Harvard Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Association welcomed its new principal, Sharon Pe Benito, and assistant principal, Molly Lashway, with cakes decorated in the school’s colors and “H” logo. The pair received gift cards to local restaurants as part of the welcome.
Shortly after, parents learned Pe Benito abruptly resigned. Houston ISD’s Central Division Superintendent Luz Martinez emailed families Tuesday that “after extensive bullying on social media, she determined this job was no longer in her personal or professional best interest.”
Harvard has been appointed an interim principal, Stefanie Spencer, for the rest of the year, during which the community will weigh in on a profile of ideal candidate characteristics for a permanent principal, Martinez wrote.
While Harvard parents welcome Spencer and laud her experience as a former Goose Creek CISD and Spring Branch ISD principal, community members were bewildered by the principal shuffle that began when HISD put principal Shelby Calabrese on leave and has since been recommended for termination for reasons that have not been made public.
Harvard’s assistant principal Alejandra Perez was also reassigned to Memorial Elementary, where Lashway was assigned away from. The school’s magnet coordinator and executive director, who oversees the principal, were also reassigned.
Parents were disturbed that Pe Benito’s hiring process did not include community input, Harvard father Josh Brodbeck said.
“Anyone who’s worked for any organization that has had its leadership swiftly removed without warning knows that doing that really does throw that organization into a certain amount of disarray,” Brodbeck added. “But then for the district to have handled it — or I should say mishandled it since they originally placed Dr. C on leave — for them to have mishandled it this way has only made things incrementally worse.”
Parents are hoping for some semblance of stability so students can finish out the year, he said.
“This has gone beyond the matter of trust, and now it’s about just basic competence,” he said of the abrupt changes. “Are these people even competent of running schools? That’s what has us really worried right now, because again, look at what’s happened at Harvard in just the course of a month.”
Harvard parent Ryan Sothen said the changes are a continuation of the anxiety and instability that began since Mike Miles was appointed superintendent. He noted that Harvard will now have its sixth executive director with the recent reassignment of their former executive director, Wendy Craft.
“That’s quite a bit of turnover that directly impacts the principals,” Sothen noted, adding the school also went through three principals within a month. “And the fact that the last one was in such rapid succession and seemed very disorganized — it really raises the question around the overall stability leadership strategy going into it.” He added this creates anxiety in parents and teachers, permeating to the students.
There may well be very good reasons for removing the first principal and the other leaders at Harvard Elementary, which is a B-rated school in 2024 (it was rated A in 2022 and 2023). Given that at some level this is an employment dispute, there should be some level of confidentiality until the issue is fully resolved. But as the story noted, the now-departed successor, who was named without any input from the school’s community, had emailed Mike Miles pledging her support for NES and for moving non-NES campuses into that system, which was decidedly unpopular with parents, teachers, and students. And again, this is for a highly-rated school with an IB program. You’d think HISD and Mike Miles would have higher priorities than that.
Lantrip Elementary School parents protested Wednesday morning for transparency following Houston ISD’s abrupt decision to place Principal Valiza Castro on administrative leave.
More than 50 adults with students protested at the East End campus with signs reading “Transparency 4 Parents” and “Our children are worth a good, quality education.” Parents protested with chants familiar to many other schools across the city, including “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Mike Miles has got to go” and “Mike Miles must go.” A child yelled “We love Lantrip,” leading parents to start up a chorus of “We love Lantrip.”
Lantrip parents are calling on the district to reevaluate its decision to place Castro on leave and to provide clear, transparent communication on the reasoning behind this decision and its plan.
Central Division Superintendent Luz Martinez acknowledged in a Monday announcement this change is abrupt and that parents will have questions and concerns.
“Ultimately, we believe this shift will best support your child’s learning and the workplace experience for Lantrip teachers and staff,” Martinez wrote.
But the decision ambushed many parents who came to love Castro’s leadership. Parents praised her community engagement events to keep up school grounds, the efficiency to drop-off and pick-up, and support to teachers amid massive turnover, which parents said to be a 70% turnover rate in a website calling for Castro to return and state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles to be fired. Fifteen teachers left the environmental science magnet school in June alone, according to a Chronicle analysis of district records.
Timothy Suing, holding a sign with an acrostic that reads “Education requires Accountability 2 Build Community,” said the school has seen a dramatic change in culture since the takeover. His daughters both attended Lantrip, with his younger daughter in fifth grade.
“It used to be a culture where we had a lot of certified teachers who volunteered their time for extracurricular activities,” he said. “That’s all gone. It’s been replaced by a culture of fear. Teachers are afraid to use their own judgment in creating effective lesson plans. They’re being watched. They’re all afraid to speak. And I think this takeover is really disingenuous. What we have instead is we have an entity that’s running the schools that leaves us voiceless.”
Lantrip is an A-rated school, and this principal was new to them as of this academic year. Again, maybe there’s a valid reason for this, but again the parents and teachers and children are dealing with a lot of change and no communication from HISD about what is going on. What the hell is going on here?