Houston ISD today released its new 2024-25 compensation package for its employees that promises higher teacher salaries throughout the district — much higher in some cases — improved minimum pay of $15 an hour for non-teaching staff, but nowhere in its 28-page compensation package is there a single mention of librarians.

Even in non-New Education System schools, librarians — by that job title anyhow — are no longer on the payscale roster handed out Tuesday. Superintendent Mike Miles has made it clear he does not see them as a necessary part of an HISD campus. They were removed from NES schools this year, and while other campuses clearly thought they could avoid this cut, it's not looking real good.

Following questions about this at an afternoon press conference, the HISD press office sent out a statement that at the non-NES schools, "principals will continue to have the discretion to allocate their resources for librarians or media specialist [they're not in there either] positions if they so choose. Compensation for these positions is governed by the Teacher Pay Table."

The position of Dean still present at some of the schools is being discontinued, Head of HISD Human Relations Jessica Neyman said. Those duties will be  handled by assistant principals.

The employee compensation plan is part of — 80 percent of — the budget that will be up for approval by the HISD Board of Managers in June.

Neyman referred to the former budget of about 30 pages as an "old whale," explaining that it grew up over the years with no centralized vision and was "indicative of the inefficiencies" that were common among prior administrations.

"There were some habits formed in the past about any time someone did anything a little bit extra they anticipated that a stipend would be created. There was a lot of latitude in a decentralized compensation structure."

These inefficiencies, she said, were "the opposite of strategic."  The new employee manual which was a complete overhaul of the previous document was worked on by the Human Resources and Finance departments.

Although the emphasis has been on raising pay for teachers willing to teach in the more structured NES model, Neyman said the administration decided to raise salaries at non-NES schools to make employment in HISD more attractive at the time of a widespread teacher shortage.

Even brand new teachers at the non-NES schools will be making $64,000 a year, which Neyman said is probably higher than any other local district. According to her, the average salary for a teacher in Texas is $55,616.

Average salaries for high school NES teachers, will tart at $82,816 and go up to $88,816 for a teacher with five years of experience.

"We're sticking with the hospital model," she said, alluding to Miles' oft-made statement that brain surgeons get paid more than other doctors. So English and math teachers will continue to be paid more than those in other subjects.

However, the district which has experienced a shortage of special education teachers, has raised those salaries to $86,000 for someone with zero to two years experience and to $92,000 for someone with five years experience, she said.

She also  touted raising hourly employees to no less than $15 an hour saying they should "have a livable wage."

This year NES teachers got a $10,000 stipend. That will be lowered to $4,000 next year.

In response to another question, Neyman said the district is still deciding for the coming year whether to allow teachers to break their contracts without reporting them to the Texas Education Agency for sanctions as it did this year. Teachers making a commitment to stay are important to the students' academic success, she said. "You really don't want as the school year gets closer and closer for a teacher to say 'I've changed my mind' and then you're scrambling to cover a classroom."

Some employee salaries will drop, she confirmed. Some that were "held harmless" this year meaning they retained the same pay level as they'd had previously, won't receive that benefit for the next. "Their salaries will be adjusted [downward]," adding, "that number is really small."

Principals, teachers and other employees all received their compensation package news at the end of classes today Neyman said releasing it earlier in the day might have caused some disruption.

Now you can take a look as well.