Attend the board meeting on Thursday at 5:30 pm. RSVP here.

Mike Miles is suspending lots of board policies (agenda here) so he can push through his dystopian vision for children, families, and teachers.

Click here for step-by-step instructions to sign up to speak. You must sign up by noon today to speak tomorrow. The page numbers are matched to the longer agenda packet (192 pages.) The agenda packet for both June 15th and June 22nd is here.

Agenda 19 is the budget. It is the bare legal minimum for the board or the public to verify if this budget aligns with the plan Miles outlined to the media. The budget approval seems to be a checkbox while he moves money around as he wishes without any public input.

Why is debt service up 10%? That usually only happens with a bond and the last one was way back in 2012. He is firing about 300 wraparound specialists. They are centrally funded but work in schools with children every day. Miles is pulling a mean-spirited PR move when he calls them Office Bloat.  

Agenda item 20 (page 173) is suspending board policy regarding keeping the board's attorney. For decades, HISD has had an attorney for administration and the board has an independent attorney. If the board’s attorney is fired, the board will rely on HISD in-house counsel who reports directly to F. Mike Miles.Without independent counsel, the so-called board is even more of a rubber-stamping entity. 

Agenda items 21-23 ( pages 175 - 187) are about suspending board policy for employment practices, teacher appraisals and principal appraisals in that order. Many of the suspended policies will make it easier for HISD to remove and replace successful and beloved teachers; to turn teachers into widgets to be moved on a chess board as Miles sees fit. 

Here is one of the many changes. Principals will be judged and evaluated on student outcomes (STAAR). In addition, if the principal evaluates a great teacher’s classroom instruction well but their STAAR scores are low, the principal will get in trouble and will be dinged on their rating and vice versa. This incentivizes NES principals to evaluate teachers entirely on predicted student performance and not on the quality of instruction or the capacity to motivate and inspire. Children are more than a test score.

Agenda item 24 (page 188)  suspends board policy regarding having magnets in the NES schools. Who needs the rule of law when Miles is in town? To parents concerned about cuts to fine arts, band and bilingual programs, Mike’s says “I think we're going to be able to accommodate most of the programs that are already existing." Translation: Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. We’ll let you know.

Attend the board meeting on Thursday at 5:30 pm. RSVP here. Click here for step-by-step instructions instructions to sign up to speak. You must sign up by noon today to speak tomorrow.