students who use special education services. Spending so much time on the bus means missing out on service time, instructional time, and class support, which makes it difficult to implement IEP properly. And because of that, this opens up more lawsuits for the district. And also may be taken into account that students that use wheelchairs and their bus access. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor. Bruce Hoffman Lack. Where are the cameras? There.
To the teachers, parents, and students who have shared your feelings of grief, anger, shame, guilt, regret, loss of faith in humanity after witnessing or being forced to participate in harmful or cruel acts or policies, I want to say this. What you are feeling is a normal response to an abnormal situation. Because it can be helpful to name a difficult thing, I want to suggest you may have experienced moral injury. Originally identified in combat veterans, we now understand moral injury can affect anyone.
When you are forced to choose between implementing policies that harm students and losing your job, when your favorite teacher is fired because she let you ask a question, when no matter what you do your child's IEP is not followed, moral injury can occur. You are not alone. We see you. This was not your fault. Thank you. Miss Kravitz? Good evening. What do parents and teachers want? We want public schools that are both academically strong and deeply human. But instead, teachers live in fear and students often have two, three, and four teachers in a single year.
As to your survey, your results yielded biased results because you only recruited parents who have a parent Square account. What you should do and what y'all should ask them to do is partner with your h or Rice to find a more representative sample. It'll mean that people trust the results. If communication is so good, why did so many parents say they only heard about last week's meeting the morning of the meeting, and they got their information either from CBPE or the Heights PTO? HISD's NES enrollment has dropped nearly 10% and up to 40
Hi, miss James. I'm Tag Team and Ruth. Oh my god. Good evening. This is about effective governance, guys. You all are here to demonstrate that to our community. You're looking like our previously elected board in which this is why you are here. You have set goals and constraints, but governance is also about how. The processes and procedure that builds trust and produce results. When leadership does not follow the process, it signals the process does not matter and affect the governance breakdown.
I attended some of those meetings that we had last week, and like previous speakers have said, families reported that many of the impacted communities were not timely informed of the meetings. Even though Barbara Jordan has been presented as a pathway connected to the program shifts and sunset across multiple schools, late and uneven, engagement is is one way communication. Your own tracker says advocacy and in in engage Thank you. Linda Murray followed by Camille Breaux. My name is Camille Breaux,
HISD parent. I'm here today to oppose the updated code of conduct, which now states that a second violation of the personal device policy results in a seven day confiscation and a third violation results in a fourteen day confiscation of phones. They're only released to caregivers. Please consider the realities of students that are living with Houstonians being detained by ICE. Many are parents who are their child's sole caregiver. Many parents work multiple jobs to cover basic necessities, often relying on older children to care for younger siblings in the evenings.
Students themselves are working to supplement household income and having a phone is essential for coordinating transportation and scheduling. For many students, their phone is not a luxury, it's essential. If the goal is responsible use of technology, you can take up phones each period. But we can't expect kids to manage technology responsibly when we as adults haven't even figured it out. Please consider how harsh policies disproportionately affect Thank you. Jennifer Perry followed by Ilya Martinaldo, Brooke Longoria, and Amy Maddox. Hi. I'm Jennifer Perry. I have three children in HISD.
I'm asking you today to table, agenda item four or vote no against it depending on what your actions happen tonight Because of constraint three, there aren't a lot of constraints that the board of managers have, but the ones that we have, there's only five total and two in the state. The ones we have are the only guardrails we have for the instruction and the decisions by superintendent Miles, and they're important. Constraint three is specific to magnets, and that was established after Mike Miles tried to change some policies with the magnet, schools and the public responded. So the board of men managers decided that a constraint three needed to be added
at that time, that there has to be community engagement before anything significant change to the magnet programs. This is a significant change. There you have to discuss the results. I was at the meeting. Half of the questions we had had no answers yet. How can you have any kind of input or any kind of constructive, Thank you. Good evening. My name is Elia Martinaldo. I'm a parent at HISD. I read a report today by University of Houston. It's called Houston, Takeover by the Numbers. I recommend you read it. It had a lot of good insights and a lot of,
good, good numbers on data. I guess you won't read it or if you read it, you will dismiss it. But anyway, I'll read a few things from it. The steepest drop occurred at the high school level, it's talking about enrollment, particularly in ninth grade, where enrollment fell 15% in two years. In Economics, choices are informative. If parents choose HSD schools less, that suggests they perceive the quality to be going down, not up. Anyway, it goes on and on. And it's just to say that I oppose also the changes in the magnet and CTE programs,
