Even though Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles said Thursday that end-of-the-year evaluations are still to be done, a discouraging number of HISD teachers, principals and support staff received notices this week that indicate their time with the district is up.

Traditionally this is the time of year that principals tell teachers they aren’t a good fit or that their job performance isn’t up to par. It’s also usual for the district office to tell principals they’re not being renewed and need to look for another job.

But the magnitude of the notices going out appears to set an all-time record. "Appears" is the operative word because the exact numbers, Miles said, will not be available for another couple of weeks. The other ingredient in all this is, of course, the unknown number of teachers leaving the district who again, anecdotally, are a lot. "We are reducing positions in many, many departments," Miles said.

In a 30-minute media press conference Thursday before the start of the 5 p.m. board meeting, Miles once again said the cuts were necessary to close a looming $450 million fund imbalance. He blames the previous administration of Millard House II in large part for this imbalance saying that using special federal funds designed to help schools during COVID-19 years should never have been applied to recurring costs such as teacher salaries. (The previous school board didn’t say no to this strategy either.)

Those Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds will be gone in the fall and the district is unable to absorb the cost of all those salaries. As a result, the district’s decision to cut loose all the wraparound service specialists there to help students and their parents with social services. As mentioned in the public speaker portion of Thursday night’s meeting, counseling staff positions have been cut in half. Asked about the teacher position cuts at New Education System schools, Miles, as he’s said before, says these positions are being “right-sized” since the student populations in some of these schools didn’t support the number of classroom teachers assigned there.

The board approved Reductions in Force for several categories Thursday night. The only time they become involved in individual cases is if district employees appeal their non-renewal. “we are reducing positions in many, many departments,” Miles said.

In answer to a question, Miles denied that experienced, veteran teachers with higher salaries are not  being targeted in what many teachers contend is a sweep to remove those less likely to go along with the constant testing and programmed approach to teaching that the NES system employs.

Miles also said even without the expected end-of-year assessment, principals had more than enough data from student achievement scores, the middle-of-the-year assessment and spot observations that went on throughout the year. And he insisted this was an improvement over past years when he said employment decisions were based more on a principals subjective decision.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Spot observations which go on at least monthly represent 34 percent of the overall assessment which is in compliance with state standards. Teachers are reviewed in their classrooms by at least two people, one of whom is usually the principal. Wide discrepancies in scoring are supposed to be spotted and addressed by higher-ups who are responsible for determining what is causing them. For instance: Does someone not understand how to do an appraisal? Is some subjectivity going on here, a personality conflict? There is a monitoring system through Central Office but catching everything in any organization rarely happens.

And none of the teachers we talked with had considered taking their questions or reservations about their scores to anyone else.

Equally important, HISD officials have stressed, is the coaching part of the equation with on-the-spot corrections (not always welcomed by teachers) and follow-up in later discussions. A teacher who has asked for more explanation without getting the requested help is encouraged to take their concerns to a higher level. Getting a rating of zero is not supposed to happen.

But it’s those spot observations that have frustrated and perplexed many teachers. One teacher, said when that teacher got their first spot check observation report back, their principal had given them a 1 while the second in-house appraiser had given them an 11 on a 15 point scale. A subsequent observation report gave the teacher a 3 from the principal and another 11 from the other appraiser.

In a several page letter, the teacher asked the principal for more guidance than what was written on the teacher's spot observation report about what would be needed to improve. "I never received a reply. So obviously coaching is not the intent of these."

Another teacher at an NESA school told us there was routinely a 10 point difference between what one appraiser and another judged them on the same day.

“I just shook my head I didn’t know what to do. It was honestly ridiculous. there seems to be no continuity in the evaluation. “

“It never made sense,” the teacher said, adding that one appraiser was very difficult to talk with. Whether right or not, his conclusion about the system: “This is a punishment for being a veteran teacher. They don’t want to pay the salaries for veteran teachers. They want to be able to get people who they can do what they want.

It should be noted that Miles on Thursday specifically denied that there was any effort to move out veteran teachers from the district.

But it might be difficult to change the mind of this teacher who called the NES scripted system "money work" and something anyone coming in off the street could do. “They give a slide show and you read what’s in the slide show and then give this quiz. I teach classes that this doesn’t fit well, that the system doesn’t fit for."

The teacher is leaving HISD, saying “there’s no way I’m staying.” When that teacher has interviewed at nearby school districts all they need to heat is the teacher is from Houston and no further explanation is needed. “All of the surrounding districts, they’ve all seen the news. I haven’t had to explain why I’m leaving Houston ISD and everyone understands.”

Another teacher told us that he received two widely appraisal ratings on the same day. He didn’t ask about the difference. For now he said he planned to continue with HISD. Asked why, he said “Everybody ran. So it’s a big competition of everybody fighting for a job in other school districts and you’ve got people moving to the state or moving to the district, college kids [applying for teaching positions], it made no sense for me to leave.”

In any event, on Thursday Miles didn't appear to be worried about the departures being too much for the district to handle.

"In the 130 NES schools there are 5,100 teacher position sin those schools for next year. That's nearly half the teaching position sin the district. Of those positions we have had more than 5,500 teachers internally apply including the ones that are in the schools," Miles said. " About 3,900, almost 4,000 were accepted and then last Saturday at the Job Fair we had about 1,500 to 2,000 teachers apply for about 800 positions. So we're down to 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."