October is proving to be just as busy and productive in our schools as September was. I had the chance to visit JR Harris Elementary School, Cage Elementary School, Project Chrysalis Middle School, Forest Brook Middle School, Marshall Elementary School, and North Forest High School this week, and every classroom I visit I get to see more of the unique ways our teachers are connecting with students. At JR Harris alone, I saw two math teachers sharing the same lesson with students in two totally unique ways. It was fascinating to see the different ways individual educators take content and make it their own.

On Thursday I also had a chance to participate in a work session with the School Board. While we do this every month, I am excited about the discussion we had this week because our team shared details about the success we’ve had improving student discipline issues in our schools and the plan we have to improve special education services for our students who need them. I’m going to share more information about both issues later in this note.

If you missed the School Board’s October 5, 2023 work session, you can view it
here.

The School Board’s next regular meeting is scheduled for October 12, 2023 at 5:00pm. You can view the agenda here.

Congratulations to HISD students and staff for starting off the academic year with a significant decrease in student discipline issues. You can see that discipline issues are down at all campuses over last year, and big round of applause for the students and staff at our NES/NESA campuses, where discipline has improved the most! It is clear that our students and teachers are rising to every challenge and embracing the high expectations we’ve set for them. Please congratulate our school communities on this tremendous progress.

Stacy Venson, Deputy Chief for Special Education, shared an overview on our progress in improving service delivery and high-quality instruction to students with special education needs.

Some of the key successes to date:

• We have achieved 100% compliance for initial evaluation timelines.
• We have Increased the number of students identified for special education services by 1253 which is 9.3% increase from last year.
• We have realigned special education support into our Unit Structure. Each feeder pattern now has a team of four dedicated special education professionals. The old structure had a ratio of one provider for roughly every 40 campuses. That ratio is now roughly one provider for every 19 campuses. This means more support closer to our schools.
• We have at least one certified special education teacher at every campus.

Critical Next Steps:

• We know some schools still do not have necessary speech therapy providers. We have filled 17 vacant positions already and are working to fill the remaining positions as quickly as possible. We will be providing teletherapy services (when appropriate) and/or creating compensatory service plans for students who are impacted by this nationwide shortage.
• We will continue outreach to families of students with special education needs over the next few months.

REMINDER: All students who still require some of their mandatory vaccinations should make sure those vaccinations are up to date by the end of October. To support students who need vaccinations, all HISD campuses will be providing vaccination opportunities on site over the next few weeks. In addition, campuses will be sharing information about health care providers around the District who provide vaccination services.

October 12th, 2023: School Board Regular Meeting

October 13th, 2023: Professional Development Day – NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

October 14th, 2023: Community Resource Fair – Click Here for more details