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Man, oh man. This December board agenda and everything Miles touches is a purposeful effort to dismantle democratic protections at every level. December surprise does not begin to cover it.

The entire board meeting has become a shell of real democratic practice. It is no surprise that nothing has been pulled from the consent agenda for public discussion. Why bother with even the facade of discussion when the board rubber stamps every harmful decision Miles makes? With everything pushed into closed session except public comment and Miles’ monthly “look how great I am” speech, the only people who can shine light on the darkness are us.

If ever there was a month to speak at a board meeting, it is this December surprise meeting on Thursday. Added bonus; get there early to sing “End the Takeover” carols at 4:30 PM. And finish off your week at the CVPE Holiday Party on Saturday at 5 pm.

You can sign up anytime until Wed, Dec 10 at noon. [LINK: Sign up details] 

Here is the agenda packet to review. Remember that this agenda packet is not really about including the public in the people’s business. It is just to provide the bare minimum required by state law. 

Item 5: Approval of Magnet Program: Change for Kashmere, Northside, and Heights High Schools. pp 22-32

This proposal eliminates popular magnet and CTE programs at Heights, Northside, and Kashmere High Schools and forces students to be bused to Barbara Jordan CTE Center instead. 

At these three schools, Miles is sunsetting popular programs like web development and graphic design which also provide dual credit for students that lead to more students earning College Career and Military Readiness (CCMR) points that increase ratings. Some of these programs are also popular magnet program strands like entrepreneurship, culinary, and graphic design in addition to being CTE courses. Eliminating them will gut magnet enrollment and destabilize these schools.

Miles claims faculty were consulted on December 1. Faculty and staff have reported that is simply false. No one was informed until the agenda came out.

This is not just disruptive; it is wasteful. For example, Northside invested significant bond dollars to build two fully outfitted culinary kitchens, which will now sit empty.

This isn’t about improving access. It’s about artificially inflating enrollment at Barbara Jordan to justify Miles’ next shiny PR stunt at the expense of kids. Just last month, the board approved a bond to build a second CTE center. By gutting successful and accessible magnet and CTE programs at three neighborhood schools, he can claim Barbara Jordan is “bursting at the seams” and therefore HISD needs another campus.

The cost of that second CTE center climbed from $130 million in 2024 to over $180 million today. One wonders whether this is yet another case of Miles and Jim Terry capturing dollars meant for kids to bankroll their pet projects.

And all at the expense of Kashmere, Northside and Heights students who will now have to ride the bus to Barbara Jordan (5 min, 15 min, and 25 min away.) Miles’ poorly researched justification is that these programs no longer lead to viable careers and that kids will gain access to 15 other pathways at Barbara Jordan.

In Miles’ fever dream, children are widgets, moved around to serve his narrative, not their learning. Kids lose. Taxpayers lose. Schools lose successful magnet programs and the result is declining enrollment and eventual “consolidation,” Miles’ new euphemism for what are, in reality, school closures.

Item 14 and 15. Elimination of ELA(Local) and Combination with EL(Local) for District-Charter Partnerships

• EL (Local) is HISD policy for in-district charters and 1882 charter partnerships.
• ELA (Local) is HISD policy that addresses the requirements for 1882 partnerships only. It is a subset of EL (Local.)

HISD proposed deleting Item 15 ELA(Local) entirely and defaulting to a revised item 14 EL(Local), for governing how HISD manages in-district charters and 1882 charter partnerships. The text of this revised plan is still not included in the board agenda packet as of late Tuesday, blocking the public from seeing the language of the policy that the board will be voting on. Update: EL (Local) was tabled until January.

This replacement could give the Superintendent even broader discretion to approve these partnerships without a public process or standardized evaluation, and with essentially no board oversight. The concern is that eliminating ELA(Local) could also reduce protections for teachers and financial oversight of external partners, increasing the risk of improprieties.

This new combined policy would govern how HISD establishes SB 1882 district-charter partnerships (described by CVPE in a recent blog post), including those currently being considered. In a normal world, merging of these two policies makes some sense, but with Miles’ at the helm, this leads to even less public oversight. Democracy really does die in darkness.

Why EL(Local) & ELA (Local) revisions are important

EL(Local) & ELA (Local) were revised after community concerns emerged about insufficient oversight of in-district charter operators. Both contain stronger controls than that which exist at the state level over how public funds are managed by external partners than existed in HISD previously. It was adopted in response to a financial scandal involving HISD’s in-district charters operated by Lois Bullock, who siphoned off over $17 million from her Energized for Excellence schools. 

Why Deleting ELA(Local) Matters

SB 1882 district-charter partnerships operate in a gray area of state law: They are neither fully state-chartered schools nor traditional district schools, meaning they are governed by a much thinner set of state regulations. 

As an operator of 1882 partnerships via his company Third Future Schools, Miles knows that these partnerships are neither state-chartered schools nor true public schools, and, unfortunately for the public, there are essentially no rules governing their operations in the Texas Education Code. When Third Future was found to have siphoned off millions of dollars from Texas schools (very similar to Bullock), it was unethical, but not illegal. According to Morath's Texas Education Agency audit, it was Midland, Austin and Ector County School District's fault for not prohibiting such fees in their performance contracts. ELA(Local), as it currently exists in HISD board policy, closed the Texas Education Code loophole that 1882 schools enjoyed. This is why Miles is eager to eliminate current local safeguards—so he can free up SB 1882 charter partners to operate in this gray area of state law.

Deleting ELA(Local) would remove the primary mechanism for setting standards, ensuring transparency, and protecting public resources by requiring that these and other provisions are included in performance contracts with SB 1882 charter operators.

And to be perfectly clear, the proposed new policy is still not available to the public, perhaps not even the board of managers yet. [Item 14 was tabled on Wed, the day before the board meeting.]

Item 13. Approval of Proposed Revisions to Board Policy EHBB(Local), Special Programs: Gifted and Talented Students-First Reading

HISD is removing their commitment to providing comprehensive advanced academics to all K-12 students who meet the statutory definition of “gifted and talented.” This change fundamentally undermines GT education.

Shamefully, Miles believes you can differentiate with different levels of worksheet packets. 

Item 12. Approval of Proposed Revisions to Board Policy CAA(Local), Fiscal Management Goals and Objectives: Financial Ethics-First Reading

Changes to the ethics policy ensure that no complaint or hotline tip goes to anyone independent of the Superintendent. The Superintendent chooses who investigates serious complaints or fraud allegations.

The tip hotline will now be monitored by Ethics and Compliance rather than the Audit Department. Only Audit reports to the Board and has any independence.

Item 4. Approval of New Campus Library Materials Orders and Donations

Library resources are going only to the few elite schools that still have libraries, a clear sign of how this takeover is worsening inequality.

Schools receiving resources: Kolter, Pin Oak, Travis, Poe, Shearn, River Oaks, Sinclair, Neff, Briarmeadow, Parker, Oak Forest.

Closed session: Real estate sale of 5 properties (p5)

Selling district-owned land during a takeover without elected oversight risks permanent loss of public assets. HISD must not sell community land without democratic input and clear evidence that the sale benefits students. In addition, Before selling land, HISD should have a comprehensive long-term plan Selling assets to pay operating expenses is financially unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible.There is no transparency.

Reports from the Superintendent: Houston Promise (p2): 

Houston Promise isn’t about helping students as it should be; it’s a Miles PR tool. He controls the money and access, decides who can volunteer, and pressures groups to lend their names and logos. People trying to help kids get used for propaganda, creating a false picture of support for the takeover.

Let’s keep this movement going to fight for the schools our students deserve. Miles needs to go.