and I can guarantee you that they will keep driving enrollment down. I guess you do not care, but it is very concerning the way enrollment is going at HISD. Sorry. Good evening. My name is Brooke Longoria. Tonight my comments are directed to doctor Cruz Arnold and miss Hull. Last month during the SPED presentation, doctor Cruz Arnold asked miss Hull if there are differences between the NES SPED and PUA SPED populations that could explain differences in their test scores. Chief Holt said that they are similar in size and there are no material differences
in their needs. However, last May, the same question was asked during a budget workshop by miss Monomaniye, because in May, it was shared that NES Sped students are funded at an extra $979 per student. Miss Elizondo and miss Vincent stated that NES Sped students have higher needs than PUA Sped students, and they NES Sped students are in more restrictive environments, and more funding is crucial. Those statements cannot be true. Do NES Sped students require an extra $8,000,000
Please find out and be a good steward of my Thank you. Lone Star governance defines superintendent constraints as specific operational actions or class of actions that the superintendent may not use or allow. HISD constraint three says that the superintendent shall not make significant changes, there's a definition for that, it's percentages, most of these changes in schools meet that directly or indirectly to magnet or other specialized programming,
also defined to include CTE, without first conducting and communicating to the board and the community an analysis of several things, don't have time to read them all, but the result of stakeholder engagement, which again, comes first, these questions need to be answered from the community before you vote on item four, or before you allow the superintendent to do the things that you're not voting on, if he's not putting up to a vote. Because you enacted constraint number three. I ask that you look on this at this
Thank you. Our last two speakers are on Zoom. Mindon Tran, please begin. Hi. I'm a former teacher from Sharpstown High School. Four years ago, Sharpstown High School had a principal who did everything possible to graduate as Students as possible. He wanted students to have the opportunities that a high school degree offers. This means a great deal to the Sharpstown community, whose students are often the first ones in their families to earn a high school diploma. The new regime decided that Sharpstown graduated too many students. Our principal, Mr. Dan De Leon, was forced to retire early and replaced with he who shall not be named. Instead of trying to graduate students,
this new despot threatened to withhold diplomas from students for wearing Crocs to school. The Chronicle reports that of all the NAS schools, Sharpstown has the highest enrollment drop. This is not just a loss of district funding. This is a loss for the entire community. Some students who choose to leave will enroll elsewhere, but many students who choose to leave will simply drop out of education entirely and go to work. NES is the new red line. You're disenfranchising an entire generation of self privileged students of color. Stop the state, take over, and stop this NESBS. Bring back our kids. Thank you. Franklin Tamberillo, please turn your camera on,
and you may begin. Yes. I'm concerned about the, lack of stakeholder engagement related to the anticipated changes to, special programming on, several of the high schools on the North Side of town. This project is anticipated to have major, major impact to these families, and yet there's been insufficient, I would say, engagement with the families who are actually enrolled in those schools now. So I would hope that the board would encourage the rest of the district to engage more with those families. Thank you very much. I believe that's the end of our speakers.
Okay. That concludes our speakers. Next, we will consider items on the agenda. Board policy requires Board members to abstain from all discussions and votes pertaining to contracts that may involve a conflict of interest. Board policy BBFA local defines a conflict of interest as any circumstances that could cast a doubt on any Board member's ability to act with total objectivity with regard to the district's interest. So just to start with, we pulled we have pulled item agenda from the consent item,
Item Number four, which is approval of programming changes for Heights, Cashmere, Northside and Waltrip High Schools. I'd like to invite the administration to present an update on the stakeholder engagement conducted this month regarding related to the changes in CTE program. I believe Kristen Hall and Jill Quinn, Executive Director of our CTE, are going to make a presentation. Good evening, board members. Before we start talking about the community engagement, specifically around programs of study, we want to speak a little bit to some of the broader work we're doing
around college and career and military readiness at the district. When we started in this administration and in working with you all to set the board goals, our board goal three is focused on providing students with access to both college and career readiness, and we're really staying focused on that across the district. So we want to actually start by showing some celebrations for the work our students have done in this space. We've really seen them show tremendous results in the area. Here, we're seeing TEA actually sets a threshold for when a student is college, career, and military ready across a district.
