HOUSTON — Houston ISD employees and students headed to Austin Monday to protest against the potential Texas Education Agency takeover of the district.
Those employees included a group from the Houston Education Support Personnel Union, which included bus drivers, food service workers and custodians. The union said members are worried and some, including many bus drivers, are already looking for another job just in case.
“It’s the unknown, they don’t know what’s going on, so they’re trying to find a job somewhere else so they can feed their family,” the head of the union said. “TEA, there’s no one who can do their job better than a support personnel, the front-line workers, we are here, we show up, we take care of our kids.”
The students were a group from HISD's Worthing High School. They said they feel like they should have some say since they'll be feeling the impacts of this big decision the most.
"Mainly, we came here to prove a point," one student said. "To show good things and good things that can happen. And we feel like the community, from my community, we could make a change, and we could actually do something. cause people should actually know our opinion about the things they're doing."
Over the weekend, a rally led by the NAACP was held outside Wheatley High School.
Houston city leaders, including Mayor Sylvester Turner and other community members, marched as one -- demanding HISD be kept in the hands of the district board members and not the TEA.
Again, there’s still no exact timeline of when the takeover could happen.
The Houston Federation of Teachers said HISD teachers will also be making a trip to Austin early this week to voice their concerns and meet with legislators.