HOUSTON — Tension filled City Hall Tuesday as Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles appeared before City Council for the first time since he took over leadership of the state’s largest school district.
Following pressure from constituents to look into Miles’ management of HISD, council members earlier this month sent a letter to district leaders to set up a meeting with the superintendent.
Miles shared a presentation and took questions from council members during Tuesday’s Economic Development Committee meeting.
“Our task is pretty clear,” Miles said during his presentation. “There’s 274 schools, let’s make our C, D and F schools stronger, and let’s keep our A and B schools strong.”
Council members took turns pressing Miles on several topics, including staff layoffs, resource allocation to NES and non-NES schools, criteria for staff evaluations and the future of the state takeover of the district.
“When do you foresee your job will be completed and we can return HISD to an elected board?” Council member Julian Ramirez asked Miles.
“My sense is if we have three years of good growth, the [Texas Education Agency] commissioner will probably start to transition to an elected board,” Miles replied, explaining two more years of similar improvements to this past year would likely trigger the process to end the state takeover.
There were also broader questions about Miles’ motivations.
“There’s been a question since you got here about whether you were here on a mission and that mission would be to destroy public education,” District D Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz said. “We know that there’s a great push at the state level to destroy public education so, what are your feelings abo school choice?”
“I have one mission here,” Miles said. “I was not asked to do vouchers, charters, closed schools, I was asked to get us out of intervention by taking the D and F schools and making them stronger and keeping our A and B schools strong, that’s all you’re going to see from me.”
Miles left the meeting after council members’ questions due to a prior engagement, but the meeting continued with public comment from dozens of educators and parents concerned about the impact of Miles’ leadership on the district.
“This is the first time many of us have seen him being held under any kind of accountability so we appreciate that because that does not happen at the school board meetings whatsoever,” Lauren Simmons, an HISD parent and candidate for state Assembly, told council members. “We have lost our democratic right to make decisions about our children.”
Council members said they were open to keeping an open dialogue with community members concerned about the management of HISD.