HOUSTON – During a school board meeting Thursday evening, Houston Independent School District’s school board approved a ‘District of Innovation’ designation, with all eight board members voting in favor.
Before the meeting, Houston ISD was one of the only school systems in Texas without DOI status.
Superintendent Mike Miles was absent during the meeting but later released a statement thanking the board.
HISD is a District of Innovation. We are making the bold changes required to improve instruction and help students develop the competencies they will need to succeed in the future. Having the DOI designation is long overdue and will allow us to accelerate our work in important ways.”
Superintendent Mike Miles, Houston ISD
The DOI designation allows the district certain exemptions from state education laws. The term of the designation as a district of innovation may not exceed five years.
Houston ISD’s DOI strategic plan will bring several new policies aimed at improving student performance including more flexibility in determining class size, a new teacher appraisal system, and increasing instructional days from 172 to 185 per school year.
“As a mom of three children in HISD, I know that my kids and those across the district will benefit from the longer school year,” said Celeste Barretto Milligan, co-chair of the District Advisory Committee and a former Houston ISD teacher. “Most importantly, we know kids benefit from more time in excellent instruction. Extending our school year means HISD will no longer start behind—all of our neighboring districts begin the school year earlier. Our calendar will now reflect the instructional time we need to recover learning loss and better position our students to compete for the same academic and workforce opportunities as students in surrounding districts. Not only that, but families who don’t have resources to invest thousands in summer camps or family trips will have a safe place for their children to learn, have regular meals, and to connect with their teachers.”
Houston ISD staff members and stakeholder groups, including the Teacher Advisory Committee, all principals, the District Advisory Committee, and leaders from all four geographic divisions in the district will be able to provide feedback on the proposed calendar options in mid-January.
The district plans to submit the final proposed calendar to the School Board on Feb. 8.
Other exemptions in the five-year DOI strategic plan will give Houston ISD the flexibility to:
- Implement more District and division-based professional development so all teachers have greater access to high-quality training from instructional experts and opportunities to collaborate with their colleagues across HISD.
- Without a waiver from the state, hire high school teachers who do not hold a certification. This will allow HISD to fill vacancies in positions that are hard to staff and will help give all students a consistent classroom teacher. (The exemption does not apply to teachers for special education, bilingual education/English as a second language, and pre-kindergarten. Those certifications cannot be waived).
- Implement alternate minimum attendance requirements for class credit for eligible high school students. Requirements will align attendance and course credit policies to content mastery where appropriate and recognize students’ participation in out-of-school work or learning opportunities that may also count for credit to graduate.
- Expand post-secondary pathways for students by giving juniors and seniors more excused absences to visit colleges and universities, trade schools, and military programs before graduation.
- Handle instances of vaping and similar offenses at a student’s home campus through counseling or other measures outlined in the district-wide, board-approved Code of Student Conduct, as opposed to automatically enrolling the student in a disciplinary alternative educational program.
- Improve student performance overall; close existing gaps; and attract, develop, and retain high-quality teachers by creating a rigorous teacher appraisal system for implementation in the 2025-2026 school year. The system will be informed by local context and aligned to specific school and district goals, as well as streamlined to reduce administrative burden so principals and teachers can focus on coaching and instruction.
Several community members showed up at Thursday night’s meeting and gave the board of managers an earful. But even with an outcry, change is on the way.
The board also voted to waive certification requirements for school counselors for the next school year.
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