Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles speaks during an interview Jan. 22 at the district's headquarters in northwest Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian) Credit: Antranik Tavitian
Facing a roughly $500 million budget deficit, Miles made dramatic cuts and rearrangements to HISD’s central office, reducing the number of employees not assigned to campuses and classrooms from about 8,300 employees to 6,800, records obtained by the Houston Landing show.
The shake-up has reshaped how HISD staff deliver services to students living in poverty, develop the curriculums used in classrooms and clean up campuses, among other key tasks.
In February, Miles touted the reorganization as his fix to long-standing “dysfunction” in HISD operations, shedding dead weight and redundant spending. HISD Communications Chief Alexandra Elizondo called the transformation “one of the most important and necessary” changes made by Miles during his first year, allowing the district to invest more heavily in classrooms and teacher salaries.
“For decades, HISD’s bloated and outdated systems prevented the district from meeting the needs of its students, limited its ability to pay teachers a competitive salary and perpetuated more than 100 failing campuses across the district,” Elizondo wrote in an emailed statement.
But some critics of Miles argue the cuts have hindered HISD’s ability to provide needed services, including keeping campus grounds trash-free and providing assistance for families lacking basic needs like food or clothing. Even with the cuts, HISD still projects it will run a deficit of $130 million in 2024-25, dipping into its “rainy day” fund to cover the balance.
To evaluate the extent of Miles’ central office overhaul, the Landing compared HISD payroll records from March 2023, a few months before the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of the district, and early October 2024. While Miles initially overstated his administration’s cuts to central office in the months after his arrival, the records now show major changes to some departments. Other departments, meanwhile, appear largely intact.
HISD administrators did not directly respond to several questions sent Friday about specific aspects of the central office overhaul. Elizondo said the district would need more time to conduct a full analysis due to antiquated recordkeeping, but she did not contest any of the Landing’s findings.
Here are eight of the biggest changes made to HISD’s central office under Miles.
1. Fewer custodial, maintenance staff
HISD employs about a third fewer custodial and maintenance staff now than it did near the end of the 2022-23 school year.
The number of custodial staff dropped from roughly 1,500 to 1,100, and maintenance staff fell from about 480 to 210.
Amid the changes, some community members have criticized HISD, arguing the district is now slower in responding to schools’ facility needs. When the school year began in mid-August, Miles acknowledged that HISD had not yet removed some piles of cut grass and debris from campuses after two storms hit Houston over the summer, but he said none of the heaps presented a threat to student or staff safety.
Rozetha Guidry, a building service manager at Forest Brook Middle School, told the Landing in mid-September that the cuts to custodial services have made it hard for her and her team to complete the tasks required of them, including cleaning the cafeteria and classrooms.
“There’s not enough workers,” Guidry said. “If you haven’t worked it, you’re not going to understand why we need the extra people.”
Students line up for lunch Sept. 18 at Forest Brook Middle School in northeast Houston. (Antranik Tavitian / Houston Landing)
HISD has bumped up the salaries of high-ranking administrators under Miles, with the number of employees earning $150,000 or more annually increasing from roughly 60 to 210. The jump reflects existing staff receiving raises and some new positions being created.
HISD historically hasn’t paid top dollar for administrators, despite claiming the title of Texas’ largest school district. Before the state takeover, HISD had fewer employees making $150,000-plus than Dallas, Austin and Fort Bend ISDs, state payroll data show. Statewide salary data isn’t yet available for the 2024-25 school year. Statewide salary data isn’t yet available for the 2024-25 school year.
3. Cuts to staff helping students in poverty
At the end of the 2023-24 school year, HISD cut roughly 250 “wraparound specialists” largely devoted to assisting students living in poverty. District administrators said the move was part of a strategy shift to help deliver services to needy families more efficiently, but the change outraged many community members.
Last year, HISD rolled out seven off-campus hubs, known as “Sunrise Centers,” equipped to help families access food, clothing, rental assistance, health services and more. At the time, Miles said the added resources would not trigger cuts to wraparound services, but he later changed course, saying HISD paid for the positions using pandemic stimulus funds set to expire.
