Over 100 teachers call in to protest HISD leadership

Over 100 Houston ISD teachers from at least 35 schools reportedly called in sick Thursday to “highlight ongoing concerns about hostile learning and teaching environments” created by the district’s state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, according to protest organizers.

Thursday’s action appears to be the first coordinated effort by a group of teachers to organize what amounts to a walkout, even though both of the city’s teachers unions and other critics of Miles’ administration have protested his leadership since he set foot in Houston last June.

Leaders of the Houston Federation of Teachers and the Houston Education Association said they were not involved in organizing Thursday’s action.

“The superintendent has created a toxic environment for students, teachers and parents,” Melissa Yarborough, a former HISD teacher who resigned in January, said in a statement. “HISD Mike Miles’ administration has intimidated teachers to stay silent about what’s really happening in schools. Teachers have been left with no other choice but to speak out quietly and anonymously, which is what they are doing today.”

HISD officials did not immediately return a request for comment, or say if the teachers involved in Thursday’s action would face any repercussions. The district already started ramping up enforcement of its leave policy, which states that employees can take no more than 15 days of state or local leave in a school year, last fall.

The teachers involved in Thursday’s “sickout,” who represent a fraction of the nearly 11,000 teachers employed by HISD, released a list of demands associated with their protest:

• “Fire Mike Miles and restore the elected Houston ISD Board of Trustees.

• “Students should be supported with wraparound, counselors, nurses, and librarians/library specialists on every campus.

• “Teachers should be certified and have college degrees. Teachers should be respected with their input valued.

• “Stop targeting black and brown schools with harmful, unproven interventions.

• “Learning should be meaningful and engaging. Curriculum, teacher evaluation and leadership decisions should be based on peer-reviewed and research-based best practices.”

Miles has previously acknowledged that some of his initiatives — including the crackdown on attendance, rigid expectations for classroom instruction and frequent observations by their supervisors — may be challenging for teachers, but he said that they are necessary to instill a “highperformance culture” within HISD. The superintendent has claimed that effective teachers are the most important factor in a child’s education, and significantly boosted teacher pay at his reform schools in the New Education System.

Teachers, however, have been resigning at nearly double the rate of previous years since the school year began at the end of August, with many citing untenable working conditions as their reason for leaving.

A news release from protest organizers said that teachers who participated in Thursday’s action “scheduled doctors’ appointments and called in sick, despite being under threat of being punished for using their allotted sick leave.”

Chris Tritico, attorney for the Houston Federation of Teachers, said Thursday that the union “absolutely does not support or endorse any teacher walkout at all,” citing the Texas Constitution, which prohibits a public sector union from endorsing a right to strike. He encouraged teachers to report to work even if they are sick, so that their principal knows they were not involved in the walkout.

“It will be difficult today to prove you were sick, so go to work and get sent home,” Tritico said.

Union President Jackie Anderson, in a statement, said that while the union played no part in Thursday’s protest, they agree with the teachers’ demands and “understand with perfect clarity why some Houston ISD teachers felt compelled to take such an action.” She said the union plans to put forth a resolution to members, parents and students for a vote of no confidence in Miles later this month.

“Our community’s teachers feel they are being targeted by a vengeful, state-installed administration and left out of the process of educating our children — a process they themselves are experts in,” Anderson said. “When you come to work each day to do a job you care deeply about and see the harm this state’s reckless takeover experiment is having on our students, you, quite understandably, may consider extreme action.”