Forest Brook Middle School math teacher Tyrone Greaves presides over his class with a warm, loose manner that makes him seem almost like a favorite uncle, rather than students’ first period instructor.

On a Thursday morning in mid-September, Greaves sports a yellow and black baseball jersey adorned with the Houston ISD school’s name. When his hip bumps into a tablet computer hooked up to a projector screen, he draws a laugh by muttering “big back,” a Gen Z term for a large upper body or backside.

But when it comes to educating kids at the long-struggling campus, the fun and games end. 

Over a 45-minute period, he pushes students to tackle four complicated math problems without pausing, blitzing through questions about college savings, scholarships and accrued interest. He rotates between assigning individual work, partner collaboration and full-class discussion, ensuring students have the chance to try to solve, then review, each problem.

“It is a threading of the needle,” Greaves said in an interview. “I think, with the level of camaraderie, but focus on education that I try to provide, it decreases that anxiety (some students have around math) and allows kids to speak freely.”

The friendly but disciplined approach has helped Greaves and his colleagues make a remarkable turnaround at the northeast Houston school. Forest Brook Middle unofficially notched a B grade in 2023-24 after scoring at an F level the prior year under Texas’ A-through-F academically accountability system. (State officials have not released official ratings due to an ongoing lawsuit.)

The rare reversal — only 2 of 87 F-rated Texas middle schools made the same leap in 2019, the last time the state released accountability ratings in back-to-back years — came in the first year of state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ sweeping overhaul of the district. While many of Miles’ critics have blasted his tactics, arguing they take too much authority away from teachers and put too much emphasis on test scores, the ratings at schools like Forest Brook Middle mark a key win for the superintendent and his supporters.

To better understand what has fueled the improvement at Forest Brook Middle, one of 28 schools that saw the biggest overhaul in 2023-24, the Houston Landing spent two full school days inside its halls in mid-September. The visit represented some of the most extensive media access granted under Miles’ leadership. School leadership gave the Landing virtually unrestricted access to classrooms and staff meetings, with no set schedule or guide.

Over the two days, the Landing saw a strict but deeply invested school staff that has largely embraced the overhaul model, thanks to the leadership of a popular principal, Alicia Lewis. Families interviewed by the Landing, as well as several students hand-picked by school leadership, said they largely appreciate, and have adapted to, the approach.

“Last year, when we started this process, scholars went home tired,” Lewis said. “The parents call me. ‘Ms. Lewis,’ they say, ‘it’s too much work.’ It’s not. It’s not too much work. They need it. And look at what happened. They grew.”

The Landing saw several on-the-ground practices that emphasize strict behavior standards and performance on standardized tests — common criticisms of Miles’ model. But the Landing also witnessed strong relationships between students and staff, as well as teachers infusing their personality into lessons, contradicting the depiction of overhauled schools as cold and joyless.

After observing 16 classes, sitting in on several staff meetings and conducting over two dozen interviews with staff, families and students, here’s what stood out.

Fast-paced, but not scripted, lessons

What Miles says: Leaders at overhauled schools encourage teachers to personalize their instruction, even while using district-provided curriculums and lesson plans. Classrooms can have decorations, as long as they don’t distract students. 

What critics say: Teachers have limited freedom to choose how they teach and are forced to solicit surface-level responses from students, such as having them write answers on whiteboards, at the expense of deeper discussions or projects. Classrooms are plain and sterile.

What we saw: Forest Brook Middle’s two sixth grade math teachers, Steven Bobino and Beagan Dancer, ruled their kingdoms differently.

During the Landing’s visit, both instructors featured similar word problems related to conversions between various metric units of measure on a projector screen, but they took separate approaches to the lesson. 

Bobino moved through the problems following a repeated pattern: Students puzzled out the questions on their own, held their answers up on a whiteboard, discussed them with a partner, then worked them out as a full class. Bobino mixed up the routine by adding a personal anecdote about how measurements had baffled him during a school trip to London as a 19-year-old University of Houston student. 

“I was like, ‘How far is it to the nearest restaurant?’ ‘Gee, sir, that will be about three kilometers,’” Bobino said, using a British accent that drew laughter from the class.

Across the hall, Dancer relied largely on a call-and-response tactic to draw students into the lesson. Some children stood at their desks, leaning onto their tiptoes when they shouted answers.

“They wanted us to go from centimeters to meters,” Dancer said after reading a math problem aloud. “That means we’re moving up, which means we’re…” She paused to let her class complete the sentence with her. “Dividing,” they finished.

Neither classroom was dull. In Bobino’s class, one student had pulled the veteran educator’s swivel chair to her desk and was perched in it. In Dancer’s, students could de-stress by holding the class pets: two geckos named Rocky Yoda and Christopher Cocopuff, a chameleon named Skittles and a curly-haired tarantula named Charlotte.

Emphasis on test scores

What Miles says: Students at historically underperforming campuses deserve access to teaching that prepares them to score well on the state’s standardized exams, which are a good measure of whether students are learning.

What critics say: The HISD overhaul model is obsessed with test scores, putting unhealthy pressure on students and staff and narrowing curriculums to tested topics.

What we saw: A poster hangs from the walls in Forest Brook Middle, stating the north star for the campus: “The Brook will reach or exceed 30% masters, 50% meets, 80% approaches with 90% academic growth!!! Yay!!!”

The categories refer to thresholds for the percentage of students scoring at “masters,” “meets,” or “approaches” grade level on Texas’ year-end standardized exams, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, better known as STAAR. Hitting these marks will earn the campus an A rating, Lewis said.

Throughout each school day, students and teachers receive numerous reminders of the staff’s goal, starting from the morning announcements, in which Lewis tells students each day is a new day to perform at the “meets” and “masters” level.

