Meyerland Middle School for the Performing and Visual Arts parents are fed up and showed up Monday morning to voice their disapproval of Houston ISD staff cuts that most recently targeted the school's beloved principal. 

"Nonrenewal" notices have circulated around the school district for weeks, affecting every department from librarians to custodians to even top-rated leadership as HISD superintendent Mike Miles attempts to both balance the district budget and install a New Education System model into the state's largest school district. Organizer and former PTO president Amanda Sorena said the parents protesting Monday had initially kept their complaints contained out of fear of retaliation. Then the school's principal, J. Auden Sarabia, received a notice.

"He had been presented with two options: resign, or go through file review," Sorena said. File review, as other teachers have experienced it, involves setting up a meeting to discuss termination, Sorena said, essentially giving Sarabia "an impossible choice."

Sarabia received his notice last Wednesday and told teachers and the PTO in a video conference Friday, Sorena said. He has until Wednesday to make a decision. 

For parents including Sorena, who has no history of activism, the thought of Sarabia leaving was enough to spur them to action. Roughly a dozen Meyerland parents helped organize Monday's event, which saw attendees from schools all around the district as well as Meyerland students themselves, who stood their ground and held signs until a few minutes before the first period bell rang. At its zenith, the protest saw roughly 450 participants, according to parent Elizabeth Shepard. 

"Once we found out, we wanted to do everything we could," Shepard said.

The event in Meyerland is part of a larger outcry across the Houston Independent School District as teachers, students, and parents push back against the Texas Education Agency's takeover of the district. Since assuming the position of district superintendent last summer, Mike Miles has sought to implement a New Education System model throughout the district, placing a greater emphasis on standardized testing and scrutinizing longtime faculty with administration-led evaluations.

In a press conference Thursday, Miles said teachers and principals who receive nonrenewal notices will be replaced with NES faculty and leadership trained through the district's principal academy. Of the roughly 70 graduates from the principal academy, Miles said each one will receive either a principal or assistant principal position within the district.

Miles has not disclosed the total number of staff being let go. As of Monday, Sorena said 46 principals across the district had been given the same notice as Sarabia, and said a handful of Meyerland teachers had received nonrenewal notices as well.

Parents at Monday's protest expressed little faith that those individuals will have the requisite experience to replace faculty like Sarabia. Sorena said she has already heard of elementary school parents looking to send their students elsewhere should Sarabia not return next year.

"He was there when the doors opened and he was there when the last kid left," incoming PTO president Rochelle Cabe said. "He was always calm and composed through every issue. He's the principal you want for your kids." 

Protestors plan to build upon Monday's momentum with another rally outside of City Hall Saturday, organized by parents of Briar Grove Elementary. Several parents attending Monday also plan to make their voice heard at the Board of Managers budget meeting Thursday.

"This isn't just about our school," Sorena said. "We were a rallying point today, but this is about all of us."  

Miles has maintained that the staff cuts are a result of the district's attempts to close a $450,000,000 budget shortfall. One HISD employee and parent who asked to remain anonymous said the cuts go beyond common business sense, instead resembling more of a "strategic removal" of longtime faculty.

"It's dangerous to be beloved right now," they said. "As soon as you have community support, as soon as someone builds strong ties with parents and students, it puts them at risk because that is not the leadership structure the district wants to see."