HISD job reductions in human resources, chief academic office to be complete by July 17, supe says

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Everyone – from employees to parents of students – has been talking about the drastic changes being made at the Houston Independent School District following the Texas Education Agency takeover.

On Friday, the new superintendent for the largest school district in Texas announced another blow – a reduction of the workforce.

During a meeting with the media over Zoom, Superintendent Mike Miles opened his update saying “reorganizations are hard,” and that real people are behind the numbers.

Miles gave a rough estimate of how many positions will be eliminated this summer.

Over the past several weeks, Eyewitness News was told chiefs of each department looked at vacancies and areas that can be more efficient. In the end, the human resources department will eliminate 40 positions. The Chief Academic Office will eliminate between 500 and 600 positions.

Of those, Superintendent Miles said close to 30% of the eliminated roles are vacancies.

In these days and times when everyone is trying to make their dollars stretch, asked Miles to speak directly to families and employees who will be impacted by this.

“This by no means, means that people have not been working hard, or that people aren’t doing the job they were assigned to do,” he answered. “This is about making sure we ‘right-size’ central office and also work most efficiently. You’ve seen in other presentations that the central office numbers and expenditures have increased 61% in six years.”

The superintendent also mentioned the loss of 27,000 students during that same time period.

Of the employees impacted, Eyewitness News was told they can apply for vacant positions or in other departments. Some will be transferred, and some will have to look for work outside the district. But leaders wanted to announce this now so that workers have time to secure employment.

As for a timeline, Miles said most of this will be finished by July 17.

The reductions, however, aren’t over yet. HISD’s operations and finance departments will see some form of reorganization over the year.