Zephyr Collins was watching television last week when her ears perked up. As many as 40 struggling Houston ISD schools would be joining a district-wide transformation program next year, the news anchor said.

Collins recently had taken in her nephew, an eighth grader at HISD’s Welch Middle School in southwest Houston, so she realized the update could be personal. Her nephew is passing his tests, but she suspects the school’s academics may not be up to par.

“I was listening to that and I was wondering if Welch was one of the schools,” Collins said. 

It is. Like many others who will be affected by the scale-up, Collins had not yet received word the school would be joining Superintendent Mike Miles’ “New Education System.” The change will mean an overhaul to staffing, curriculums and bell schedules and comes as a response to poor academic ratings from HISD.

Last week, after the district announced the list of campuses required or invited to join its controversial overhaul program next year, the Houston Landing interviewed 33 families at seven of those schools to gauge reactions to the plans.

Most were unaware their campus had been selected for transformation and were unfamiliar with the changes included in the NES program. Most, however, acknowledged shortcomings in the campus’ current performance and welcomed change with cautious optimism, anxious to see how the transformation could play out.

“They could do a little bit more as far as resources, the teacher curriculum, after school, counseling,” said parent Howard McClinton, speaking about his childrens’ school, Codwell Elementary, in South Acres, which will be NES next year. “I hope that’s what I’m planning to see going forward.”

Schools in the NES program follow a uniform model. They use standardized lesson plans and curriculums that include daily quizzes and checks for student understanding every few minutes. They also open their doors at 6:30 a.m. and close at 5 p.m., offering childcare options for working parents. The campuses have more teacher assistants and special educators in the building and require students to follow strict discipline codes, including the use of a traffic cone as a hall pass to the bathroom.

Students have said the changes stifle joy and add busywork, but Miles has argued the measures are necessary to close longstanding opportunity gaps between low-income and more affluent students in HISD. Recent testing data from third- through eighth-graders suggest students at NES schools, who are predominantly Black and Hispanic, learned more quickly than their peers in the rest of the district during the first semester.

“We already know that NES is doing what it was intended to do, which is provide the supports for kids who are underserved and kids who are behind academically and move them forward,” Miles said.

In some cases, language barriers may explain families’ confusion over last week’s announcement. Deady Middle School parent Dayana Correa said she thought she saw an email from the district about the upcoming potential changes, but could not understand it because it was not written in Spanish. Deady, where Texas Education Agency data show 95 percent of students are Hispanic, is one of 24 schools that is not required to become NES next year, but could opt in.

Still, when a reporter explained what could be different next year, Correa said she liked the idea of being able to drop off her kids earlier and pick them up later. It can be hard to take time out of her workday cleaning houses to pick up her son from school in the afternoons, she said.

“Sometimes, you have to go work, so the kids stay there waiting 10, 20, 30 minutes,” Correa said in Spanish.

Other families also expressed optimism. Frost Elementary parent Shelley Freeman has a son enrolled at the school, but pulled her daughter out because she thought too many students misbehaved in class. She said she hopes a stricter NES structure could keep students from acting out.

“I felt like, because of the disciplinary issues that occurred in the school, she wasn’t getting the challenge that she needed,” Freeman said. “So, this is going to make the kids have to work a little bit harder and get a little bit more challenged.”

At least some schools had made efforts to inform families they would become part of the NES system next year. Administrators from Longfellow Elementary, in the Linkwood neighborhood, planned to hold a meeting to explain to families what the upcoming changes would entail, according to a message parent Eunjung Han shared with the Landing.

Reservations remain

Not all parents agreed with Miles’ central thesis: that their school’s academics are below par. About half of families interviewed by the Landing said they were satisfied with their children’s learning experiences, often praising individual educators for keeping parents in the loop.

All the campuses required or invited to join the overhaul next year received a D or F rating on a controversial statewide accountability measure. The ratings have been held up in court over allegations the measure is too harsh, but Miles’ team calculated grades for HISD. Several campuses slipped from B to F ratings under the revamped grading system, and one plummeted all the way from an A to an F.

Longfellow parent Andrew Drahuschak said his family moved from the Klein area before this school year and was concerned that moving to an area with higher poverty rates could mean a dropoff in school quality. Instead, he said, he has been pleasantly surprised.

“I'm pretty impressed with the school,” Drahuschak said. “What they’re doing right now, I’m really happy with.”

While the vast majority of families seemed not to have strong feelings about Miles’ overhaul program or the prospect of becoming an NES school, a handful opposed the idea adamantly.

Alcina Cotest has two grandchildren at Codwell and appeared visibly distressed when a reporter informed her the list of new NES schools had come out and her family’s school was selected.

“Is (Codwell) one? Please tell me no,” she said, taking a sharp inhale.

At Thomas Middle School in South Acres, parent Breyana Burke-Spencer seemed to brace for what will be a more strict learning environment for her rising eighth grader.

“More quizzes, I think it will be OK,” Burke-Spencer said. “But some children, it will be difficult. It will be difficult as far as, you know, quizzes back to back to back to back to back to back.”

Still, even as thousands of families prepare for their campuses to look drastically different next year under a transformation program that has polarized the district, most of the families directly affected seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach.

Tommie Blackmon waited in the rain Wednesday to pick up her grandnephews from Longfellow. She had heard about some of the changes to HISD, she said, but is withholding judgment until she sees them in action at her family’s campus.

“I just want the best, whoever is going to teach the kids, that they get the education, reading, writing, spelling, whatever they need in order to compete, go to college, trade school,” Blackmon said. “I’m not mad about it, I’m not upset, but I’m just concerned, if HISD is so far behind, why did they wait so long to make a difference?”

Staff writers Akhil Ganesh and Anna-Catherine Brigida contributed to this report.

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Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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