Overall, the number of wraparound staff dropped from roughly 310 last year to 60 this year. At the same time, HISD added about 20 positions running the Sunrise Centers that did not exist pre-takeover.
Despite the staffing cuts, Miles described the change as an increase in overall support available to families at an early November event celebrating one year of Sunrise Centers in HISD. The district has not provided evidence showing more families are now accessing resources.
“We just wanted to do our part, as part of a community, to add to the services that the families are receiving, and add a little synergy,” Miles said. “That’s why the concept of Sunrise Centers came about.”
4. New principal academy
Under Miles, HISD launched a principal academy, placing participants in “co-principal” roles at one or more district campuses while also training them for full-time principal positions in the future.
Last year, roughly 80 staff participated in the program, with 55 completing it and 30 landing roles as HISD campus principals this school year, according to records obtained by the Landing. Most of the other program participants now serve as assistant principals, Elizondo said. Payroll records show 50 staff in the principal academy this school year.
Most apprentice principals earn $90,000 per year.
5. Reductions to departments serving at-risk students
At least two smaller departments that served at-risk students before Miles came to HISD no longer exist, while another saw deep cuts.
The homeless services and student assistance departments, which each had about a dozen employees, were eliminated. The homeless services department, which helped students experiencing homelessness access resources such as transportation and housing, now is housed within Sunrise Centers and Student Support Services, Elizondo said. The student assistance department rallied resources and support for the families of students at risk of not graduating.
The state compensatory education department, which oversees programs and spending designed to reduce disparities between at-risk students and their classmates, went from 15 employees to 3.
Clothing available to students Dec. 5, 2023, at a Houston ISD Sunrise Center in Houston’s Pecan Park neighborhood. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)
State law requires a portion of district funds be spent on such initiatives. In 2022-23, HISD spent about $110 million, with most going to teacher salaries and a smaller portion funding counselors, social workers and health services staff, according to the most recent district report on the program.
6. Changes to college prep programs
HISD no longer devotes employees to at least two college- and career-oriented programs it used to staff.
One program, Project Explore, existed in HISD for at least five years before the state intervention and had roughly 40 employees in early 2023. The staff provided middle school students with advising, research opportunities, field trips, summer programs and more, according to HISD documents. Project Explore no longer exists on HISD payroll, but some staff appear to have taken other counseling roles within the district.
The other program, EMERGE, is a well-established nonprofit that helps high-achieving, low-income students in several Houston-area districts get into and graduate from selective colleges. Despite the shift, EMERGE continues to partner with HISD and receive district funding. EMERGE now uses its own staff to run its HISD programs, the same way it operates in other districts.
The change was the result of an “ongoing conversation for years that pre-dates (HISD’s) current leadership,” EMERGE Vice President of External Affairs Janicca Garcia said.
7. Bolstering curriculum development
The curriculum department has grown under Miles, due to an increased level of involvement in teachers’ day-to-day lessons.
Under Miles’ overhaul, teachers at about half of HISD’s roughly 270 schools follow lesson plans created by the district. For each lesson, the district provides slideshows and daily quizzes. Teachers can adjust the slideshows if they choose.
To keep up with the increased responsibilities, the curriculum development team increased from about 110 to 130.
Miles has cast the change as a way to align daily lessons with state standards and minimize the time teachers spend preparing for class. Still, some families and teachers have criticized the district’s curriculums for leaving little time for activities like full-class discussions or group projects. Critics also have argued the approach gives educators too little freedom to teach in ways that benefit their students.
8. No more social-emotional learning department
In 2022-23, HISD had a department for social-emotional learning — focusing largely on students’ relationship skills, self-regulation and mental health, according to the district’s website — that employed about 50 staff. The department shrunk drastically in 2023-24, and it was eliminated this school year.
The department mostly employed behavior specialists and counselors. When the group dissolved, some found other roles in the district, while others are no longer employed by HISD.
Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Find him @by_ash_ls on Instagram and @small_asher on X, or reach him directly at [email protected].
This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