And this shows that we've seen a 19 percentage point increase over the past two years for students that have met this threshold. So that's really incredible results for our students. There's about 2,000 more students, who are ready when they leave HISD to graduate. And so we want to spend a little bit of time looking at what this means on the college side and the career side, currently, as well as how we want to move beyond that as we move forward. So on the college access side, the district has done a lot of things to support students in a variety of ways. One of the priorities you've heard us talk about,
is the increased access to college courses. And so on the left here, we really outlined the four ways students can, access college coursework, AP, IB, dual credit, and dual enrollment with UT. And as you can see, we have double digit growth over the past three year couple years of students accessing that course credit. Member Gore, I know how to just walk away, but he was referencing the UT OnRamps course where students can enroll in UT courses. And it's just a huge celebration because when we started, there was nine forty eight students in that program. And end of last year,
there were 4,609 students in that program. And so that's thousands and thousands of students that are now able to access that coursework with UT, in the past couple years. So it's truly incredible. And that's why you see that that it was a smaller program when we start, but that's why that number in particular that's kind of is a 591%, percentage growth. So it's really exciting to see, we increased access to coursework, and our students really rose to the challenge, and we wanna celebrate that. As students got access to more college credit, we also have seen increases in college applications and college acceptances as well as students
applying to the FAFSA, which really gives them that critical financial aid they need to be successful as they transition. So this is a huge win. And when students take, college courses with us in HISD, it saves them money on tuition. So we, have an estimated saved students an estimated 62,000,000 in, tuition by them taking courses in, HISD. And, mister Gore, you missed my on UT OnRamps number. Oh, yes. I missed it. Oh, man. It's a great program. Yeah. So I'll tell them we we started at, 948 students,
and we went up to 4,609 students in the past two years. That's great. Awesome. So this is really where we are today, celebrating our students, but we also wanna talk about some of our commitments to the future in this space. So one of the things we're really excited about is, this administration is committed to offering a free associate's degree pathway at every comprehensive high school so that students in those high schools can graduate with a two year degree, associate's degree that they will be able to obtain for free. And really offering that pathway and expanding that pathway to college access is something that
we're really excited about across the district. In addition to this, mister Miles spoke to this, but we're also partnering with four year institutions so that as students obtain that associate's degree, they get automatic guaranteed entry into multiple four year institution, choices across HISD so they can choose to continue on, with their higher education journey. So, again, some really exciting things we're doing around college access. And and can you just highlight, so what are the financial implications for a family who goes to this program? Mhmm. Right? Saving money, saving time, getting out to the workforce,
I I assume. Maybe clarify for me. All of those things. So for the associate's degree, it would be free. So when students take coursework with us, they're able to access those programs for free. We have a calculated, tuition amount of $62,000,000 that we've saved, students because they've taken our college courses in HISD. So they access that for free. And then there's a lot of information that shows that students, can be more successful when they're on fast pathways to completion, which is great. So we're really opening those pathways for students, really helping them transition, to continuing education or to the workforce.
So, some really great things on the college side. We are going to move to the career side, of celebrations, but I do want to highlight that this is not mutually exclusive. Students get access to both these pathways, college supports and career supports, which is really critical for us as we think about the strategy for our students. On the career side, we have seen tremendous growth in, students accessing our career and technical education courses. We've prioritized high wage, high demand courses, and we see more students enrolling, more students completing,
and then more students obtaining their industry based certification that demonstrates and validates they have skills ready for the workforce. So there's about, over 46,000 students at HISD right now who are enrolled in these courses. The other thing we wanted to highlight is whenever we offer career and technical education courses, we really prioritize building in work based learning experiences into those programs. So real time student internships, externships, practicums, where students who are enrolled in a particular program gain direct employer engagement and experiences
with employers in that program. So they are truly ready and employable when they graduate to go directly into a living wage job out of high school. So we have over 300 business partnerships established. We've gotten over 1,000,000 in donated equipment. And we have currently 4,200, work based learning experiences happening with our students right now. So this is really bringing that learning to life for students through those engagements and something that we believe actually makes CTE programs really strong. I have one more question. For the business partnerships, what's the, ceiling on the number of partnerships we're seeking? And are there are there opportunities for other Houston area businesses to get involved?
And, excuse me, what's the path? Like, what's the way they should reach out to start the, relationship with HISD to be a part of this program? All of those are great questions. So one of the things we talk about a lot is we wanna understand, as we have students entering into CTE programs, we know the supply of students that we have. And our goal would be that every student in that level three or four course in their program is engaging in a work based learning experience. So, we're going to try to match the number of students we have with the number of experiences we can offer so that all students can get that access.
