Colleen DeGuzman/Houston Public Media
Houston ISD will be under state control for at least two more years, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced Monday.
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath wrote in a news release that “local feedback” and a “comprehensive evaluation” of the district led him to the decision. He also is replacing four of the nine HISD board members he installed in 2023.
“Ultimately, two years has not been enough time to fix district systems that were broken for decades,” Morath said. “The extension of this intervention will allow the district to build on its progress and achieve lasting success for students once the board transitions back to elected leadership.”
The district’s board of managers, who have voting and decision-making power instead of HISD’s elected trustees, will be in authority until at least June 1, 2027. The state took over the district in 2023 after Wheatley High School received a string of failing grades, triggering a state law requiring the TEA to close the campus or replace elected trustees with appointed leadership.
Morath visited several HISD campuses last month and gave the district a glowing review of its second year under state control, with Mike Miles serving as superintendent.
“The amount of improvement in academic potential and lifetime potential for kids is pretty spectacular,” Morath said at the time. He also called it “the largest academic improvement that has happened at this scale in the United States.”
That’s why Dani Hernandez, an elected trustee who served as board president before the state takeover, said she isn’t surprised by the extension. But, citing HISD’s progress during the last two years as noted by Morath, it is “not necessarily in line with what they are stating about what’s happening in HISD.”
“What they’re saying is not matching what they’re doing,” she added.
Morath also announced that four appointed managers on the school board — vice president Audrey Momanaee, Cassandra Auzenne Bandy, Rolando Martinez and Adam Rivon — are transitioning off the board in favor of four new members.
“Those four board members were the ones who were asking more questions about what’s going on in HISD,” Hernandez said. “And so it’s concerning that they’re being replaced.”
The four new managers joining the nine-member school board are Edgar Colón, Martyn Goossen, Lauren Gore and Marcos Rosales.