HOUSTON — This week, hundreds of Houston ISD employees learned that they’re losing their jobs in just a few weeks. Those impacted include custodians, maintenance workers, mechanics and teachers.
Four parents of HISD students spent part of Mother’s Day preparing to hold a parent protest Monday morning outside of Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School because of the mass layoffs happening at the district.
“We don't have anybody except us representing our interests and not only that, parents need to do it because teachers and principals and staff, they are terrified of retaliation,” Stacy Anderson said.
The moms said the principal at their kids' school shared the news he received from the district with faculty staff and the PTO last week.
“The (20)22-23 principal of the year was given two options - resign or face termination,” Rochelle Cabe said.
The group of moms said they didn’t want that to happen.
“Instead of helping support all the kids, what they're doing is they're firing seasoned veteran teachers and principals who create these and foster these fantastic communities,” Kristi Pewthers said.
They want to step up and be the voice for their school community.
“Children are growing and learning who they are, and we need them to continue doing that,” Elizabeth Shepard said. “They've been supported in that effort here. They've been allowed to find their place and their voice, and we cannot lose that in favor of budget or scores or any other unreliable metric.”
They fear that if they don’t speak up things will only get worse.
“This is about every school in history and about all these teachers and all of these principals,” Anderson said.
They hope that together they can send a unified message to HISD.
“The district needs to understand that as mothers, we’re not going to back down,” Cabe said.
Their protest is set to begin at 7:30 a.m. Monday and said so far over 200 people have already RSVP’d.