Save our schools. Speak so the public and the media get the truth!

Speakers to agenda items start at 5 pm on Thursday and you speak in order of your arrival to the meeting. The hearing of community is officially at 7pm, but last month, the board president overturned board policy and moved hearing of citizens to the end of the meeting at 10 pm. Therefore, it is better to sign up for an agenda item.  

Instructions to sign up are here. You can also complete this form in English or en espanol, sign it and email it to [email protected] by Wednesday at noon.

For help signing up, join CVPE at 8 pm tonight. RSVP for Zoom link at houstoncvpe.org/events.  

If you speak on behalf of a teacher, you could start by saying, “It’s Teacher Appreciation Week. I am going to speak on behalf of a teacher doing great work despite the toxic conditions in which teachers work and children learn.

The agenda packet is here. Even if you sign up for multiple agenda items, your maximum time to speak is one minute when there are 30 or more speakers. 120-150 words.

Here are a couple of agenda items. 

Agenda Item 1: Growth Progress Monitoring: Students with Disabilities

Sign up for this item if you want to speak about Special Education services or about student outcomes and inequity across the district

Why it Matters: High-stakes standardized tests are poor measures of student learning and disproportionately harm students with disabilities and students in under-resourced communities. Rather than prioritizing monitoring STAAR scores of students with disabilities, we should prioritize providing quality services to students with disabilities.

Agenda items 2 & 5: Approving the NES Curriculum and certifying instructional materials for TEKS alignment

Sign up for this item if you want to discuss how bad the NES curriculum is for children or why children need to read books in school.

Why it Matters: It's an annual process that gives the district access to the state-provided $34M Instructional Material and Technology Allotment. Who in their right mind thinks that Miles’ NES curriculum is aligned with the TEKS? Who in their right mind thinks it is helping children be ready for life?

#4:Board of Managers’ Community Engagement Plan

Why it Matters: Without an elected board, the community has no recourse when the board ignores the needs and values of its stakeholders. The appointed board selectively listens and prioritizes certain voices, leaving many unheard.

The smart move is to start re-instating the elected board now. They are accountable to the public at the ballot box.

#7: Budget Approvals for $1M spending limit increase for moving expenses

Why it Matters: This is for moving expenses within the district and to relocate new admin hires from out of town. Here is the context. Miles and his appointed board spent close to a million buying new furniture for the second floor administration building so that the furniture would match.

One wonders- in this time of limited funds, shouldn’t the additional $1 million be invested in classrooms rather than in paying “corporate” relocation expenses or new Central Office furniture?

#12 Student Welfare: Crisis Intervention

Sign up for this item if you would like to talk about the programs that Miles and the BOM gutted- cutting more than half of the wraparound services and college advisors, gutting homeless services from 40 to less than 12, the elimination of the autism support team last August and the elimination of Special Education social workers last week.

Schoolchildren should matter more than tripling the number of people earning more than $200,000, fancy furniture or musical-paloozas.

#14 / 15: Approving a Reduction In Force- Everyone is at Risk

Sign up for this item if you are concerned about massive teacher and principal terminations and resignations and the replacement of talented teachers with uncertified, novice teachers. Teachers should be respected and their input valued.

Why it Matters: Usually, reductions in force are discussed much earlier in the academic year in consultation with unions and school administrators. Miles should not have been handed DOI on a plate.

Miles is telegraphing, “We are going to RIF anyone, at any time, whenever we want.”