So the answer is yes. We definitely can still engage with organizations. We can make sure, we can definitely email Jill. Jill's our she's an amazing academics leader. She's the executive director of CTE, and they've built out a work based learning team specifically focused on organizing and coordinating this exact thing, so we can make sure we get that contact info posted so business partners can reach out. And Mr. President, if I may, this sets the context but it has two parts. One is we're focused on both college readiness, so you see the huge increase in college readiness in this district in just two
years and also career. And we're not waiting for, Accelerate Houston, but we're already started. And this is just amazing opportunities for our kids in both college and career as you can see. And and this is what's taken place in just two years. And so finally, I wanna thank, Chief Holt, but also all the people, not not just Jill, but all the other people who work in academics who are working on this, and then the schools themselves that have put a lot of time and energy in this. Alright. So this is celebrating our success today,
but we also wanna talk about the investment we continue to make moving forward. There's been some discussion in Mr. Miles' presentation and in previous board meetings about our CTE centers. And as we move forward, what we're really committed to doing is making sure all students, 100% of students in HISD, can access high wage, high demand programs that align to the future of work. And so, these are a set of programs that we believe that if we invest in as a district, it really sets those students up for success. And these are the programs that we are launching and expanding in the Barbara Jordan,
CTE Center. So I wanna just talk about a couple of these because at the heart of these, sometimes we talk about the data behind them. They do lead to high wage, living wage jobs. And there are a number of open jobs in the space. But what we don't always see is the experience that, Barbara Jordan brings to the students when they go there. And I'm going to give a real example. I was walking a campus a couple weeks ago, and I walked into their HVAC program. And the experience at that campus was the HVAC program was in a typical classroom, you had a teacher teaching about HVAC.
And then on the side, there were three HVAC units about two feet apart. And the students would learn some, and they could go, and they could interact with the HVAC units and practice doing what they needed to do with those units. But when you walk into the plans of Barbara Jordan, you can envision a different experience. Imagine a huge warehouse type room where you have your construction students building an entire smart house. You have your electrical students building the elect electrical circuits in the walls. You have your HVAC students building the air conditioner. You have your plumbing students,
building the plumbing that they need. And all of those students are working together to really build an entire house. That space, that collaboration, that experience that that student gets by attending the Barbara Jordan Center with that that, investment in equipment and technology is fundamentally different than what every single high school can offer those students at their home campus. And and let me emphasize, you know, we we got through talking about the skills kids need. It's not just the technical skills. Think about team building. Think about working in teams.
Think about the critical thinking. Think about those experiences and the decision making. It's it's one thing to have a skill and we're we want that and what else can we get from the synergy of working together on on skills that have to be coordinated with other skills, in the future. And so, when we're thinking about the career centers, that is the vision for the students. It's an experience that's unparalleled to what we're able to do across all high schools because of the investment that we've put into the quality of programs.
Even engineering. And if you can imagine drones flying around and, I had the privilege when I was in grad school of walking the Tesla factory and you could see large mechanic arms moving with such millimeter precision to build the Tesla car as it moved down the track. That's advanced manufacturing and robotics that students need to understand as we move to, the world of AI and humanoid robots. And so that's the type of thing they can see and have access to at these centers. So, these are the five that we have stayed focused on so far, and wanted to highlight a couple of things.
Our goal, as I said, is to have 100% of students be able to access these programs at career and technical education centers. So we have already been working on plans to both enhance, the existing building of Barbara Jordan but also add a new expansion to the Barbara Jordan Building and another plot of land in the back. And on this map, you can see that Barbara Jordan serves all of the high schools that sit in that yellow section of our HISD map. We're also excited to build a new, what we're calling the South Side Launchpad,
CTE Center, that will service eight comprehensive high schools that sit in the green. So our South campuses will get a significant investment in the programming and support around technical education, for those schools. And then in the pink, we're working really closely with partners to to, use existing facilities to, again, build and enhance the career and technical center offerings in the West. And so truly, our goal is as we move forward, provide access to all 16 of these programs for all of our students, and actually making this commitment to really look at how we embed dual credit into
every single one of these programs as well. So you're both getting the career and technical education expertise, but you're also building college credit while, you're at the centers. What's your timeline, for this version? It's a great question. So we Barbara Jordan as a building is already standing there. So we have already started the internal renovations, inside Barbara Jordan. And in the budget last year, there was a section that was approved for enhancements to Barbara Jordan as well. So the planning and architecture for the extension of Barbara Jordan and the conversations around
that, have started. And then we are very early in the Southside Launchpad Career and Technical Education Center. So, that is a brand new project. And I'll let mister Miles And and I can, we hope to break ground on the extension at Barbara Jordan or that that separate building, this summer or fall. And, and also on the South Pad, South Side Launch Pad, while we we still have architectural designs and things like that to do, if we can, we'll start that next year in the fall or late late fall.
