Miles says HISD replacing some teachers next year
An undisclosed number of Houston Independent School District teachers and principals received notices this week that they will be out of a job, stateappointed Superintendent Mike Miles said Thursday.
Miles said principals have begun making decisions about which teachers to hire back based on certain data points, such as spot observations, performance on the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System professionalism domain and performance on the Measures of Academic Progress Growth assessment and other student achievement data. “We are using data maybe for the first time,” Miles said during a media conference. “At this time of year, when principals assess whether or not a teacher will return, they’re looking not just at the anecdotal information, but they’re also looking at data of all sorts to assess. So that’s what principals have been doing. They’ve been looking at data.”
Miles said he did not know the specific number of teachers or principals who would not be keeping their jobs but that the district would have that information in a few weeks. Multiple teachers reported receiving notices this week to attend a Zoom call to discuss their “future employment for the district” Friday, although the exact nature of the call was not made clear.
Miles said that although several teachers will not have their contracts renewed, the district was not cutting the number of teacher positions. He said the district has been hiring people to replace the teachers who would not be renewed and that HISD students would still have an effective teacher and approximately the same class size ratios during the upcoming academic year.
“Last Saturday, at the job fair, we had about 1,500 to 2,000 teachers apply for about 800 positions. Several hundred where offers were made,” Miles said. “I don’t know the exact number, but it’s ... maybe 500 positions in the NES schools out of 5,000 that still are vacant, and those will be filled by the end of May.” NES refers to Miles’ New Education System.
Miles said executive directors and division superintendents were also reviewing instructional, achievement and leadership data for principals and making decisions this week “based on several things” about who would be keeping their positions next year.
Along with nonrenewals of teachers and principals, Miles said Thursday that almost every department, including custodians and maintenance workers, has to cut positions, although he said he didn’t know the exact number of employees who had learned they were being cut in recent weeks.
“The budget and financial situation has been complicated this year, because of the end of our COVID relief aid, or ESSER, dollars,” Miles said. “So as a result of ESSER dollars, the district had placed a lot of money into recurrent expenses, and that meant we have not only to balance the budget, but we have to find a way to pay for the positions that were funded by ESSER.”
The notices come as the district’s board of managers was set to consider approving agenda items during its monthly meeting Thursday allowing the district to make a “reduction in force” before the 2024-25 academic year. The notices, if approved, would allow the district to cut several listed positions or employment areas but would not require it to do so.
The list of positions facing cuts exceeds 20 pages and includes the vast majority of current campus-level jobs in the district, such as nurses; librarians; counselors; assistant principals; principals; reading, math and science teachers; fine arts and other elective instructors; speech therapists; magnet coordinators; and special education coordinators.
The planned reduction in force comes as Miles estimates that the district will face an estimated $450 million budget gap during the upcoming school year. Miles has said widespread cuts are necessary to keep the district from hitting a fiscal cliff amid the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief money and declining student enrollment.
HISD has provided few details about the specifics of the cuts or next year’s budget, which the board plans to vote on next month. The board plans to hold its first — and only scheduled — public budget workshop next Thursday, when the district will publicly disclose more details of the budget.