{"id":2208,"date":"2025-10-14T07:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/2208\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:16:08","slug":"hisd-mother-fired-after-criticizing-superintendent-mike-miles-in-viral-video-at-houston-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/2208\/","title":{"rendered":"HISD mother fired after criticizing Superintendent Mike Miles in viral video at Houston airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Houston\u00a0ISD mother told the Board of Managers Thursday she was fired for approaching and criticizing state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles<\/a> while she was off duty.<\/p>\n

An April video with audio and no visual of the encounter\u00a0posted by\u00a0Chron.com<\/a>, which is a separate outlet from the Houston Chronicle, showed the parent Virginia McDavid saying “Mike Miles,” before another individual said Miles was on the phone. McDavid introduced herself as an HISD parent and shared her name, while that individual introduced herself as Dr. Esch.\u00a0McDavid said “Thanks a lot” and called Miles’ performance a “horrible job you’re doing. You’re ruining our school district.”<\/p>\n

DISTRICT LATEST: Houston ISD Board of Managers terminates union leader<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday was the first time McDavid addressed the board after she confronted Miles and another district official at Bush Intercontinental Airport while off duty and was subsequently terminated by United Airlines after the HISD\u00a0official filed a complaint. McDavid is one of many parents voicing opposition to Miles’ controversial reforms<\/a> in HISD.<\/p>\n

McDavid is heard saying in the video, “He needs to get the hell out of town and go to Colorado,”\u00a0Miles’ home state where he founded a charter school network<\/a>, adding that he was doing “a disservice” to students, teachers and administrators.<\/p>\n

Esch responded in the video, “Okay, thank you ma’am. Thank you.” McDavid replied: “Thank you? Do you really mean that sincerely, huh?” To which Esch appeared to say,\u00a0“Yes.”\u00a0 McDavid said, “Well, no thanks to him for ruining our school district”\u00a0and added, “You’re a disgrace to Houston ISD. You need to get the hell out of town. You’re ruining Houston ISD.”<\/p>\n

The exchange took place for less than a minute, the video showed.<\/p>\n

McDavid told the press that Miles was on a call at the airport when she approached and that the individual with Miles was Nicola\u00a0Esch.\u00a0Esch earns $205,000 as the district’s deputy chief of staff, according to August district records. In April, Esch held a different role with $145,000 pay.<\/p>\n

McDavid declined to name the company she worked for Thursday, though in a statement, HISD identified the company as United Airlines. The mother said she was fired in May, about five weeks after the event, and the termination was related to approaching Miles because she had viewed a complaint from\u00a0Esch in her investigatory file. She is working with her union to appeal the termination. The union’s president, AFA Council 42’s Elizabeth Hibbard, did not respond to multiple calls.<\/p>\n

“And the thing is, the issue, the encounter, didn’t have anything to do with my company,” McDavid said. “I am an HISD parent. I am an HISD taxpayer confronting a public official. I don’t have an elected school board. I can’t go to my elected school board member and redress my grievances.”<\/p>\n

Since June 2023, HISD has been governed by a state-appointed Board of Managers<\/a>, and the\u00a0elected board<\/a> lacks any decision-making power.<\/p>\n

A Houston ISD spokesperson issued a statement on Friday: “While traveling on United Airlines and waiting for his flight in a United lounge, Superintendent Miles was verbally accosted by a United Airlines employee who used vulgar and aggressive language, which she later posted to social media and shared with the press. Any personnel decision made by United Airlines regarding the conduct of its employees is a matter between United Airlines and that employee.”<\/p>\n

United Airlines declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

Texas, like most U.S. states,<\/a> is an at-will employment state, meaning an employer can terminate an employee for almost any reason without legal liability unless there is a legal agreement for other employment terms.<\/p>\n

HISD records show that Miles was scheduled on April 9 to travel to the Bush airport at 12 p.m., have “work time” from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., and then\u00a0take a flight at 2:35 p.m. to Washington, D.C. He was scheduled to fly out from Ronald Reagan National Airport the following afternoon on Thursday April 10 to Houston via Chicago.<\/p>\n

BOARD: Superintendent Mike Miles says Houston\u00a0ISD is keeping its most effective teachers<\/a><\/p>\n

McDavid told the Board that after the takeover her son’s principal was fired days before school started “in retaliation for not adopting” Miles’ stringent reforms called the New Education System. Her son is in special education and has attended\u00a0HISD for over 10 years.<\/p>\n

“But it isn’t just\u00a0HISD employees facing retaliation. Miles and his assistant sought to have me fired for speaking out,” she said. “In April, I ran into Miles and his traveling companion, Nicola Esch, at the airport and shared some candid thoughts. Days later after they researched where I worked, they filed a complaint with my employer and urged them to address the issue with appropriate consequences for your employee. I will add that I was not working when I confronted them. I was fired shortly thereafter.”<\/p>\n

McDavid also said, in apparent reference to the “personal protection” granted to Miles in his contract, “We don’t have an elected school board with authority to redress our grievances. I guess Miles sleeps better at night now that his contract includes a bodyguard to protect him from five-foot-two disgruntled HISD moms like me lurking in the shadows.”<\/p>\n

F. Mike Miles Superintendent Contract <\/a> by nusaiba.mizan <\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally published at HISD mother fired after criticizing Superintendent Mike Miles in viral video at Houston airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Houston\u00a0ISD mother told the Board of Managers Thursday she was fired for approaching and criticizing state-appointed Superintendent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2826,56,58,1686,57,2824,2828,2827,2825,2829],"class_list":["post-2208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-board-of-managers","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-news","tag-mike-miles","tag-nicola-esch","tag-the-houston-chronicle","tag-united-airlines","tag-virginia-mcdavid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}