And for the Barbara Jordan, you can kind of see the first mock up, one of the early mock ups from the architect. At the top, you see the current Barbara Jordan building. And in that space, what you can expect to see is a brand new health care space. It's much bigger. There's observation windows. There's enhanced equipment. We've added a Cybersecurity room that connects to a lot of our and that connects to a lot of our networking programs. You'll see a state of the art cybersecurity room. And then we've professionalized automotive and welding, both the physical space, but also in automotive,
we've done things like add electronic vehicle equipment, and really modernized the actual program itself. And the extension is where you'll see, the cluster of the trades with, again, that construction, HVAC, plumbing, electrical combo, as well as a robotics and drone lab and advanced industrial maintenance. So that's what's coming in the new extension section of of Barbara Jordan. In the South Side Launch Pad, our team had the privilege of going to visit about six different CTE centers across the state. And our goal was to really understand what's the best of the best that is
out there. And it was an exciting experience because we really learned from the experts out in the field that have been doing this and got little pieces of great advice across all of them. And so in the South Side launch pad, we can still launch with these 16 high wage, high demand programs and clusters, but there's some enhancements we can make to this building. One thing is a state of the art multipurpose learning facility, where we can provide more space and access for training of our CTE centers, of our surrounding teachers, and, administration on the South Side to create that space and access point for HISD.
The other really exciting thing we saw was some centers had really intentionally designed the incorporation of community businesses that were run by students into the center itself. And that really not only we've talked about business partnerships, but that actually gives them business experience and brings that to life as a part of their programming. So we're really working to see, if we can build community run businesses into the design of that building, to support the student experience. So that is some of the steps on, updates on the CTE centers. I also want to turn it over to Jill,
who can give more details on some of the community engagement work that we've done, around the Barbara Jordan, CTE center since that project has been a little bit further along. Thank you. Thank you so much. So over the last several months, we've been working to really intentionally plan enhancements to Barbara Jordan to really strengthen the experience for our students. Of course, at the center of that work is conversations with our school leadership teams at the 10 surrounding schools. We know that those principals really know their community and understand the needs of their students and their families. Additionally, we've partnered, with over 300 business partners as part of our work to understand what are they
seeing in industry in Houston, what are the future jobs, what are the things that they need. We also have gone into external workforce research to understand what jobs are we seeing, what are the credentials that those jobs need, and how do we make sure that we're only incurring in jobs that can pay a living wage to students right out of high school. Additionally, over the last, month or so, we've engaged in two ways of really talking to our parents and students. The first was surveying our eighth grade families because these changes impact our students who are currently in eighth grade. There's not any changes for our current high school students. And so what we heard from those parents is that they really are anchored in
wanting high wage, high demand pathways for their student. Their students, that's their number one look for. And so that really reaffirms the priority that we have as we build and enhance Barbara Jordan. The second thing that we engaged in was 10 community meetings, over the last week. Really going out to talk to our parents, our students, our teachers, and our community to get their input. And I'll share those trends from those meetings right now. So we really heard three big sets of themes and community questions over the last week and through the thought catcher that we gave to our parents and community. The first was around logistics. And so really two big questions came up.
First, how do we ensure that there's on time transportation? And one of the things that we know is we're currently taking about 900 students from eight schools to Barbara Jordan, and they are really getting there on time and having an excellent experience. The second thing that we heard from parents is that they wanna know that their child still has access to the same number of credits that they would if they weren't at Barbara Jordan. And that is something that will continue to be true. Students will still take 32 credits. They'll have access to all of the different kinds of courses that they may want. The second thing we heard was about rigor of programming. So in that parent survey,
the number one look for our parents wanted was alignment to high wage, high demand programs. And that is what we're investing in at our career center. The second thing that parents really wanted was access to college coursework. And that came out in all of our conversations with school leadership teams, with parents, with the community. And we really are investing in dual credit at Barbara Jordan. We're excited about that continuing to expand. And then finally, we've heard a lot about student experience. We all know high school is, incredibly important in a child's educational career. And so we've really been working closely with school leadership teams to protect all of
the things that kids want outside of a really strong academic experience. So clubs, tutorials, lunch, fine arts, making sure that we found unique pathways for each of our schools to protect the things that are core to our kids and our and their families. And then finally, I just wanna talk a little bit about tonight's vote. So tonight really is focused on four specific schools. Each of those schools has a program of study that is not anchored in the labor market data. There just aren't a lot of living wage jobs directly out of high school in graphic design and digital communications. At the same time, these programs are one part of each of the schools' magnet status.
Each of these four schools will remain a magnet. Their overall magnet theme will remain, and we will be working with schools to make sure that there's no impact to current students. Any student who is currently in graphic design will remain in graphic design. They will complete that program at their school with no change. This shift only impacts current eighth grade students. We also know that schools are are finding ways to protect student experiences with electives. For example, one's principal really is passionate about newspaper and so she'll protect that graphic design elective to ensure her students have access because that's something that the community has asked for.
