HOUSTON \u2013 Students at Jefferson Elementary are two days into the new school year, and Houston Independent School District\u2019s New Education System \u2014 known as the NES model \u2014 is already in full swing.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Mike Miles and the school\u2019s principal are working to ensure teachers make every instructional minute count. The model focuses on meeting students where they are, whether that means offering more support or more challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupport for students who are behind, and then we challenge the students who are already ahead or already proficient,\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n
Team centers give students a path forward<\/p>\n
Central to the NES model are team centers \u2014 classrooms designed for students who have already mastered the current lesson and are ready for something more advanced. Students who need additional help, meanwhile, receive more direct instruction time.<\/p>\n
Jefferson Elementary is just one of 129 NES schools in HISD. The district is made up of mostly Black and Hispanic students, who account for 80% of the student population, according to the Texas Education Agency. Additionally, 77% of students come from an economically disadvantaged background.<\/p>\n
Miles said his goal is to help those students succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our younger kids here who are not reading at grade level yet or not doing math at grade level,\u201d Miles said. \u201cSo this school is going to help them close that gap and get proficient. And we have a lot of other schools that are tailored to meet the needs of their students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional resources, higher pay for NES schools<\/p>\n
HISD is investing additional resources into its NES schools. Miles said those campuses receive teacher assistants and learning coaches to support team centers. Core subject teachers at NES schools also earn $9,000 more than the average district teacher, according to district officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s supporting our students who have been underserved for a long time,\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n
Most NES schools are located on the north, east and south sides of Houston and are graded based on performance.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Students at Jefferson Elementary are two days into the new school year, and Houston Independent School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[163,56,58,1686,57,2824,141587],"class_list":["post-404179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-education","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-news","tag-mike-miles","tag-nes-model"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404179","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=404179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}