The BOM meeting on Thursday, June 22 might be the last time you are able to address the appointed, unelected Board of Managers face-to-face. 

Bring your whole family this Thursday! Show up for Houston schoolchildren and stand up for democracy. To speak, you must sign up by noon Wed. RSVP and details on how to sign up to speak are here at https://www.houstoncvpe.org/june22   [en español aqui]

June 15 BOM Meeting Recap: Even though the main HISD Board room has a 310-person capacity, there were only 35 chairs set aside for the public and HISD Cabinet members occupied at least ten of them. Everyone else was relegated to the overflow room. Families, teachers, and taxpayers were not allowed back into the main room even when seats in the main room became available, counter to long held HISD convention.  F. Mike Miles purposely skipped the public comment portion of the Board meeting both on June 8th and the June 15th. This is not what democracy looks like. 

Is this how Miles plans to treat our children?

A parent at Pugh Elementary School, one of the schools Miles plans to “reconstitute” was at the meeting. She said, “At first, I convinced myself that I do not need your boardroom to be heard. Then later, when I got home, I thought about how it really made me feel. I was horrified. I realized that what Miles did to me is what he wants to do to children, some with undiagnosed mental health issues.”

In the Miles NES school, any child who misbehaves will go to a zoom room until they act better. All teachers will have to reapply for their jobs so students at the 28 campuses will likely return to schools full of strangers. Relationships matter particularly in historically under-resourced communities.

What does a reconstituted school look like in Miles’ own words? The school day will be heavily focused on STAAR test prep, BOY, MOY, and EOY MAP assessments as well as a full length STAAR practice test in October and again in February. 

Teachers will be required to give weekly benchmarks someone else writes. Teachers will be “monitored to ensure they provide at least 500 words of text every period for every assignment.” Teachers read from a script and do not plan lessons. Teacher assistants grade children’s work, not teachers. “Some teachers will teach two classrooms at one time (one group physically with the teacher and another group via Zoom.)”

There will be no library or librarian. Magnet programs in the NES schools will be suspended.  Wraparound services and staff for the entire district will be replaced with the as-yet-undefined regional sunrise centers. Classes will be videotaped and any child who misbehaves will go to a Zoom room until they “act better.” Instead of certified teachers for the arts, music, PE, and electives, Miles will find “community members” to provide instruction. Miles' executive summary of his Third Futures Charter School In Austin ISD sounds like a tenth-grade capstone project rather than an actual plan for running a school. 

Click here for step-by-step instructions to speak, and sign up by Wednesday, June 21, at noon. Everyone should show up on Thursday by 5:30 pm to stand up against this horrible plan. Even if it does not affect you personally…yet.