On Thursday, June 13th at 5 pm, speak at the last HISD board of managers meeting. Bring your whole family to save our schools. It is easy to sign up! The deadline to register is noon on Wednesday. 

This month’s HISD board of managers meeting is packed with over 30 agenda items. Here is the agenda packet. For help signing up to speak, RSVP here for a Zoom meeting tonight. Link for instructions to register to speak. Choose an agenda item from the list below. 

• Agenda item 2 (budget) and 17(June budget amendment) to speak about Miles' reckless spending and how he is worsening inequalities
• Agenda item number 7 (certification waivers) about the importance of certified counselors and teachers. Last week, a principal offered a teaching position to a nineteen-year-old who is uncertified and about to start their second year at Lone Star Community College.
• item 16 if you want to speak about the loss of libraries and librarians in the New Education System. Miles has asked for approval to spend over $3 million to obtain library books after destroying libraries on nearly half of HISD campuses.
• Agenda item 30 to speak about student welfare. Speak about the wraparound service program, autism support, fine arts, and homeless programs that were gutted
• Agenda Items 21, 23, and 24-28 are to re-establish relationships with teacher preparation programs at UH, TSU, UHD, Texas Tech, and others. While building a teacher pipeline with universities is important, what checks and balances exist to ensure that Miles does not use the contracts to fill classrooms with students who have not yet graduated? Call in your alumni networks!

HISD in the NEWS

• CVPE’s Friday blog post is updated here with new information and slides.Cooking the Books:To artificially raise Biology STAAR scores, Miles only allowed pre-AP 9th graders at NES schools to take Biology.
• Houston ISD’s STAAR scores for high school students, while improved, remain below statewide marks.
• Blessington op-ed: How HISD Superintendent Mike Miles wrecked teaching
• Letters to the editor: Miles is a one man destruction derby.
• Texas Rep. Christina Morales op-ed: I toured an HISD school. I was shocked. Mike Miles' New Education System is humiliating and detrimental to learning
• Mike Miles op-ed: I can unequivocally say we have had a successful year.Warning: Keep out of reach of children and communities.
• A search tool is only as good as the data HISD provided…and HISD’s data is pretty suspect. Here is the Houston Landing search tool about the bond proposal

Advocates are pushing for adding American Indian/Native Studies (AI/NS) as a Texas Elective. If adopted, the course would gain a permanent place in the Social Studies TEKS, right next to Mexican American Studies and African American Studies, which are the most popular Social Studies electives in the state. Rather than allow the course to move forward to "first reading," the SBOE Chair has decided to focus on the course's recommended course materials even though the recommended course materials have nothing to do with the TEKS adoption process. 

Help us call on Chair Kinsey to bring the American Indian/Native Studies course to "First Reading" this June. Only the new Abbott-appointed Texas SBOE Chair can place the course back on track for adoption this year. He finalizes the agenda on June 14. Click here to sign: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ainspetition?source=email&