Houston ISD Board Agenda Highlights 04.09.24
Houston ISD Agenda Highlights
This Thursday, the Houston ISD Board will host their regular monthly meeting. Here’s what you need to know:
The District has made significant strides in improving special education compliance but still has work to do to meet legal requirements and improve quality of education for students with disabilities, who face significant achievement gaps.
HISD is nearly a decade overdue for a bond election, which would secure much needed funding to repair and update schools. This month, the Board will consider one of the first steps in pursuing a possible bond election in November 2024.
The District is focusing on strengthening its educator and leadership pipeline with a Prairie View A&M partnership for residency programs. This opportunity would allow future teachers and instructional leaders the opportunity to gain classroom experience under a mentor educator in the District.
Key agenda items we’re watching:
Student Outcome Monitoring – Special Education and College and Career Readiness:
This month, the HISD school board will monitor the progress of Special Education services along with College and Career Readiness.
Special Education
One of the exit criteria for the state intervention is special education compliance. HISD has a long history of failing to meet federal and state standards for students with disabilities and has had state appointed special education conservators since 2020. Monitoring of both legal compliance and student growth for students with disabilities is a critical function of the Board’s goals and constraints.
Data show significant progress in compliance but more work to be done. The District is required to hold timely Annual Review and Dismissal (ARD) committee meetings for students with disabilities. These committees are responsible for establishing students’ Individual Education Plans (IEPs), which outline the types of services and instructional accommodations each student requires.
Last year, the District failed to comply with timeline requirements for 13% of ARD meetings. This year, the District is 99.6% compliant, with only 9 meetings behind schedule. The District is also working to audit the quality and compliance of student IEPs. During the fall, the Office of Special Education Services developed an IEP review process and trained independent unit teams to conduct sample audits at campuses. While this year is the first year of implementation, these teams audited 7% of IEPs, which the District plans to scale to 20% over the next five years.
A look at student growth data for students with disabilities underscores the need for effective instruction and highlights stark achievement gaps for students of color receiving special education services. By the middle of the year (MOY), only 12% of students with disabilities are meeting grade level standards in reading or math. Only 7% of Black and 9% of Latino students with disabilities are on grade level compared to 41% of their white and 47% of their Asian peers.
College and Career Readiness
The Board will also monitor student progress toward college readiness in math and reading. This is assessed through student achievement on the Texas Success Initiative (TSI) Assessment or qualifying scores on the SAT or ACT.
By MOY, the District has seen a slight uptick in students who are considered TSI ready, which usually grows significantly by the end of year when spring data is available for these assessments. Notably, the District has increased participation in TSI eligible assessments by 7% this school year.
While most student groups experienced this mild growth, students with disabilities and emergent bilingual students saw a decline. In order to address this gap, the District is working with Houston Community College to raise awareness for bridge programs to support the transition to college and is reallocating some central positions to specifically support these populations.
• Bond Resolution: The Board will vote on a resolution related to a potential November 2024 bond election. While this agenda item is a technical requirement for reimbursement for funds allocated as part of the bond process, it signals the District’s intent to pursue a bond in the fall. HISD has not held a bond election since 2012. On average, school districts pursue a bond election every five years to ensure they have adequate funds for necessary facility repairs and updates. HISD is nearly a decade overdue for a bond, which is reflected in the disrepair at schools across the district. The lack of heating in HISD classrooms during the last winter freeze is an example of the conditions that students face in HISD classrooms, indicating the urgency of facility funding for the District.
• Residency Partnership with Prairie View A&M: The Board will consider a partnership with Prairie View A&M University for the Leading Equity Across Diverse Environments with Revolutionary Synergy (LEADERS) project. This is a teacher and principal residency program, which allows future educators and instructional leaders to gain valuable classroom experience with a mentor teacher or administrator as they work toward certification. Residency programs are a rigorous preparation pathway for prospective educators that help to ensure newly certified personnel are prepared to meet student instructional needs.
• Designation of Helms ES and Wharton Dual Language Academy as Independent Magnet Programs: The Board will consider designating Helms Elementary and Wharton Dual Language Academy and unique schools rather than zone campuses. Both schools offer comprehensive dual language instruction. Removing zoning from each of these campuses would position the schools as independent magnet programs similar to others in the district like Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
• Board Accountability: Every quarter the Board will engage in a self-evaluation using the Lone Star Governance assessment tool. The rubric is included in the full agenda packet, but we encourage the Board to post the completed evaluation for public accessibility and transparency after the process is completed.
Community Engagement Committee Update: The Board’s Community Engagement committee will provide an update on their charge of drafting a preliminary action plan. This is critical work for the Board as this plan outlines how they will both hear from and provide information to the HISD community.
Last Thursday, April 4, 2024, the Board met for a workshop on community engagement, where the committee provided some initial insight into this action plan.
- Board members will host community meetings in pairs to share and solicit feedback on issues of board governance. These meetings will be scripted to ensure communities across the district equitably receive information.
- Separately, the Board is working on a list of stakeholder groups to engage in deeper conversations. As an example, the Board is considering student engagement and has proposed gathering student representatives from each high school in the district, who would be selected by their principal for participation.
- While this committee was only convened for a limited scope in developing the action plan, the board does intend to convene future committees each year to lay out the timeline and stakeholder engagement focus for the Boar