Finally, we know that this really gives our kids more opportunities. Every student at these 10 high schools will now have access to 16 high wage, high demand programs of study. And in conversations with parents, that's something parents are excited about, when they think about just having more choice for them and for their family. So thank you so much. I just wanted to open it up for any questions. Alright. This is the part that I love about the workforce development and taking our students and teaching them things. So I have a few things, so maybe just comments and questions, but, hopefully UHD is one of the four year colleges that we're talking to,
to make sure that, once they receive their associate's degree. When I was at Wheatley, I know one of the things both sessions that I went to was about transporting so I'm hopeful that we do a good job of getting that plan ready and making sure that, you know, when we start this and I know we're already transporting because even at, we it's already happening. Right? Mhmm. And I think at Booker T. So right. I think that's, you went with me to Booker T. So it's already happening so I I get that. But one of the things I would just ask is just make sure we get it right, for the students. The other one was a sense of community.
Some of the community at Wheatley said, I feel like you're taking my kids from my area. And, and so let's I would hope that we would make sure that our principal at the high school, make sure that those that go to Barbara Jordan when they are involved in that program, that they're still kept within the Wheatley family. If that makes sense. They're still part of that community as a whole. So I think that was one of the things that said, Senator Miles mentioned internships, you've already talked about that. I would ask about the Barbara Jordan and Metro being the Metro bus,
barn. It's a barn but for mechanics and all of that that maybe we're doing some partnerships with them. So you're shaking your head. I hope so because the kids maybe can go do some real life experience there since it's so close. One of the things we might think about when we partner with these corporations are staffing companies because they have job availabilities and if it doesn't cost us anything that we look into that and the career centers that the universities have. I know downtown has a great career center that would cost our students nothing to then, once they graduate. Okay, the last thing is,
I have recognized with some of the mentees that I've had that receive their associate's degrees, which I think is incredibly awesome, is maybe there's a life skills type of program that we can have, even if it's a sixteen hour of Saturday, Sunday class, of getting them prepared at that age to go to college. Especially if they're going away to college. Because that's gonna be it's eye opening when they go to a big university anyway, but now they're not going in as a freshman. So they're not gonna be treated as a freshman. They're gonna be treated as right? And I have a mentee that's at Texas State and she's like,
this is all new to me and they think I'm this and I'm that because she's a junior, right? So if we can do some kind of a summer program or even partner with the universities that have a program, I think that's usually important for life skills. Just, you might be thinking the same thing. I am, Tristan. But, two days ago, we talked to TSU about exactly that. And and the universities are also interested in making sure that that transition because they are younger, you know, and it's it can be scarier at at a younger age to be a junior in a in a college.
So, yes, we're gonna be help we're gonna be partnering with the universities to make sure that that happens. But they already have some pretty solid programs we will add to that. Yeah. I was just gonna ask, how many students go to Barbara Jordan today for whatever purpose and how many do you foresee that being, let's say, three years from now when you have everything built out? How does and what is the capacity? There's some questions about what do we have the capacity to deal with this, what's really gonna happen, and how you what what is your forecast for that future use of Barbara Jordan,
for example? Yeah. So right now, there's about 900 students at Barbara Jordan. At full capacity, we'll be close in just under 4,000. But those kids will go on four shifts. So we'll never have more than about a thousand students in the building. And in our modeling, we looked at both current enrollment and programs of study across the 10 schools and then also, a more uneven distribution, pending student interest. And we feel confident that we can meet the need in several different scenarios for enrollment in the future. And maybe this goes without saying, but, just want to be clear because yesterday, I had a meeting with three legislators, and they were under the impression that Barbara Jordan will enroll those kids and those
kids will leave the high school and and stay at Barbara Jordan, like, Barbara Jordan's their school. And that's not the way. I just want I just no. I know you know that. I just wanna be clear, for anybody listening that Wheatley's kids are Wheatley's kids. You talk about community. And Cashmere's kids are Cashmere's kids and they will go to Barbara Jordan for a class, but then they go back. Thank you. The changes I mean, obviously, the the the vote is on one thing, but this is part of the bigger picture. If we approve what the administration is asking us to approve,
are there any kids that will have fewer courses of study available to them? No. So right now, our schools have a range of different numbers of program of study across the North Division, across these 10 schools, but none of them have access to 16 programs of study. So every student in the district will get access to more programs of study as a result of these changes. And I want to put another point on that, because some of our high schools are small and some are large. And it's understandable that the larger the high school, the more programs to study and CTE programs you can have.
