HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Tuesday marks the first day of school for the largest school district in the State of Texas, and there will be some changes on Houston Independent School District campuses.
Changes include no cell phones in the classroom, which is a state law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, a partnership with METRO that allows high school students to take a bus to and from school, and an updated communication system known as ParentSquare.
The system, which delivers information such as weather-related closures to parents, has been described by Superintendent Mike Miles as a “streamlined” way to send messages to the HISD community.
“Continuously improving communication remains a priority,” Miles said.
Miles has also recently addressed the issue of teacher vacancies in the new year.
He said last week that it’s possible they won’t be able to fill every one of them, but said they expect to enter the year with a similar number to what they had this time last year.
Miles said they had 28 teacher vacancies going into the 2024-2025 school year.
Eyewitness News has asked the district for an updated number of teacher vacancies as the district begins its first day of school, but we are still awaiting a response.
ABC13’s news partner at the Houston Chronicle found that more than 2,300 teachers left the district in June, adding that overall employee departures were twice as high this year as they were in June 2022.
The state’s takeover of the district started in June 2023, which means this is the third year of the controversial arrangement — one that has been extended until at least 2027.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Miles said.
Miles said Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath will decide in two years whether or not to start the transition back to an elected school board.
This story comes from our news partner ABC13 Houston.