According to the Urban Dictionary, the old philosophical exercise — “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound” — should best be understood as: “the ineffectiveness of unheard opinions or thoughts.”
The new Board of Managers and Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles have argued that moving most of the public speakers to another room down the hall in the administration building at the June 15 budget workshop, silenced no one and was in no way a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
Those signed up to speak still got their chance to talk for one minute. Their words and images were broadcast from the overflow room to screens and speakers in the main room. People sitting at home could still watch the proceedings. But members of the public who wanted to get inside the main room were turned away by HISD police and their yells of protest from the doorway can be heard at the start of the recorded meeting.
By reducing 400 seats to 35 in the public meeting room, decorum prevailed. Of course the board didn’t get to hear what the other people were saying who weren’t given mic time. The natural ebb and flow of a school board meeting had been dammed up. Board members didn’t face first hand a quiet chorus of waving jazz hands in response to one speaker or another — with the exception of the few officials like State Rep. Jolanda Jones given the courtesy of addressing the board face to face in the meeting room. No one interrupted them either.
It was neat and tidy and now the questions are: what will happen this Thursday when the new Texas Education Agency-installed board votes on the 2023-24 budget $2.2 billion presented by Miles and how many people will be in the room along with them when the vote is taken?
And will we finally get to see how each board member votes on the screen behind the dais?
As advertised, the proposed budget, at least percentage wise, veers little from what the elected-now-ousted board came up with during its reviews over the past few months. There just isn’t time for an extensive overhaul, Miles has said. The biggest differences center around making space for his NES (New Education System) project involving 29 schools and to do so, something had to be deleted elsewhere.
That turns out to be what Miles says is an overstuffed central office and on the face of it, there can be little argument in getting more money to needy kids and their schools instead of to a top-heavy administration. The question there remains: just who is being removed and what services go with them.
It also makes sense that if Miles is going to continue with all his principal training sessions and install a new evaluation system for what makes a high-performing principal, that the district shouldn’t continue to pay $5 million a year for an outside group to give leadership lessons.
A quick scan of the proposed budget sees a school district that expects to take in more in property taxes (unless the Texas Legislature takes some of that money away) but less income from investments earning, local contributions, state and federal sources and other income with some of the drops ($20 million from “other sources”) looking pretty substantial.
The good news is that so far the district has a AAA Moody’s rating on its bonds (highest possible). And an AA+ form Standard and Poor. The district is talking about not raising the property tax rate which is expected to remain at 0.1667.
A large challenge remains the district’s declining enrollment (28,000 fewer students according to Miles) of the last six years. Miles was also asked about the magnet programs at some schools that aren’t highly populated.
To his credit, Miles clearly stated that he does not see his mission one of enticing more students to the district’s magnet programs with the idea of building up magnet programs. His primary mission, he said, is to improve the situation for the students the district already has. And as he has said repeatedly, the main focus there is on reading, followed by math and science.
ESSER funds (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) — federal money to help out schools because of the pandemic — are disappearing as of September 2024 which means there are a lot of people who will be out of a job. Miles said at the budget workshop that every one of those people should have been informed so they would have time to seek another job, but he’s also been told that perhaps didn’t happen in all cases.
The board will also be voting on whether to suspend the board policy at the NES schools, allowing Miles’ administration more discretion in making changes there. All other magnet programs will remain the same for the coming school year but expect that to change for the 2024-25 school year, given the small number of students in some of those programs.
Expect a long meeting as board members sign off on vendor and governmental contracts and sift through the routine business that allows a school district to operate. Miles should become officially the superintendent on Thursday, dropping the “Acting” in front of his title. Whether there will be much of an audience for all the proceedings, well it seems that’s up to HISD.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
