HISD promises more freedom to teachers in top-rated schools. Will it follow through?

When Houston ISD’s state-appointed superintendent, Mike Miles, arrived to overhaul the district last summer, he forecast that high-performing schools would “probably look the same” under his watch.

But once the school year started, then-Valley West Elementary School Principal Samantha Woods felt like the district went back on its word.

District administrators told staff at the B-rated school that they had to use new teaching methods, such as checking for students’ understanding roughly every five minutes, Woods said. If they didn’t, teachers risked receiving poor performance evaluations from central administrators visiting their class.

“We were told that we would have autonomy,” said Woods, who left the campus on HISD’s southwest side in June after district administrators asked her and dozens of other principals to resign . “We were not under the (transformation) model. … However, the reality that came about was that we did not have autonomy.”

Teachers and families across HISD reported last year that hallmarks of Miles’ controversial plans for turning around long-struggling schools — including the rapid-fire learning checks, standardized curriculum and a mandate to keep classroom doors open — had crept into schools that weren’t targeted for overhaul.

Now, in an apparent course correction from last year, HISD administrators published rules clarifying that teachers at nearly half of the district’s roughly 270 campuses don’t have to use many of Miles’ most highly criticized policies.

Miles said the change could address a key error from last year: failing to promptly specify what changes would apply districtwide versus only at the subset of schools he was overhauling. Some administrators at top schools last year thought they had to incorporate more elements of HISD’s overhaul program than they were required to, Miles acknowledged, a misunderstanding he attributed to some school leaders being “overzealous.”

“If you’re … A and B (schools), we don’t want to change your program,” Miles said Thursday. “(International Baccalaureate), Montessori, performing arts, project-based learning, we’re going to maintain that for you, support you in doing that, and we’re not dictating curriculum.”

‘I don’t buy that’

Still, some staff members’ experiences from last year leaves them skeptical that teachers will get the freedom to teach as they see fit.

Last year, Woods said her campus received low scores on district walkthrough evaluations until she made school-wide changes to mimic Miles’ overhaul program. Then, the scores went up.

“I don’t buy that they will have autonomy,” Woods said.

The changes come too late for the roughly 2,000 teachers who left HISD this summer, some out of frustration with Miles’ approach. Former English teacher Jennifer Blessington resigned from Bellaire High School, considered one of the district’s most prestigious campuses, partially because she felt constrained by classroom edicts.

“We were told we should use (engagement) strategies regularly,” Blessington said. “And when the district came through, we should definitely use them.”

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Teachers at schools outside Miles’ overhaul program still have to “meaningfully engage” students in their lessons by deploying strategies of their choosing, HISD administrators wrote in an email to the Houston Landing, though they don’t have to use Miles’ preferred learning checks.

“(Those) teachers can use any engagement strategies that they see fitting for their students,” HISD wrote. “Principals should set this expectation clearly for their campus staff.”

New directions

Miles said his team released a new handbook explaining what quality teaching looks like in specialized programs, such as Montessori or International Baccalaureate schools.

“It has every type of different program and explanation, so that principals and (district administrators) who come in can more effectively gauge those specific programmatic schools, and we think that’s going to be a big assist,” Miles said.

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Aside from instructional methods, the framework lays out operational freedoms for staff in magnet and top-rated schools, such as designing their own trainings and allowing educators to teach with their classroom doors closed. It also says overhauled high schools don’t have to make students use traffic cones as bathroom passes, as some did last year .

Administrators at all campuses, regardless of whether or not they are part of Miles’ transformation model, will have to observe at least six classrooms per week, an expectation HISD is continuing from last year. Some teachers have complained about feeling micromanaged and unnecessarily watched by administrators conducting classroom observations.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org .