Each week, “Pop Quiz” features an interview with a member of Greater Houston’s education community. To suggest someone we should interview with an interesting story to tell, email us at education@houstonlanding.org.
Meet the interviewees
Savant Moore and Plácido Gómez are Houston ISD’s two newest elected board members — and they could soon see a big increase in their power to lead Texas’ largest district.
HISD’s elected board members have received limited attention since they were ousted from decisionmaking roles in June 2023, when Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath installed Superintendent Mike Miles and a new nine-member school board.
But according to state law and the plans laid out by the Texas Education Agency, three of HISD’s elected trustees could return to voting positions as soon as June 2025, kicking off a two-year transition process that would return HISD’s board to fully elected leadership in June 2027. (Morath could choose to delay the start of the transition until 2026 or 2027, if he determines HISD hasn’t made enough progress. He must announce his decision before June.)
While much of the HISD community’s attention was trained on Miles’ swift overhaul of a wide swath of the district in his first year, Moore and Gómez both ran unopposed for their seats in November 2023. Moore now represents District II, which covers much of north and northeast HISD, and Gómez represents District VIII, which snakes through the district along the Buffalo Bayou and extends toward the shipping channel.
With the board’s potential return to power nearly on the horizon, the Houston Landing caught up with the two new trustees to discuss their thoughts about HISD’s direction under state leadership and their outlook on regaining voting authority. This week, we’ll feature our conversation with Moore, with Gómez’s thoughts published Jan. 3.
Moore grew up on the northeast side of Houston, spent 10 years in the military, worked as a software engineer, started a trucking business and now serves as a minister in the Sunnyside neighborhood. He has three children. The oldest graduated from Wheatley High School and the younger two now go to a boarding school after previously attending McReynolds Middle School.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
So 2025 is the year TEA Commissioner Morath could potentially start the transition back to an elected board in HISD. Looking back at the intervention so far, what do you consider the greatest wins and failures of it?
As a whole, the greatest win has been that we know that this community cares about one another. It’s brought the most affluent parents to those that are low income, middle class. The west side, north side, east side, south side, all together.
… An obvious con was, the bond proposal was needed. We know that these schools suffered HVAC issues and other issues. But because they wanted to, for instance, close Black and brown schools in my neighborhood, I could not support the bond. Because once you take away that neighborhood school, it’s forever, we’re never going to get it back. And then when you start knowing that, OK, there’s a TEA code where they have to first offer this land if it’s vacated to a charter school, and then there’s some in our community saying, ‘Hey, we have too many charter schools. Let’s build up the public schools.’
I think that the transition can start in 2025 and I really encourage Commissioner Morath to do that, to start getting some elected officials on the board, so that we can really engage this community and we can find solutions and common ground. Because the end goal is for all children to be doing math at grade level or above, to be doing reading at grade level or above. We should not be just so focused on STAAR (exams). We need to be focused on making sure that all of our children are functional, literate, productive citizens. They’re going to be replacing us as adults.
People say, take the politics out. You can’t take that out because, as a politician, my job is to advocate for my constituents, and if my constituents have concerns, I’m going to advocate for them. But my biggest concern is, when are people going to take the business out of this? People were pushing for this bond, spending $100,000 to attend events so they can get contracts, but were they really caring about the children in northeast Houston? I don’t know.
Speaking of northeast Houston, you’re in District II, which covers much of that northeast side of HISD. What are a few conversations or comments you’ve heard from families that have left an impression on you?
The biggest thing is people don’t realize that my side of town remembers the history. We’re not wanting what happened in North Forest ISD to happen to HISD. We saw that this predominantly Black school district is now gone, it was absorbed by HISD. Is there a push for more Black teachers? You know that Black students are more successful when they have a teacher that looks like them. Is there a push for retaining these teachers?
There’s so often talk about the teacher as the most disrespected profession. Is there a push to actually (start) caring about them? Because every day they’re getting up and they’re taking care of our children for eight-plus hours, making sure that they learn what they need to learn to be productive.
