The news arrived in an impersonal boilerplate email. One teacher, who didn’t check his inbox all the time, received it a week late in March and only thanks to a colleague asking him if he’d gotten his letter from the HISD Human Resources Office yet.

In initially warm terms thanking him for his “interest in being part of the New Education System for the 2024-2025 school year,” (his school will be one next year) the email took a sharp left turn to say that based on his middle of the year academic proficiency assessment, he still had a way to go.

“Your results demonstrate that you are working to be a proficient teacher and need to continue making progress toward that goal to work in a NES school in SY2024-25.”

Followed by the even more ominous: “You will have a second chance to qualify in May.”

A changing of the guard is usually cause for concern among employees at any company, often with good reason. It’s not entirely uncommon for employees used to being highly regarded to instead receive an annual evaluation that drops them to the bottom ranks. And it’s also not uncommon or unwarranted for a new boss coming in to detach people who’ve been skating by for years.

Are there bad teachers in HISD or in any district? Absolutely. Should their contracts not be renewed? You bet.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case of someone skating by. After more than 20 years of teaching in HISD, serving under five superintendents in the years before this one, this teacher (whose name we're not using for obvious reasons) who’d previously been rated mostly at a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale and never been lower than a 3 under a number of different principals at different schools in the district — a one-time Teacher of the Year – was told he wasn’t hitting his marks.

No one took him aside to deliver the news and discuss this evaluation with him. HISD is a big district so maybe it’s expecting too much that the same principals whose job it is to drop into classes several times a day observing teachers and writing their assessments of them would deliver the bad news themselves?

He stood there alone, reading the devastating email that contradicted everything he knew about his teaching accomplishments.

But again, he and all the teachers who received the same email from Central Office would have another chance at job retention if they follow a four-part set of instructions.

He would have to re-confirm that he wanted to work at an NES school. He must be in good standing with the district (whatever that means).

His appraiser would be submitting another evaluation of his work by the end of the year and he would have to be scored proficient in three of the four “professionalism dimensions.” Those include his professional demeanor and ethics, goal setting, professional development and school community involvement.

He would have to score at least a “Progressing II” on the second half of the year – the average of the highest score in February, March and April. Teachers are expected to get the results of that effort on May 6.

Accomplishing all that and he would be eligible to teach in NES next year. Passing the four components would result in him being placed “at your first, second, or third choice NES school or, if none of their three choices are available, will be placed in the ‘on deck’ pool by May 15.”

The question, of course, is whether this is a bad teacher or just someone who hasn’t adapted to the new way of doing things in HISD, not just at the NES schools with their emphasis on timed testing and a rigidly prescribed curriculum, but on all campuses.

Sometimes good people don’t fit into other good peoples’ operations. To employ a sports analogy (something HISD Superintendent Mike Miles is very fond of doing) how often have we read about a team transferring out a player “whose talents might fit in better on another team.” So where are these teachers going to go if their "second chance" doesn't work out? Home in retirement?  Over to nearby districts? Moves across the country?  Not everyone will have easy other options.

Is what is being promoted as a second chance for someone to retain their teaching job in HISD really that, or is it a form of intimidation: my way or the highway?

And whether those teachers are somehow able to “improve” enough to be retained, chances are they'll never forget the sinking feeling they had on the day they learned that they weren't good enough. At least not good enough for HISD, a district this teacher, for one, has devoted most of his working life to.

Superintendent Miles has a plan to radically improve the academic outcomes for HISD students – a worthy goal. His chosen method is to upend the status quo and centralize instruction. To do that, critics say he has run roughshod over the people who have, up till now, made the district work. In this topsy-turvy world students feel sorry for their teachers and principals. This is not the natural order of things. 

Last week, when the results of  the principal screenings got out to the public with names of the leaders at some of the district’s best schools on his need-to-improve list, the Houston community erupted.

This late arriving swirl of people stood up to Superintendent Miles mainly because he decided to go after principals in some of the best schools in the district and their own ox was being gored. He wasn’t going after the “other.” He was right there on their home campus. Speaking in tones of the betrayed, they repudiated their previous views and the ranks of those opposed to what was happening, swelled.

There were 150 of them signed up to speak and nearly all unleashed a level of disdain and outrage directed at Miles and the Board of Managers that had to be hard to sit through. It had its effect.

The board went into executive session with the superintendent and four hours later he emerged to issue a statement saying that the principal screenings “will not be used in the evaluation of principals or other campus administrators in any adverse employment decisions for 2023-2024.”

But in a follow-up press conference, Miles confirmed that the same “independent” group of observers who rated principals in the screening, would be used for the yearly teacher evaluations. So how is that going to have a different result?

There are a lot more teachers than principals in the district. How many of them are going to get that same level of outraged support from district parents? And will the board listen if these teachers work somewhere other than at the best schools?

In a one-size-fits-all culture with scripted lesson plans, everyone is expected to be on the same page with little allowance for creativity and uniqueness. Length of service and past loyalty to HISD are not among the data points being collected.

During an earlier press conference, in his initial response to the principal screening results, Miles said that not all of the 117 principals who were told they need to work on their game would lose their jobs; in fact most probably wouldn't. And he stressed that the language used to address them was respectful.   "We never used words like for the second group 'They didn’t make the cut, they failed. They better shape up, They've been put on notice.' We never said that," he said. 

In like manner, the teacher notifications with their carefully curated language couldn't exactly be called demeaning. But they were demoralizing.

Principals are the important, high profile, heads of their schools.  Teachers are usually a school's heart and soul. Actions leading to the dismissals of both groups are worthy of the same level of scrutiny by the public.

Maybe Mike Miles and his team are sending the right message even if it seems to be delivered in the wrong way. Maybe we'll all sit back some day and say, well he really was right. Go figure. We'll smack our foreheads and by golly our way into a bright new future. knowing the district is zinging along like a top.

In the meantime, hope for the best, prepare for the worst and speak up if you are so inclined.