Houston ISD’s state-appointed board of managers approved a reduction in force for more than 23,000 employees Thursday, after the district’s elected trustees rebuked the move.
HISD sometimes greenlights a reduction in force to allow the administration to cut and reorganize staff. But while HISD’s board approved a reduction in force in spring 2024, it did not consider one last year, board documents show.
The unanimous approval gives HISD administrators permission to cut staff or reassign virtually all teaching positions and some central office jobs as the district’s leadership seeks to present a balanced budget for the 2026-27 school year.
HISD is among many large school districts across the country considering layoffs – districts in Boston, Milwaukee and Los Angeles are preparing for employee cuts, too. Austin ISD is also planning to cut staff positions to close a deficit that could reach $181 million.
The agenda documents did not name any school for specific layoffs but listed hundreds of positions that could be cut. If a school or department decides to cut job positions for the 2026-27 school year, the names of those employees would be brought back to the board in the future.
Elected Trustee Felicity Pereyra, who does not have decision-making power under the state takeover of HISD, said it was hard to square the reduction in force with the district’s ongoing hiring fairs, including one this Saturday. Pereyra also said the reduction in force could accelerate the replacement of experienced, certified teachers with uncertified ones.
“The research is unambiguous,” Pereyra said. “Students across every demographic have better outcomes with certified teachers.”
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Elected Trustee Maria Benzon, who left her teaching position due to takeover, said she received a text about HISD hiring teachers this week. She questioned the need for a reduction in force, often called a RIF.
“Is the RIF manufactured chaos?” Benzon asked the board of managers. “If you RIF and recruit at the same time, the problem was never about the budget. That is not leadership. That is manipulation. Students need counselors. Students need experienced teachers, not bloated administrative salaries, and not smoke and mirrors.”
HISD’s workforce has shrunk in recent years. The district has lost about 1,200 employees between 2018-19 and 2024-25 – or 5% – while the number of students fell by 16%, according to an analysis by Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. School district staffing across Texas dropped sharply between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.
The majority of a school district’s budget goes to covering teacher salaries and benefits, said University of Pittsburgh education policy professor Joshua Bleiberg.
“It’s an over-simplification to say that’s all of the things that a district spends its money on – there are other things,” Bleiberg said in a 2025 interview. “But, if a district was underwater or needed to make big changes, really the only way to do that is to decrease the number of teachers. Everything else is just going to be sort of nibbling at the margins.”
This article originally published at Houston ISD Board of Managers approves reduction in force.