HOUSTON – Students across the Houston Independent School District kicked off the second semester Tuesday and with it, comes new opportunities, challenges, and plenty to prepare for.
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It’s also worth noting that this marks the second year with the Texas Education Agency overseeing the district. To get more insight on the upcoming semester, HISD Superintendent Mike Miles sat down with KPRC 2 on Tuesday.
KPRC 2’s Andy Cerota and Lisa Hernandez covered several topics with Miles during the interview.
Metal detectors coming to HISD high schools
Miles said metal detectors and weapon detection systems will be coming to high schools in the district after several incidents where guns were found on campuses.
“We’ve had some guns in our schools and we wanted to add another layer so we have weapon detection systems going in, we’ll start with the high schools and over the period of three months we will put in weapon detection systems at our high schools,” Miles said.
Skywalk for Milby High School
Following a tragic accident where Milby High School student, Sergio Rodriguez, was hit and killed by a train while walking to school, Miles said he supports the creation of a bridge so traveling to school will be safer for students and not just at Milby High School.
“We have nine critical schools but 118 schools that are impacted by rail,” Miles said.
He said they are working to get other schools involved as well. Parents and staff will also be able to give input in surveys and sessions.
“This is not a problem that is going to be solved overnight I want to make that clear, it has been a problem for decades, we have a mayor and other people that want to solve this problem and we certainly do too,” Miles said.
Staff changes
After several staffing shakeups at different schools this semester, KPRC 2 asked Mike Miles if parents should be concerned of any other staff changes this year.
“Keep in mind we have 274 schools, 274 principals, 645 assistant principals, so in any large district there are bound to be some changes, sometimes because of promotions, sometimes because of resignations, sometimes because of personnel actions,” he said.
While Miles said the details behind the personnel actions can not be shared, he said there are no plans at this time of any other principal removals.
New teacher evaluation system
A topic of discussion is a new teacher evaluation system, which Miles hopes the HISD school board will pass in March.
Miles laid out what the new evaluation system will consist of.
“We already have a pretty rigorous evaluation system that includes achievement and instruction, the new evaluation system that we hope the board will pass in March also includes student achievement data and the quality of instruction, those are the most important two,” he said.
Miles said the district will also be looking at something they call distinguished teacher review.
“We want to value and compensate teachers that go above and beyond the classroom, so if you are helping out, you’re a mentor for a teacher, you’re sharing lesson plans, you work on a committee with the school or the district, you attend classes at a university, you give a presentation at a conference, these are things over and above and we want to value that,” he said.
Miles said the extra effort will be tied to an increase in compensation for teachers.
Teacher scandal
Mike Miles addressed concerns about the recent teacher-certification cheating scheme that has affected multiple districts, including Houston ISD.
Miles said he believes parents can still be confident in the teachers and that they will have obtained their certifications correctly, saying that out of 10,640 teachers in the district, 20 have been implicated in the scheme.
“I think people can still be assured when a teacher gets a certification, the overwhelming majority of course are doing it the right way and are actually certified so this is unfortunate but it is a small percentage of teachers,” Miles said.