HISD registered board speakers nearly quadruple after state takeover

Until about six months ago, Houston ISD parent Kathryn Kannady had never attended any of the school board meetings held at least once every month in the state's largest school district.

That changed in March, when she felt driven to register to speak after learning that the district told nearly 120 principals that their jobs were at risk after the results of new mid-year proficiency screening. She, and dozens of other parents, teachers and students, voiced outrage over the leaked screening results and defended the performance of principals for approximately three hours.

"None of our administrators or teachers were on that list, but it just really spoke to me that things were getting really real with this TEA takeover," said Kannady, an Oak Forest Elementary School parent. "I had taken a wait-and-see approach, and it just really hit home that I can no longer just sit back and wait and see."

Kannady is one of hundreds of community members who began speaking at HISD school board meetings for the first time in the year following the state takeover of the district in June 2023, largely to express opposition to decisions made by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles and the Board of Managers .

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According to a Chronicle analysis, the average number of registered speakers at board meetings has nearly quadrupled since the takeover, although the number remains a fraction of the total number of students, families or staff in HISD. The district has approximately 180,000 students and 10,600 teachers this year.

The Chronicle analyzed the district's list of registered speakers at every board meeting between August 2022 and September 2024 to determine how the number of speakers has changed since the takeover. For year-over-year comparisons, the Chronicle limited its analysis to meetings that occurred during the regular school year from Aug. 1 to May 31 each year.

According to HISD records, board meetings in the 2023-24 school year drew in an average of about 82 speakers, which is nearly four times the average of 22 speakers in the previous year. In total, at least 541 individual community members, including parents, teachers and staff, registered to speak last year, up from 147 unique speakers in the year before the takeover.

The Chronicle's analysis showed that board meetings after the takeover have not only drawn in more community members, but also more student voices. The overall number of students registered at board meetings in the 2023-24 year quintupled compared with the year prior to the takeover, although individual student names were hidden in district records due to privacy laws.

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Several speakers, including Kannady, told the Chronicle they registered to speak at meetings because they felt like they did not have a better method to share their concerns without an elected board. After speaking in March, Kannady said she has since registered to speak at additional meetings to share anonymous comments for teachers who say they fear retaliation.

"It all goes back to, 'What other avenue do we have right now?" Kannady said. "We don't have a say in who is sitting at that table, and so I think a lot of parents, teachers and students are feeling like, 'Well, if they've taken away our option of selecting who is going to be representing us, then I guess we'll do it ourselves. We'll represent ourselves.'"

The Texas Education Agency replaced HISD's elected school board last June with an appointed nine-member Board of Managers after alleged misconduct by some former trustees and chronically low academic performance at Wheatley High School. The TEA also appointed Miles to replace Millard House II as superintendent.

Under the Texas Open Meetings Act, Houston ISD community members can register to speak on any issue listed on the board's monthly meetings or during the "hearing of the community." Attendees have up to two minutes for their comments if 30 or fewer people are registered to speak, but the board limits speakers to one minute each if the number of registered speakers exceeds the listed threshold.

HISD did not respond to a request for comment on the growth of public speakers at board meetings. There have been an average of about 78 speakers at the three board meetings held so far during the 2024-25 academic year, and a total of 147 unique non-student speakers.

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'Dynamics have changed'

About half of the 541 speakers spoke at only one meeting during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Chronicle's analysis. The remaining half went on to speak at additional meetings throughout the school year, although only a fraction of those speakers attended more than half of the board meetings.

In total, 21 community members registered to speak during at least half of meetings during the year after the takeover, but there were no speakers in the previous year who did so.

Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers , said she attended most of the board meetings during the 2022-23 academic year but rarely registered to speak since the union was able to work out their concerns before the board voted. Since the takeover, she said the relationship with the district has deteriorated, leading her to speak at nearly every meeting.

"Our board meetings in the past have not been this contentious, nor have we ever had this many speakers," Anderson said. "Under Superintendent House, when we went to the board to speak, it wasn't always adversarial. ... We may have even spoken in support of the action that the board was taking, but unfortunately, those dynamics have changed."

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Anderson said the growth in the number of unique speakers at board meetings reflects the fact that there are many community members who are not satisfied with the direction that HISD is headed, and that the district's decision-making is out-of-touch with several parents and teachers.

"When you get different people coming every time — and it's not the same 10 or 15 people, — that would let me know, as a leader, that it's a lot of people who are not happy here, because I'm getting different people coming in on different topics across the district," Anderson said. "It shows something is not resting well."

While the number of registered speakers never hit 100 in the 2022-23 year, it exceeded triple digits for the first time during the 2023-24 academic year in March, about two weeks after the Chronicle first published a list of names of the principals who did not meet the requirements to keep their jobs in the upcoming year under the district's new mid-year proficiency screenings.

Pranjal Srivastava, a parent of two students at T. H. Rogers School, said he initially was not following the state takeover closely, but he became upset after learning that his child's high-performing principal was on the list. He said he felt his only option was to register to speak during the March meeting and let the board know what he and other parents were thinking.

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"At that time, I did not feel there was any other avenue," Srivastava said. "I felt a public meeting where everybody gets to hear what the parents are saying is a better avenue than trying to do closed-door communication or sending emails. That one minute that you get, that's where the board is actually listening and hopefully taking action based on public comments."

At the end of the meeting where 150 people registered to speak, Miles said the district's principal proficiency screenings would not be used in any adverse employment decisions for campus administrators, including principals, but he said the district would still use student achievement data, performance evaluations and other information to make hiring decisions.

Srivastava said he felt relieved about the superintendent's decision to stop the use of the principal screening, which he believes was caused by pressure from the board and speakers like him. He said he doesn't always feel like the board listens to public feedback, but still thinks people should speak out at meetings if they are looking for a way to advocate for their child.

"Sometimes people think, 'Oh, what's the point in speaking? They will do what they want to do, right?," Srivastava said. "I've heard that a lot, ... but I feel the people who speak, it brings more attention to the problem, and it puts more pressure on the board to say, 'Yeah, there is something wrong here.' We've seen the results of that with the principal screening."

Houston residents interested in speaking at HISD board meetings can register to speak once a board meeting agenda is published 72 hours before a scheduled meeting, and the deadline to speak is noon the day before the meeting. The board's next scheduled meeting is on Oct. 10, where they're expected to discuss Miles' annual evaluation, among other items.