And also, over many years, schools that lost enrollment like Wheatley or Cashmere or Yates, I mean, they're, North Forest for example, six fifty high schoolers. So they don't have as many often with a four or five, whereas, Lamar or Heights or Bell, I mean, they have, you know, ten, twelve different programs of study. And, these are we're we're doing this partly because the Wheatley kids should have access to 16 or at least 12,
like some of our other schools. And same with the North Forest, and it and I think if you give them a list of 16, you say there's drones, there's cyber security, there's upgraded healthcare, there's automotive but with electronic vehicles and there's all these things that we're offering, I'm positive they'll be excited about that and the access will be much greater. How many kids will we be forcing to get on buses during the day? Parents will continue to have choice for their child's program of study. So zero? Zero.
Okay. So folks can opt in to this, and they will have more options available to them. We're not making them get on a bus. No, sir. Thank you. I attended the meeting at Waltrip and one of the cons well, many of the concerns that we heard from parents were that, some students were in band or they're in some sort of after school activity and they were concerned that their student may not be able to make it back to the campus in time. What is the process currently and in the future for a student who may want to be in one of these programs but would like to go in the morning?
Is there a process for them to be able to self select that? Yeah. That's a great question. And and to just speak a little bit about that example, at Wall Trip, one of the things that principal Randall has been working with her SDMC on is extending lunch to make sure that students have access to tutorials and lunch and that full range of choice. And one of the things we talked about is the importance of scheduling with counselors as students say, here's the courses that I wanna take, here's the program of study that I'm in, here's the sports that I play, and really building those unique schedules that meet the students' needs and allow them to do all of the programs that they want to do.
So that I'm sorry, but just to clarify on that point, that means that if a student wants to play sports in the afternoon, he could be scheduled for a morning CTE program and still make it back in time with no problem, take his afternoon classes and do his sports teams in the evening. Yes. We have students currently at Barbara Jordan who, you know, perhaps attend in the morning and then play sports or do an extracurricular at their home campus in the afternoon. They come for two periods. So it could be morning or afternoon, and it's every other day. Thank you. One clarification for my understanding there is what constraints do we have as far as
scheduling? In other words, is there flexibility around the start and end of the day? As we want to make space for more, more is more. Right? What are we considering there, around the timing of of the school day? I think right now, we've worked with our principals to design a length of school day that kind of matches what our high schools currently do. And as part of our planning, we've continued to talk to principals about what their other options may work. And so we're kind of always looking at how do we make sure that we're providing our kids with the right length of school day in a way that allows them to do all of the things that they wanna do at high school.
Could we see a variety of school lengths across schools because of what we're aiming to achieve here as we continue to explore the how? Like, how we're actually gonna execute this? It's a question we've asked ourselves to say, Is this one way to solve the problem? But it's nothing that we have committed to yet as a solution. So we are trying as we hear the concerns about, transportation and and looking at how to make sure we can even make, you know, limit any change on students, we are asking that question. But no decision around that has been made.
We would wanna check feasibility, and and really work with those campuses. But it's not off the table? I guess I wanna understand what are we working with here. So it's not off the table. Right now we already have some schools that ask for different earlier start time or slightly later. And we try to accommodate and I don't want to over promise. We do have one transportation system right now and you know, the the more differences you have in different, schools, the the way more routes you have to have and the less cost efficient it is.
So if every if we had five different start times for high school, that's that's untenable. Or one school would cost a lot more money because we would individually have to route kids for that school. So, we already have some variation and if we if we need to and it makes sense where we can accommodate in the transportation, then we'd we'd do that. My question, you were talking about, the flexibility, that they have on the campus and kids being able to talk to someone about meeting the needs and this is what I want with with the extracurriculars. My question is about,
ensuring that students actually do have but are you saying you feel confident that students will have access to a counselor or an adult that they can sit with during this process? Because that sounds like a that sounds like a lot. And I mean, I remember when I was a parent that certainly was not happening, so I just I don't want us to oversell. So can you tell us about what that looks like? It's actually been a priority in academics separately, where we've been looking at making sure that every student is sitting with a counselor
at least once a semester, really making sure they have a personalized plan for graduation in place. And that really should start with the students right when they enter because you're starting these programs in ninth grade. And so as a counseling initiative, even apart from this, we actually want that to be true for all students to make sure they have a path towards graduation and they're looking at it routinely as things you know, as they progress through their high school journey. I'm just gonna follow-up, and push a little bit and say, saying we want to and it happening are two very different things.
