Sign up by noon TODAY to speak at the HISD Board meeting tomorrow. To assist you, here are some agenda items you can sign up for. Arrive early tomorrow (4:30–5:00 PM) to join us in singing holiday carols for change in the HISD lobby about the takeover.
Are you coming to the Board of Manager Meeting this Tuesday, 12/10 at 5:00pm? You must register to speak (instructions here) before noon today! Here are a few hot ticket items in the agenda packet: If you are in a rush, sign up for Agenda item 9 or 18.
Agenda Item 1: (pp 6 - 18) Monitoring of BOM goals – increasing SpEd scores. The report is filled with the usual suspects – data that doesn’t match the TEA numbers, and goals for improvement that are below current performance.
Apparently, the district only cares if SpEd students are improving in either math or reading, but no need to be improving in both.
There are plenty of questions to address here, including why the first administration of NWEA MAP testing in 2023, was considered valid at all. Nobody knew how the test worked, kids were told to do poorly so they would show growth over time, etc.
Agenda Item 2: (pp 19 - 25) Changes to Superintendent Constraint 3 and Board Constraints 1 and 2
Superintendent Constraint 3 addresses the Superintendent’s ability to make significant changes to programming options in schools. This change is essentially removing non-magnet or “specialized” programming or schools from the protection, while strengthening the requirements for Miles to provide analysis of impact and “any related or potentially related research-based studies, which shall include, if applicable, a literature review” to the Board *and* the community.
- Board Constraint 1 is a response to the BOM’s public comments on the Bond - essentially a gag order to make sure nobody says anything that could be construed as representing the whole board.
- Board Constraint 2 is an attempt to keep the BOM from creating new goals or priorities that have not already been adopted.
Agenda Item 3: (pp 26 - 29) Adds BOM approval requirement for purchases that aggregate to at least $1M, which appears to be an effort to keep FMM from spending millions in increments of less than $1M to avoid BOM scrutiny.
Agenda Item 4: (pp 30 - 172) Ratification of Vendor Awards. These are cooperative vendor awards from August 11,2023 through December 11, 2024. It’s a lot of awards to a lot of vendors. It’s completely ridiculous to retroactively approve 16 months of vendor awards in a single report/review. We should have been getting these updates quarterly.
Agenda Item 5: (pp 173 - 174) The big reveal here is the footnote (discovered by Ann Eagleton) : “Revenues are projected using enrollment of 175,959.” The district has been hiding enrollment data from us, but they had to reveal this number to explain change in revenue. The predicted decline in enrollment was 4,000, but this number reveals that it is 8,000. Double what they predicted. People are fleeing the district. Lower enrollment means less money from the state. But Miles is still spending away.
We don’t have data on enrollment declines at individual schools, because the district is hiding that data. But we have anecdotal evidence that parents are fleeing NES schools.
Agenda item 6 (pp 175-185): HISD is changing district policy due to a new state law and will hire commissioned peace officers (ie security guards) to fill some positions. The last time HISD used security guards whose training is less substantive than HISD police officers was in the 1980’s with problematic results.
How will we protect the immigrant and undocumented families in our schools from being targeted by police? This new implementation of state law could push many families away from our schools causing even more financial challenges for HISD and our communities.
HISD requires complaints against officers to be written and signed before being given to the offending officer to review. HISD must create an accessible process to submit complaints anonymously.
To protect students of color and disabled students from policing, HISD should maintain records of every school-based incident resulting in police involvement and publish annual reports.
Agenda item 7: (pp 186 - 187) moves Title IX compliance from HISD Equal Employment Opportunity Office to Employee Relations. Essentially, they are eliminating the office completely and adding Title IX compliance responsibility to the existing department of Employee Relations. This speaks volumes about the district’s actual concern about reports of discrimination and harassment against students or employees based on gender.
Agenda Item 8: (pp 188 - 192) The BOM is adding ways to shut down the community at meetings!!!!
The Board President can now change the order in which agenda items are addressed, without consent of the Board Members present.
