Teachers called to a last-minute after school meeting at Chrysalis Middle School Friday afternoon were told to get with the New Education System program instituted by Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles or get gone. And that they had until 6 p.m. Sunday to let the district know whether they’d be staying or wanted to be moved to another school.
Dr. Luz Martinez, the Central Division superintendent (previously at Midland in 2021 and Round Rock in January 2023 before moving to HISD this June), minced no words in making it clear that there wasn’t to be any more questioning of the new policies at the NES-Aligned schools, part of the Miles plan after the state takeover of HISD.
By Saturday, two teachers who tried to ask questions — one of whom was thrown out of the meeting — received letters that the district was beginning the process of terminating their employment and they were barred from campus. “Insubordination” was cited as the precipitating factor in Carr’s case.
“We are not going back. We are not compromising,” Martinez had told the teachers at the meeting while Principal Mary Lou Walter stood by, “All this noise that is going on, that’s in the past. We are moving forward. We are NES-Aligned.” She went on to insist that the NES program was “never intended to be rigid, never intended to be mechanical.”
At the same time, Martinez told teachers she’d be bringing more outsiders into the schools who would be in the teachers’ classrooms “all the time” to ensure they are “implementing the model with fidelity.”
Science teacher Teresa Carr said she attempted to ask in what way the teachers at Chrysalis were supposedly falling short. “[Martinez] said we were not implementing with fidelity,” said Carr but when the district superintendent was pressed, the only example she came up with was three elementary students she’d spotted on their way to the office because they’d had bathroom accidents. Pointing out that involved Cage and not the middle school or its teachers, Carr said she was unable to get Martinez to give any specific examples involving Chrysalis.
After Carr left the meeting, another teacher attempted to continue with follow up questions, Carr said. That teacher also received a letter of reprimand and notice that termination proceedings were beginning against her, Carr said.
The holder of a BA in science education and a master’s in English education, Carr said she had never been in trouble with the district before and clearly by Sunday was still very unsettled by what had happened. One bright spot was that she had joined the Houston Federation of Teachers union for the first time before the start of school this year and had already talked with her union rep.
A group of parents at Cage Elementary and Chrysalis — they share the campus and principal with Chrysalis — have planned a protest at 7:30 a.m. Monday about what happened Friday and the NESA program in general. Parent Mayra Lemus echoed the bewilderment of many when she pointed out that Cage has been an A level Blue Ribbon School, so why were the more rigid educational approaches that are part of NES instituted there.
Naturally enough, given the times in which we live, someone recorded part of Martinez’s speech.
Carr said when she asked again for an answer to her questions, Martinez walked toward her saying “You can leave. You can leave. You can leave.”
In her written reprimand to Carr, Martinez wrote that the science teacher had “acted in a highly unprofessional manner” in the meeting and was “insubordinate.” According to Martinez, Carr yelled during the exchange and talked over her. Carr insists that it was Martinez who did the yelling.
“As a result, I will move forward with an immediate recommendation to terminate your contract effective 9/16/2023,” Martinez wrote. She also notified Carr that she was not allowed on the Cage/Chrysalis campus for any reason and that she would have to make arrangements to have her personal items picked up after 5:30 p.m.
“If you’re one of those teachers who don’t want to do the model, that is fine. But you will not be here,” Martinez had told teachers assembled Friday. She gave them the weekend to think it over, but later that was shortened to 6 p.m. Sunday.
In any case the question became moot for Carr and the unidentified other teacher. “I didn’t decide this. I didn’t want this. Definitely not this way,” she said.
Lemus, the parent of three students at the campus, who helped organize the protest scheduled for Monday from 7:30-8:30 a.m. said many parents feel the new district administrators are trying to intimidate their teachers, She’s also concerned that there are 33 students in her son’s 5th grade class and as she understands it, because it’s NES-aligned, HISD doesn’t need a waiver from the state to have that many in class.
The previous principal, Maria Castillo was the one who applied for NES-Aligned status without ever checking with parents and although many teachers didn’t want to make the change, Lemus said. The irony was that at the start of the school year Castillo was replaced with Walter, who had worked with Miles before in Dallas.
Another teacher who was not disciplined and who did not want her name used for this article, said while she likes the structure suggested by NES, the implementation is another question. Both she and Carr mentioned that students are overloaded with what they have to grasp on a strict time schedule and for some students that’s not quite enough. “We don’t have any time to give accommodations,” Carr said.
Both teachers mentioned a complaint that’s been entered with more frequency at HISD board meetings, namely that the slides prepared by central office for use in their lessons have frequent errors and require do-overs by the teachers. Some of the slides are just too long or don’t apply to the lesson students are supposed to learn that day, the other teacher said.
For Carr, an added problem has been that subjects other than English and math are given only 60 minutes to their 90 which puts a further pressure on teachers and students to fit everything in.
Students are sorted into LSAE groups after each test; the two lower groups stay with the teacher for extra help while the two higher-scoring groups go to the Teams room with work to study there on their own. The problem with that, the second teacher said is that they go into a setting without a certified teacher who can help them if they have any questions and they aren’t allowed to work in groups but must try to figure things out by themselves.
“Two of my boys were crying,” the teacher said, explaining that they thought they were failing. Despite this, the teacher expects to remain at the school this year and reconsider options for the next. Carr confirmed the reports that kids have been breaking down in class because of the pressures being placed on them.
“I’m going public with this,” she said, “because I don’t want my students to think that I just left them.”
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