When you care about what’s going on on the more affluent side, do you have that same care for our side of town? And oftentimes it seems that (leaders) don’t. We’re hoping that this state takeover shows that we deserve the same quality of education as every other side. This state takeover should be where we’re getting equity, where we’re getting the same resources that every other side of town is getting.
If you were to become one of the (three elected) voting members of the board, what would be your approach to working with the appointed members?
Well, I’ve already been working with the appointed members, so I think that our relationship would just grow. I do commend them for meeting with us elected officials quarterly, and they do listen to our concerns. They know that we are really involved in the community. I do want to commend Mrs. (Cassandra) Bandy and Mr. (Rolando) Martinez. They’re on the community engagement and they’re doing a better job. I think that the community respects us for showing up for them.
I do think that the Board of Managers, they are making a change just to start listening to the community. I just know that once an elected official is there, we’ll have an insight that they don’t have, because we’ve been doing this a lot longer than they have. And so I think that it would be a great fit, and then I think it would be probably to the benefit of (Morath) to do it to show that the state is really looking towards transition as quickly as possible to local control. Because the biggest thing is people are concerned about their democracy. When you take away that democracy of having public elected officials, there are huge concerns.
From a policy and practice perspective, there’s all sorts of new things that have happened in HISD under Superintendent Miles. Everything from increasing many teachers’ pay to also taking away librarians at many schools. What are the things you’d seek to maintain and what are the things you’d seek to change?
From a policy perspective, we have to make sure that we’re fiscally responsible. We have to remember we do have a deficit and that has to be addressed. There has to be a reversal on some things. There needs to be a library in every school. As someone that grew up as an avid reader, I know that the intelligence I have is because of curiosity that I was able to get from reading and making it enjoyable.
Something I’m pushing in my neighborhood is to let kids know it’s okay to be a nerd. It’s cool to be the nerd. The nerd is the one that’s gonna win when they become the adult. You can still have that nice car, have that Rolex, live in that nice apartment, a nice home, being smart. So that has to be a push where we bring back libraries.
I will also push wraparound specialists being put back. Because, as someone that has used the Sunrise Centers, oftentimes, it hasn’t been working for certain children in my community. The wraparound specialists were helping more children than the Sunrise Centers can. But I do commend the Sunrise Centers for what they’re doing, because they are helping.
Some things that I would keep in place, I will keep in place that he did increase the salary for teachers. But it shouldn’t just be (overhauled schools). Teachers (at the other schools) deserve a high salary as well. So we have to adjust the budget.
We have to look at, did he increase central office pay too much? Because at first it was 60 people getting over $200,000, now we’re like in the 200 range. As a leader, does it look good on optics for you to receive a bonus of $126,000 knowing we’re in a deficit? You’re already a wealthy man. So those are things that we will be addressing.
I’m gonna put you on the spot a little bit here. Some community members have called for Miles to get fired. Really it’s only the board (or Morath) that can do that. Where do you stand on that issue?
I look way past that. What I’m pushing for is, starting in January, when the legislative session comes, I’m working on amending the law that caused this in the first place. If we can do that, we can get back to local control. As far as Mr. Miles goes, people know that I will always respect him, because he was (an Army) Ranger, just like I was a Ranger in the United States Army. He’s my elder, and as a minister, I always show grace to everyone. He still has a family he has to provide for. So I try to stay out of that.
All I’m pushing for is local control back to us as taxpayers, because, for instance, my children may no longer be in HISD, but my property tax still will continue to go to HISD to provide a great public education for every child that goes to HISD. So we got to look past Mr. Miles and look past ‘Why did this happen in the first place?’ And also make sure that we don’t have any schools that are failing in our district, that we don’t have any schools that have uncertified teachers, that we have schools that have trades, they have a special program so that a child doesn’t have to leave their neighborhood.
So I’m looking at the bigger picture, but I understand the concerns of some of the constituents who are wanting him to be replaced. When it comes to that, when we talk about him being removed, I have been encouraging people, we have to have a replacement for him. So there needs to be a national search of a certified superintendent that’s going to replace him. If you’re saying he needs to be fired, are you going to hire someone in house to replace him? Because this district still has to keep on doing the business of educating every child within HISD.
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