So if we're saying as a priority and if you're saying as an administration that you want to ensure that every student meets with a counselor once a year, that's gonna have to be a directive. And you guys know that because that's the only way that'll happen. So I think that I I do think that should be the case. And if you're saying we are staffed in such a way that that can happen, that's great. So then I'm gonna push and say then then let's say that. I get I get beat up for having too many directors, but, yeah, we we we're not shy about having directors. But you're absolutely right.
We can't just say we gotta follow through. And we have to work with both the curriculum department and the leadership on the campuses to make sure that happens. Clarification. I I heard a lot of concern about students enrolled in these programs and making sure that we, had a plan for a clear phase out plan, right, and and that students in these programs were not affected. Given that we've said that the reason we're phasing these out are because they are not aligned to high wage, high demand jobs, Is the has the question been raised by anybody about getting out of these programs
that they're in and moving to something else? And is that an available option for all students? What are the constraints there? Yeah. Actually, that came up at several community meetings where parents of current ninth or tenth graders said, I didn't like, I want more for my child. I want them to be at Barbara Jordan. What does that look like? And so we were able to talk to those parents similar to what Chief Holt just said around, like, talking in those meetings with the counselor to say, I would like to attend Barbara Jordan and really making sure that we can support them in building a schedule at Barbara Jordan that allows them to get the coursework they need. But several parents did ask that question because they were excited,
and so we wanna make sure that they have that choice. Thank you so much for that presentation and the Q and A session. So may I have a motion to approve Item four, approval of the programming changes for the Heights, Kashmere Northside and Waltrip High Schools. And Board members, you have to hit My Computer and then you have to go back and make sure you're logged in. Your log in information is on your your password is on your keyboard. Everybody in? We're all in? Okay, great. So we have a motion and a second.
Are there is there any other discussion? A lot of discussion? Okay, great. Please vote. The motion passes. Also without objection from my colleagues, we're going to pull item 17, approval of proposed revision to Board policy, e l local campus or program, charters from the consent agenda. May I have a motion on Item 17? Mr. President, I move we amend Item 17, to accept it on first reading with final approval planned on second reading at the board meeting scheduled for 01/29/2026. Okay.
Do we have a second? And I will pause for questions in a second, okay? We have a motion and a second, okay? Any questions or comments? Okay. Please vote. Okay, the motion passes. May I have a motion to approve Item 17 as an amendment or as amended? Okay. We have a motion to second. Any questions? If not, please vote. Okay. That's the last part of that, correct? Okay, good. There's a lot of voting on that. So all right, the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the remainder of tonight's agenda by consensus?
Okay, we have motion and second. Please vote. Motion passes. Okay. At this time, the Board will recess to closed session under Chapter five fifty one of Texas Government Code Open Meetings Act, subsection 551.004 through 551.089. Should Board final action, vote or decision on any matters considered in the Closed Session 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 at 08:32PM on 01/15/2026. Okay, good evening. This meeting is reconvened at 09:21PM, 01/15/2026. We're now ready to consider items discussed in the closed session. Are there any motions? Yes, Mr. President, I have a motion. I move that the board approves proposed terminations, non renewals of continuing term performance and probationary contracts and authorizes the superintendent or designee
to provide notices same, That the board approves suspensions without pay for continuing term and probationary contracts and authorizes the superintendent or designee to provide notice of same. That the board voids continuing term, probationary, and performance contracts and authorizes the superintendent or designee to provide notice of same. That the Board approves withdrawals of contract recommendations and that the Board approves issuance of final orders on contract terminations and non renewals as discussed in closed session effective 01/15/2026.
Okay. We have a motion and a second. Is there a second? Yes, sir. Okay, please vote. Motion passes. Is there another motion? Keep going lower. Sorry. There were a number of things here. I just wanna make sure I'm on the right page. Page eight, election of officers. Thank you. Bottom page eight. Mister president, I think, here it is. I move, sorry I'm on the wrong page, pardon me. Bottom of page eight. You maybe have a different agenda. Okay, so let me read this. The first regular meeting of the new year involves the election and installation of the board of officers. We will now proceed with the election process conducted in accordance with Board Policy of
BDAA Local. Is there a motion? Do you have that? Yes. Good. Mr. President, I move that the Board approves, the nominees listed. Just a moment. For President Rick Campo, for, Vice President and, Angela Lamon Flowers, and for Secretary, Ms. Palmandoda. Any questions or comments? We have a motion and a second. Okay, please vote. The motion passes. So thank you. We appreciate the vote of confidence and the fact that no one else want to do those jobs. Okay. The next regular Board meeting will be held on 02/12/2026. There is a workshop and there will be some agenda items on January 29 as
well. So there being no further business, this meeting is officially adjourned at 09:24PM. Thank you.