So far this week, at least in his public assessment, the start of a new school year is going swimmingly according to Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles. There might be tensions elsewhere among teachers, students and parents whether they’re in the New Education System schools, NES adjacent or waiting to see how long it will take to be incorporated into the new fast-paced education program, but he calls himself “impressed with the progress.”
“Teachers and kids are already getting used to the NES model.”
In his second daily press conference of the week, speaking from the Hattie Mae White administration building, Miles said he’d done another tour of schools — this time Fleming and McReynolds Tuesday morning — as well as a look at the Barnett bus transportation center. Teachers there got full marks for their willingness to get with the program even if everything wasn’t perfection.
“Yes there are some things we can improve on. This is not the end, it’s the start of the school year. For me, this is a baseline.”
While he was just as impressed at the day before when he toured the McCarty transportation center with the hard work, professionalism and efficiencies of staff at both, he was equally dismayed about the state of both facilities. “My job is to get them better working facilities,” adding that a bond election would help them and other needs of the district.
However, even though he said HISD hasn’t had a bond election in 12 years, he said he doubted one could be called for this year. Asked if he thought he had community support for one, he said he just didn’t know. “We’re going to have to do a bond election. We need our transportation offices to be stronger Our kids deserve, and our teachers deserve facilities that are as secure as possible”
Amid increasing anecdotal reports that COVID cases were increasing in number in the district, Miles said the district is keeping an eye on it but to date HISD schools have been able to cover any missing personnel, especially among NES and NESA schools.
Asked about complaints from some teachers that with required Performance Learning Communities scheduled for Thursday — in which they review and assess what they’ve been doing and plan for the future — keeps them from speaking at board meetings in which public comment starts those meetings, Miles was less than sympathetic.
Thursdays make sense for teachers because who wants to stay late on Fridays, he said. Thursdays are the best time to gather data from the week, he added. “We’re not going to change the instructional schedule for board meetings.”
Asked about what appears to be low attendance numbers at McReynolds, Miles repeated his remarks from the day before that school attendance is in flux right now and they’ll know better after the first two weeks what the actual attendance at each school looks like and where they should adjust classes and bus routes.
He also said that principals are calling parents of students who should be in class but haven’t shown up yet.
In the special education realm — something the district is under pressure from the state to greatly improve on — Miles said its special ed teachers and special ed specialists are working now to identify kids who haven’t been identified for special education services but should have been. “We’re in a period where we’re going to be looking at whether we need to add special education teachers or subtract. Most like;l add.”
Talking about the transportation centers, Miles said he’d like to see employees able to monitor the buses in real time as well as live streamed cameras on the buses. “We have cameras now but they’re not live streamed.
“There’s a lot of need that have built up over many years and now it’s time to address them.”
In September the state-appointed board of Managers will begin traveling the district for community meetings to hear concerns and comments from HISD parents and community leaders.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
