HOUSTON – Houston ISD parents, students, community leaders, and local officials gathered in protest Wednesday at Herrod Elementary School.
This is all because the principal and several teachers received termination letters that KPRC 2 has continued to report for weeks. KPRC 2′s Re’Chelle Turner was live at the school where the demonstration took place.
Hundreds of outraged community members showed out after the school’s principal, 11 teachers, and a staff member received a termination letter without any warning or communication. This also comes weeks after Teacher Appreciation Week.
“It was disrespectful,” one parent told Re’Chelle. “It was done during the week of Teacher Appreciation. You know, it could have been done at another time. It was very disrespectful the way that, you know, he sent out the notice to the teachers.”
But the younger voices stood out.
Former Herrod Elementary students like Brinn Cave voiced their frustrations, calling out the superintendent.
“This is awful; Mike Miles needs to be fired, like right now,” she said. “He’s taking, like, half the teachers and the principal of the school away, and the rest of them are resigning. My brother has to go to a different school now. And like, they’ve taken my principal away, too. And a bunch of my favorite teachers. I don’t know why he’s doing this.”
“I hope you’re happy; you’ve ruined our schools,” Cave continued. “You’ve ruined our trust and our faith in our school district, and you’ve ruined these students’ trust in their teachers and in their principal. Because if you give us unqualified teachers, how do you expect us to learn? If we don’t learn, how are we going to make money? If we don’t make money, how is there going to be an economy? And without your students and without a future, Houston is going to crumble to the ground because of you.”
The community’s outrage also comes on the heels of many schools Wednesday morning still without power due to last Thursday’s devastating windstorm.