It was another nine to nothing voting night at the sparsely attended Houston ISD board meeting Thursday. Public speakers once again asked for a better special ed program. They criticized a change that will, in essence, allow Superintendent Mike Miles to be the final decision maker on the names of school district buildings.
They challenged the plan to stop the practice of recognizing teachers at the 5 -, 10-, 15- year marks with service pins – if teachers are so valued, why take that gesture away from them?
The full board sat through the complaints – they’d had their pictures taken in the board room with Miles right before the night’s session – and then unanimously approved every change presented from the administration.
The administration redid its policies on admittance to the Gifted and Talented program. In keeping with a directive from the Texas Education Agency: “The use of a scoring value based on race, ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status or disability shall be prohibited.”
Also in keeping with TEA directives, an elaborate acceptance method of any new books to the remaining libraries in HISD and to classrooms has been adopted – much like other school districts are doing. Other than submitting new titles for review, librarians are not determining what goes up on the shelves in HISD.
The presentation on Special Ed student scores highlighted the wins while skipping over their own chart showing HISD failed to meet two goals for those classes.
Elected Board member Michael McDonough addressed the appointed board, to protest the rumored significant funding cuts to students in non-New Education System schools. He said this was prioritizing one school program over another.
“The majority of economically disadvantaged students attend these [non-NES] campuses. We cannot continue to cut resources from those schools and then act surprised when enrollment and performance drop,” he said.
“I’m asking you tonight to step up. To ask this administration how they got the budget so wrong, so quickly that a month into this school year we’re facing a $20 million budget shortfall. You need to demand the data.”
Another elected trustee Felicity Pereyra asked the board why it was changing the policy on naming HISD schools and facilities, particularly that a person no longer has to be deceased to have a building named after them.
“What are we doing here? Who’s asking for this? Are there not more pressing issues facing HISD in this moment? Broken AC units in 100-degree weather? The questionable tactics on that affect test scores? The distressed parents of Special Ed students? Why teachers and parents are fleeing the district at a significant rate relative to other like districts?
The next board meeting is scheduled for October 8 at 5 p.m.