If a member of the BOM has questions for the Superintendent that require too much of his or his staff’s time or to answer, Miles can refuse to answer and address the entire board at the next meeting to see if they want the information or not. At best, a stall tactic for him to get his double speak message together before it sees the light of day, and at worst, a way for him to avoid answering any tough questions that an individual board member asks.
The Board president is also given power to halt discussion “that is not relevant…or that is redundant,” as well as to “impose limitation on discussion” if the board has agreed to a time limit for discussion of an item and the time limit has expired. So, too bad if a brave BOM member brings up something nobody noticed and it sparks discussion that wasn’t scheduled. Could be a way to manage unruly off-topic self-aggrandizing showboaters, but could also be a great way to facilitate corruption.
Prohibited conduct is being expanded to “audible expressions of approval or disapproval in such a manner as to disrupt the meeting” - removing the important modifier “calculated” before “to disrupt.” Now, anyone who claps or cheers or does anything that is deemed disruptive, can be removed - regardless of whether their intention was to be disruptive or not. Essentially, the Board President could give a warning to the entire room and then have the entire room cleared after too much clapping.
Furthermore, nobody is allowed to use “profane or vulgar language or gestures” at any time - not just when addressing the board. The modifier “including” throws the whole thing open so that anyone in the meeting addressing anyone or anything can be thrown out if someone doesn’t like their language or gestures.
Agenda item 9: (pp 192-196) HISD is silencing the community! They’re eliminating the option to speak at board meetings via Zoom, shutting out parents without childcare or transportation, teachers far from Hattie Mae White, and others unable to attend in person.
Speakers will now be called at the presiding officer’s whim, with no guarantee of being heard early. Even students lose their priority to speak first with “shall language replaced with “may.). Finally, the "Hearing of the Community" is being scrapped entirely, cutting off vital input on issues not on the board’s agenda. This is a blatant move to shut out voices and stifle community engagement.
Agenda Item 10 (pp 197-201) Approval of Revisions to Special Programs This is a mixed bag.
Pro: Miles can only “make minor modification” to a magnet program in NES schools without going through the process in constraint 3 (See Agenda Item 2, above.)
Con: Removes the required minimum one transition year for planning and communication before a magnet program can be changed. Changes can now go into effect the year following board approval.
Agenda item 13 (pp 205 - 206) The district now wants to offer copying/printing services to other districts and government agencies, etc. because it needed so much equipment to make millions of packets that it is trying find a way to turn that expenditure into a revenue stream.
Agenda item 14 (pp 213-225) Approval of vendor awards over $1M. Vendor awards under $1M can be approved with zero public or board oversight ever since Miles with the Governor’s support amended the board policy last summer. Previously, vendor awards above $100K required board approval. Given that Miles forbids dollars spent on food for teacher appreciation week or throughout the year, or support for families during Thanksgiving, it seems a little Scrooge-like to allocate $30 Million on events, catering and related products.
HISD is also allocating $3 million for debris removal. It’s baffling why CFO Jim Terry and Superintendent Mike Miles didn’t pursue FEMA funding after Hurricane Beryl to cover cleanup costs before the school year began. FEMA dollars could have made this expense negligible for the district.
Agenda item 18: Consideration and approval of minutes from previous meeting
Last month, the board postponed the approval of selling 18 properties as surplus and changing board policy to allow proceeds to go into the general fund instead of the Capital Renovations Fund (CRF). The current policy, CDB Local, states: “Proceeds from the sale of property shall be deposited in the Capital Renovations Fund (CRF).” The proposed change would give the superintendent authority to decide whether funds go to the CRF or the general fund. Read more in Friday’s post archived here.
It is no longer on the agenda. If you would like to discuss this item, sign up for item 18, consideration and approval of minutes from previous meeting.
Can you sign up to speak?
Instructions to register to speak: https://docs.google.com/.../1Ye5vrE7wSwE.../edit
Agenda packet: https://houstonisd.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=PA&ID=1204149...
Registration link: https://houstonisd.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx
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