‘We must adjust our staffing levels’: Houston ISD to start school year with 748 fewer teachers than last year

HOUSTON, Texas – The first day of school at Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, will begin with fewer teachers than last school year, according to state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles.

In a weekly newsletter to parents and staff, Miles said in the 2023-2024 school year, the district started with 11,388 teachers. This year, the district will begin its school year with 10,640. That’s a difference of 748 teachers.

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“Every school district worries about staffing its campuses—it is one of the biggest challenges in education right now. For HISD though, given the transformational work we are doing on behalf of students, the work to select and retain the most committed and effective talent is mission-critical,” Miles said.

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The reason? Miles said it was due to two factors:

1. In HISD, we seek to staff our schools with effective teachers who want to make a real difference for our students, and who want to work in the most transformative District in the United States. As a result, it is sometimes necessary to remove some educators for performance. 1,400 (nearly half) of the employees who have left the district since August of 2023 were a result of performance issues.
2. To maximize our resources, we must adjust our staffing levels to match the enrollment in our campuses. Previous HISD administrations chose not to adjust staffing at schools that lost enrollment, and HISD simply cannot afford to overstaff these campuses any longer.

Currently, Miles said there are only 45 teacher vacancies in the district and that every student will start the school year with an “effective educator” in their classrooms.

“This is remarkable, given that the year before I started there were more than 640 vacancies in the district. We have also selected exceptional education leaders for all but one campus, and this is the strongest corps of principals I’ve seen in years. These leaders will drive transformation and ensure excellent instruction on their campuses every day,” Miles said.

The superintendent also said more than 1,400 central office employees were laid off due to a decline in enrollment.