A Houston ISD student claimed she was “lowkey tricked” into participating in a musical performance with the district’s new superintendent.
The performance was held at a mandatory teacher training event last week at NRG Stadium. District student Comfort Azagidi claimed that the students who participated were unaware that Superintendent Mike Miles was scheduled to participate in the performance and disagreed with its messaging.
“We were definitely used and taken advantage of and that was very clear from day one. A lot of the students including myself were low-key tricked into even being in the show and when we caught a load that it was fully propaganda, it was too late for us to back out,” Azagidi claimed in an apparently since-deleted tweet.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Miles was appointed superintendent of Houston ISD by Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath in June after the district was taken over by the state. Serious allegations of misconduct and a long-standing record of poor student achievement outcomes at Houston ISD — the biggest school system in Texas — triggered the takeover.
Still, some stakeholders and community members have been voicing opposition to Miles’ proposed reforms, ABC 13 reported.
The musical performance reportedly had Miles playing a restaurant owner in a town where the local school system was set to be reformed by a new superintendent. In one scene, students pretended to be reporters that asked the new official bad-faith questions, according to Houston Public Media.
“I do not support anything that this man is doing, a lot of us students were tricked into being in this show,” Azagidi claimed in another post, the Houston Chronicle reported.
While Miles and the state takeover have proven unpopular to some, Commissioner Morath said in a letter:
“Mr. Miles is the right leader to serve as the superintendent of Houston ISD during this intervention, and I am confident that he will be able to drive the system-wide changes necessary to increase student achievement, satisfy the exit criteria to return the district to elected board leadership, and create the conditions necessary for long-lasting student success.”
Miles previously served as superintendent of Dallas ISD.
Student achievement outcomes have long been a problem in both districts, even before the learning loss sustained by students during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, according to TEA’s accountability reports, Dallas ISD — the second-biggest school system in Texas — had more D- and F-rated campuses than Houston ISD in the 2021-2022 school year.
In a ranking of big-city Texas counties based on student achievement outcomes, The Dallas Express found that the number of D- and F-rated campuses dragged Dallas County to the bottom of the list. Meanwhile, Harris County — where HISD is located — came in third.
