School starts in HISD amid teacher shortages
On Monday, nearly 200,000 students at the state’s largest school system returned to classrooms. It was the first year free of the cloud of COVID mandates and protocols. As with most years, there were a few blunders, including at least five delayed bus routes that affected about 120 of the school system’s roughly 195,000 students.
As of Aug. 19, HISD still sought to fill hundreds of teacher vacancies despite boosting teacher pay to among the highest in the region. And while the state’s first accountability ratings since the start of the pandemic showed improvement, many students still need to make up learning losses from the last two years.