HISD convocation celebrates academic achievements as district looks ahead

The 2024 HISD Convocation treated thousands of educators, staff, and administrators, both in person and virtually, to a spirited kickoff to the 2024-2025 school year. The event featured a student-led musical, stories from students and parents, and highlights from the District’s year-one transformation progress.

Over the last year, HISD embraced systemic change under the New Education System (NES), dedicated resources to fostering leadership and instructional capacity of school principals to support teachers, and improved instruction quality district-wide.

The first year of transformation led to some of the District’s highest recorded academic gains in reading and math.

“This group here, your students had at least a 5% increase in math and a 5% increase in reading. That’s a huge increase, and this room is filled with the teachers who did that work with their kids,” said Superintendent Miles. “Yes, we should celebrate the numbers and pay attention to them, but at the end of the day, there are kids and teachers behind these numbers. That’s the real deal.”

Preliminary state accountability data shows HISD reduced D- and F-rated schools by nearly two-thirds—from 121 schools in 2023 to 41 in 2024. This improvement was significant at NES schools where D- and F-rated schools dropped nearly 80%—from 63 schools to 14.

Across the District, A- and B-rated schools increased by 82%—from 93 in 2023 to 170 in 2024. NES campuses achieved a remarkable increase of 480%, with A or B ratings rising from 11 campuses in 2023 to 53 in 2024.

The ratings indicate that HISD's transformative efforts benefit all schools. The number of D- and F-rated non-NES campuses decreased while A- and B-rated non-NES campuses increased by 30% from 2023-2024.

District educators including teachers, principals, support staff have supported students during this transformational period. Principals have led their schools with strategic vision supporting teachers fostering high-performance culture. Teachers have shown dedication embracing new instructional methods.

“I’m most excited about this school year opening up with a beautiful rating and continuing that work with the new Key Middle School and positive energy,” said Key Middle School principal Shundra Harris-Mosley. “The teachers who are coming back are already familiar with NES so all we’re doing is fine-tuning sharpening up taking things to next level.”

For the upcoming school year HISD will build on last year's progress focusing on key priorities including improving lesson plans curricular materials special education services adding Pre-K seats especially in underserved areas preparing students for future challenges.

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