On Monday, HISD Chief of Schools Sandi Massey announced a round of shifts at the rarified district chiefs level. Orlando Riddick, the North Division leader is being promoted to Division Chief of the Central Division — the largest one in the HISD kingdom.
Massey lauded Riddick for what she said was the vast improvement in student standardized test scores in the North District under his two-year leadership.
Daniel Girard, described in an HISD press release as a “seasoned instructional leader” will move from the Chief of Schools office to take over Riddick’s North Division post.
And Daniel Soliz, who has been the Interim Division Chief of the Central Division, is not taking on that job permanently, but instead is being absorbed into the mother ship where he will fill the spot previously held by Girard and work for Massey. (The only district chief who remains in her original slot is South Division Chief Imelda De La Guardia.)
In the last two years under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, HISD has become known for its discharge of teachers and principals at a previously unprecedented level. In the last six months that has extended to even higher levels: the district chiefs who now report to Massey who reports to Miles.
In August 2024, Kasey Bailey replaced Laura Stout, who had become the target of protests from parents who didn’t like it that she told a number of principals in the West Division that they could resign or be fired.
She also, misguidedly as it turned out, went after teacher Michelle Williams, accusing her of recording videos on school time. When Williams demonstrated this was not the case, the teacher and frequent commenter at HISD board meetings, got her job back. Bailey moved into the position from the administrative offices and had been Deputy Chief of Leadership and Strategic Initiatives.
In February there was the departure of the very controversial Luz Martinez known for a my-way-or-the- highway habit of telling teachers to be gone if they didn’t embrace Miles’ New Education System which calls for daily testing of students and timed tests.. What she termed as insubordination, teachers said was just their asking questions for clarity. After the brief stint with Soliz, the Central District will now be under Riddick.
While the HISD website talks about Riddick’s time as superintendent of Midland ISD, it doesn’t include that he left in an agreement with the school board there. He was allowed to officially resign after the board first initiated termination proceedings and put him on administrative leave. The reason citied by the Midland board was that he was not meeting their expectations for student academic performance.
In HISD, Riddick’s most notable moment was when he got into a shouting match with a parent at a June 2024 board meeting over the benefits of the NES approach in improving standardized test score results. He kept yelling “Scoreboard, scoreboard, scoreboard” and eventually was walked out of the room by an HISD attorney.
As for Girard, according to The Austin Chronicle in 2007 the Ysleta ISD board apologized for former Bel Air High School principal Girard after teachers claimed he violated state law “by forcing them to work through their lunch periods.” They claimed he also harassed them for filing those grievances. The teachers said they had to attend mandatory committee meetings during the 30 minutes they had for lunch in violation of the Texas Education Agency code. Al that they were supposed to be paid but weren’t.
By 2015, however, Girard was finishing eight years as principal of Akins High in August. He was credited with increases in student standardized scores under his leadership and a boom in the number of dual credit courses. The graduation rate grew from 72 to 86.6 percent. By September of that year, he was instead Assistant Superintendent of San Antonio ISD where he stayed till coming to HISD in September 2023. In HISD he has been Executive Director of Feeder and as such was responsible for evaluating principals’ performance.
