HOUSTON – As part of reorganization efforts at the Houston Independent School District, superintendent Mike Miles said the district will be eliminating hundreds of central office positions.
“I know that this reorganization has been tough, we’re not done, we still have some work to do,” Miles said during a Zoom meeting Friday.
Miles said the district will be eliminating between 500 and 600 positions in the chief academic office, around 30% of the workforce in the office. About 40 positions in human resources will also be eliminated.
“Reorganizations are hard, there are real people behind the numbers,” Miles said.
Miles said chiefs of each department started first by looking at vacancies and determining whether to fill the positions or to eliminate them. Next, their task was to look and try to come up with an organization chart and organization methodology that will make their organization as effective and efficient as possible.
Miles said he should have more clear numbers once the process is nearing completion on July 17. He said department chiefs have started to talk to people who will be part of the reduction in force.
“What that means is that there are some positions that are still vacant and members of the department that do not receive a position can apply for those vacant positions or vacant positions in other departments or they can look for other positions in the district and some will be transferred and some will be looking for new positions outside of the district,” he said.
Miles also said reorganization is not just with those two departments.
“There will also be a reorganization of communications, school leadership, professional development, those are the main ones, the ones that I said at the very beginning that we didn’t reorganize yet, our finance and the chief operations office, those we didn’t want to disturb right now because we are actually in the middle of transporting kids in summer school and nutrition services, and they are larger organizations and it takes more time to make sure we do it in a way that is sound and will maximize efficiencies,” he said.