Houston ISD state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles speaks at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Houston Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle
What does a typical day look like for state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles as he oversees Houston ISD?
The Houston Chronicle reviewed a year of his calendar to find out. The Chronicle obtained Miles’ weekly calendar for his second year in charge of HISD from Aug. 1, 2024 to June 7, 2025, and used AI tools to categorize the entries into an interactive database.
The calendars provide the most comprehensive look yet at how Miles — a former Army Ranger and founder of a charter network — spends his time leading Texas’ largest school district during a state takeover.
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“It’s important that the community knows how the superintendent is spending their time. These are taxpayer dollars that are going to be spent,” said Rachel White, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of The Superintendent Lab. “They’re going to pay their salary, and (the superintendent) should be responsive to the community’s desires.”
The entries show that Miles’ most common meetings featured the district’s top leaders, including his cabinet, executive directors and division chiefs. He held regularly scheduled meetings to discuss the budget, contracts and legal updates. Also on his calendar: calls with the Texas Education Agency and state conservators.
HISD did not respond to a request for comment on Miles’ calendar.
Campus visits, officials and more
Miles visited more than 70 different campuses during the 2024-25 school year, including multiple visits to Atherton Elementary, Hilliard Elementary and Pershing Middle schools.
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Many trips were to schools in the New Education System, following a strict reform model. Miles said last year on HISD Now that during these visits, he looks at teachers’ instruction, the principal’s coaching and “how the kids are doing.”
Miles also had multiple meetings dedicated to professional development for “special focus” schools as well as reviews of In Sync, a weekly newsletter for school leaders, and updates on HISD Now, the district’s daily news show on YouTube.
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The entries show an administrator who is keenly organized, setting aside time to prepare for meetings with elected officials, town halls, conferences and media interviews.
He met with both Democratic and Republican politicians, including U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, state Sen. Molly Cook, state Rep. Brad Buckley, who chairs the House Public Education Committee, and the office of state Sen. Joan Huffman, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Finance.
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Officials told the Chronicle that topics included constituent concerns and district updates ahead of the 89th Texas Legislature.
‘Managing upward’
White, who leads research at The Superintendent Lab, said Miles’ schedule of campus visits and meetings with top district leaders and board members is “pretty typical” compared to other superintendents in large urban districts.
White noted that because of Houston’s current governance structure, the state-appointed superintendent is potentially spending more than usual talking with the TEA and state conservator.
“That is not something that usually takes up a lot of time on a superintendent’s calendar,” White said. “He’s sort of managing upward to Austin in ways that most superintendents maybe don’t have to.”
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Along with six “TEA Superintendent” meetings, Miles also met at least four times each with Anastasia Anderson and Doris Delaney, who have both served as the state-appointed conservator for HISD.
Delaney oversaw Kashmere High School and the district for more than eight years. After she left as conservator in December 2024, Anderson took on the role in February 2025.
White, who teaches at UT’s department of educational leadership and policy, said the calendar shows what Miles is scheduled to do, but it doesn’t indicate the quality of the interactions, visits or conversations. It also may not account for any emergencies or unexpected events that occurred throughout the year.
“It’s important to keep in mind that the calendar probably gives you a pretty good idea of how time was supposed to be spent, but superintendents deal with a lot of emergencies and things that need responses right away,” White said. “If someone calls and an emergency happens, he’s not gonna say, ‘Oh, wait, let me put this on my calendar first and take this other thing off.’”
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White recommends superintendents spend their time based on what the community wants, and she says it’s up to HISD community members, including teachers and students, to determine the quality of time.
How we did this
The Chronicle obtained the records through public information requests to the district. The newsroom extracted the entries using Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, and sorted them into categories — such as “school visits” — using ChatGPT.
Multiple Chronicle reporters and editors then reviewed and re-categorized the data manually. They are divided into six categories, including general district business, travel, and external affairs and communication. Some groups have a few sub-categories, such as breakdowns for district leadership and board meetings.
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The calendar entries do not capture every detail of Miles’ meetings or routine. For example, it’s not clear who joins his recurring “Sunday check in” or “end of day huddle.”
Nearly all meetings are listed as released in district records. The entries were lightly edited for clarity, including correcting spelling errors, removing certain addresses for privacy purposes and adding attendees’ last names in parenthesis for context.