Houston ISD may begin to regain local control of the district by the end of this school year.
In August, both Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath and state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles said Houston ISD could exit the intervention "relatively soon." The state's largest school district has been under state control since 2023, after Wheatley High School in the fifth ward earned more than five consecutive failing accountability ratings from the Texas Education Agency. The state intervention was renewed in June 2025 when Morath said the district needed to make more progress.
To end the takeover, the district is required to improve school board governance, have no multi-year failing campuses, and update the special education department so it is compliant with state standards.
Morath said that although there was still work to be done regarding the district's special education program, he anticipated it would be resolved and the district could revert back to local electoral control.
“We want to see special education services improve in Houston, and so this will be one of the primary goals for them over the course of this school year to ensure they accomplish that objective," Morath said.
So what happens when the takeover ends? How long will that take? This is what we know:
Full local control could resume in 2029
If the district is allowed to exit the takeover, the process will take at least three years to return full control to the elected board of trustees. Since the takeover, the trustees have been sidelined for the state-appointed board of managers, and Miles has served as the state-appointed superintendent.
TEA guidance indicates once the takeover ends, three elected trustees at a time will be restored to the board in one year intervals. If the takeover ends in 2027, then the elected trustees will not have a majority control until more than a year later in 2028 and won't have full control until 2029.
Ultimately, Morath has final say over which three trustees are restored at each interval.
In Marlin ISD, which began its state intervention exit in 2023, the state-appointed superintendent Darryl Henson said the board of managers and the district's conservator were allowed to confer and make a recommendation to Morath for which elected trustees should join the board and when.
Henson is currently the superintendent of Hitchcock ISD outside of Galveston. He served as the superintendent in Marlin ISD from 2020 to the end of their takeover. He recalls the process being a collaboration between state-appointed officials and elected trustees.
"[Morath] said to us, ‘This is a community school district — so it is very incumbent upon the community, meaning the superintendent, elected and appointed board members, to truly work together,'' Henson said. "And so our recommendations of [which] members would come on, what board of managers would stay — it was collaborative and it was supported by Commissioner Morath."
The Texas Education Agency did not respond to questions about whether Morath would continue the same process for Houston ISD or how the agency might choose to bring board members back on.
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Four of the nine elected trustees — Savant Moore, Dani Hernandez, Patricia K. Allen, and Placido Gomez — have terms that expire at the end of 2027. The other five — Felicity Pereyra, Maria Benzon, Michael McDonough, Bridget Wade, Myrna Guidry — were elected in November to serve through 2029.
Monty Exter, director of government relations at the Association of Texas Professional Educators, said time left in office may play a role in each trustee's return to the board.
"I could definitely see [they] might say, ‘Well, we’re not going to wait ‘til year three on somebody that doesn’t have three years left in their term,' but you know, maybe TEA doesn’t like that person [and] they are in fact going to wait till year three."
Some of the Houston ISD elected trustees are vocal critics of Miles and campaigned on the promise that, if elected, they will move to oust Miles. If they choose to remove Miles, it may come with a hefty cost.
Million-dollar payout
In June 2025, the district extended Miles' contract through 2030 with a base salary of $462,000 dollars. If, in 2028, when the elected trustees could have majority control, they vote to remove Miles, he would receive two years of his base salary, or an almost one-million-dollar payout along with two years of his benefits.
The board could build a case for "good cause" against Miles to remove him. Some of the items in the contract to remove a superintendent with cause include his failure to follow board directives or policies, gross negligence, or dishonesty against the district. Miles is also free to resign with consent from the board.
RELATED: Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles receives $82,000 raise with 5-year contract extension
In Marlin ISD, once full elected control was restored, the board voted to keep Henson on as superintendent.
"I felt like we got Marlin ISD in a great place and then, to be honest, I did want to allow the elected board to have the opportunity to select a superintendent of their choice," Henson said. "It was a great time for me to go and allow the seven elected board members the opportunity to select a superintendent through the actual hiring process."
However, Marlin ISD’s state-appointed board of managers enjoyed more autonomy in their takeover than districts do now. Marlin, Southside and Edgewood ISD state-appointed boards of managers were all allowed to hire their own superintendents while under state control.
Morath has since exerted more control, as allowed by law, over the selection of a state-supervised district's superintendent.
Since 2020, Morath has appointed the superintendent for each of the eight districts that fell under a takeover for academic or financial reasons.