HISD board president says questions remain about takeover process following TEA presentation

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Texas Education Agency gave an update of the current status regarding the process of the state's control over the Houston Independent School District on Thursday.

TEA deputy commissioner Steve Lecholop, who oversees governance, gave a 20-minute presentation and then took questions from current board members.

RELATED: TEA announces extension of applications for board of managers until April 20 at HISD board meeting

The current board president, Dani Hernandez, felt the presentation needed to be more varied with more new information.

"I think that TEA presented, the deputy commissioner presented, a lot of the information that's already been out there previously and a lot of the information that's on the website already, so I think there are still a lot of unknowns, and a lot of questions that the board members have and the community has about the transition process in general," Hernandez said.

She says she thinks it is vital to get more clarity on how the transition process to the board of managers may impact the HISD budget.

SEE ALSO: TEA takeover of HISD to last at least 2 years, transition back will take 3

Also on her mind, during the presentation last night, the TEA said the current HISD board of trustees would be invited to serve in an advisory capacity to the board of managers, but what exactly that would look like is still being determined.

While many questions remain about how exactly this takeover will happen, HISD is hosting a hiring event on Saturday, hoping to recruit teachers, principals, librarians, and more to the district.

"Are they planning to switch curriculums? What kind of curriculums are we going to get? Are they going to change the salary schedule? Are they going to change the hours? We don't know!" Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said.

Anderson says many teachers feel in limbo, waiting to see what changes will come under the new board of managers.

Hernandez says they are doing what they can to make next year as stable as possible for students, which means trying to incentivize teachers to return to the district this upcoming school year.

"The board knows there's instability in the district right now. One of the things that we tabled for another meeting, hopefully, is providing a stipend to teachers and to staff members who sign on to work for next year, so we are trying to work some of those numbers out," Hernandez said.

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