{"id":433673,"date":"2026-09-12T07:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/433673\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T07:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:52:16","slug":"hisd-chief-of-staff-leaves-second-cabinet-departure-in-a-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/433673\/","title":{"rendered":"HISD Chief of Staff leaves, second cabinet departure in a month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston ISD’s Chief of Staff Monica Zdrojewski left about a week after another cabinet member resigned in August, marking the\u00a0second high-profile departure<\/a> within a month.<\/p>\n

Zdrojewski took on the chief of staff role for the state’s largest school district after her predecessor, Kerri Briggs, left to work for a Dallas philanthropy organization in 2024<\/a>. Before that, she was a deputy chief<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former chief of staff had an annual salary of $245,000, putting her among the highest-paid employees<\/a> in the district, which has about 22,300 employees.<\/p>\n

She left on Aug. 15, about a week after Orlando Riddick,\u00a0the former chief of strategic initiatives<\/a>, left. Riddick oversaw the district’s school autonomy plan and was the point person for schools seeking to hand operations to outside nonprofits in exchange for greater autonomy.<\/p>\n

Zdrojewski and HISD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The next chief of staff will coordinate across HISD’s leadership team<\/a>; support the superintendent; supervise advisory councils to district leadership; design and supervise “the district’s performance management and accountability systems;” and oversee board governance. The new chief will also lead “strategic initiatives,” including the\u00a0district’s push for schools<\/a> designed for a world dominated by artificial intelligence, according to HISD’s job posting.<\/p>\n

Zdrojewski began her career as an elementary school teacher, and she worked with Ed Direction under the consulting firm Cicero Group, where her predecessor worked as partner<\/a>. Her resume includes work at the Texas Education Agency and City Teaching Alliance, among other organizations, according to a\u00a0biography provided by HISD<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Butler, the deputy chief of staff with a salary of $230,000, is now the interim chief of staff and reports to the district’s deputy superintendent<\/a>, Kristen Hole, according to HISD records.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston ISD’s Chief of Staff Monica Zdrojewski left about a week after another cabinet member resigned in August,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-433673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433673","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=433673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}