Lewis wears a necklace strung with the numbers 30-50-80 that her staff bought her last year for her birthday. She knows that some people think test scores shouldn’t be such a high focus, but she argues the emphasis is meant to push students and teachers to keep growing, not to put pressure on them.

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“If there’s no goal, what am I trying to accomplish? So that’s for my teachers,” Lewis said. “For the kids, we want our kids to know that they’re created for greatness.”

In a typical school day, Forest Brook Middle students spend more than six hours in academic classes like English and math, receiving a combination of fast-paced instruction, quizzes and worksheets.

Even with a high premium on test outcomes, Forest Brook Middle doesn’t spend time doing STAAR practice tests, which spooked teachers last year, Assistant Principal D’Shrondra Metoyer said.

“Teachers were scared, but teachers didn’t know that what they were doing was already setting them up to pass the STAAR test,” Metoyer said.

Student buy-in varies

What Miles says: Students are more engaged in classes when teachers make them participate every few minutes.

What critics say: HISD’s recommended approach to teaching leads to boring, repetitive instruction, prompting students to tune out, go through the motions or pretend to participate.

What we saw: During the morning announcements that kick off the school day, Lewis reminded teachers to pepper their lessons with student responses and thanked them for “ensuring we have 100 percent engagement with 100 percent of our scholars, 100 percent of the time.”

However, the reality in classrooms varied.

In Greaves’ math class, practically all students scribbled on their whiteboards and called out answers when prompted, except one boy who walked to the back of the classroom halfway through the lesson and kept his head down on his desk. The rest of the class plowed through a series of word problems before breaking for their daily quiz.

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Meanwhile, across the hall in Dawnyale Smith’s eighth grade math class, students were less willing to follow instructions.

At first, most of the class didn’t react when Smith instructed “take out your whiteboards,” forcing her to repeat the command three times. When she asked the class to identify the principal investment and interest rate in a word problem, only one student spoke up. Another groaned, “I hate this, I don’t want to do math again.” 

Out of the 16 classes observed by the Landing, roughly two-thirds had participation from most students, while the others garnered lower levels of engagement.

‘Second teach’ cements learning

What Miles says: Students needing extra help, including those with disabilities, should get more attention from teachers. To make that happen, the first 45 minutes of core classes should involve instruction with the entire class, followed by a 10-minute quiz. Students earning high marks should get worksheets with harder questions, while the rest of students should stay in class to work more with the teacher.

What critics say: Extra worksheets are a poor reward for students who perform well on a quiz, and may lead some children to intentionally flunk the tests and coast through the review lesson.

What we saw: Students appeared accustomed to the routine of leaving the classroom or staying for “second teach” based on how they scored on the daily quiz.

In Dancer’s classroom, one sixth grader celebrated earning a score on her quiz that qualified her to go work independently on accelerated questions. 

“Let’s go, I finally did it,” she said, jumping into the air after receiving her paper.

After students shuffled out, teachers required the remaining students — usually, the majority of the class — to scoot up and fill empty desks at the front of the room. Then, a second lesson would begin, largely resembling the first but with a smaller, more personalized feel.

In LaQuana Mimms’s seventh grade English class, she used the last half hour to get students on their feet. Twice, she paused her instruction and asked students to walk to one side of the room if they agreed with a statement and the other if they disagreed.

Mimms frequently referred back to the lesson from the beginning of class to help students make links to their work.

Strict behavior standards

What Miles says: Learning can only take place in an orderly environment. Students behave better when staff run a tighter ship.

What critics say: Overhauled schools enforce prison-like rules that go beyond what’s necessary to keep an orderly environment. Forcing students to carry traffic cones to the bathroom and stay silent in the hallway is demeaning.

What we saw: When she became principal of Forest Brook Middle in 2022, Lewis faced an uphill battle to create an orderly environment for learning. Staff reported nearly 250 fights in Lewis’ first year at Forest Brook, which had the highest rate of fighting among all HISD middle schools.

“In her first year, it was a struggle to get kids just seated in seats primed for learning,” said Inge Garibaldi, an HISD executive director who oversees the campus and is a Forest Brook Middle alumna.

To change the school’s culture, staff have embraced many of the behavior policies characteristic of Miles’ overhaul. Students carry traffic cones with them as bathroom hall passes and staff hush children’s hallway conversations between classes.

“Level zero,” Metoyer said through a megaphone to students walking to their next class, a phrase that means no talking. “You are quiet.”

In at least one way, Forest Brook Middle goes beyond Miles’ behavior rules. Campus leadership requires some students who arrive early to remain silent for over an hour before the first bell. From 7 a.m. to 8:25 a.m., sixth graders gather in the school auditorium, with school staff supervising to ensure they don’t talk. Those who chattered too much had to sit on the auditorium stage. (The Landing did not observe the before-school setup for other grade levels.)

Lakisa Stewart, who has worked as a custodian at Forest Brook Middle for 12 years, said the behavior policies have made a difference. The new approach is “military,” but it’s made the campus more quiet and organized, she said.

Will Simon, an HISD police officer assigned to the campus, said he’s seen the number of fights drop dramatically over Lewis’ tenure. (HISD hasn’t released discipline data for the 2023-24 school year.)

“With the implementation of the (overhaul) model, it forced the children to be more engaged and not have as much free time,” Simon said. “It was forcing them to study, to learn.”

High teacher pay a game changer

What Miles says: Teachers are valuable, skilled professionals and ought to be paid what they’re worth. Most teacher salaries have jumped $10,000 to $20,000 at overhauled schools.

What critics say: Paying some teachers more than others sends the wrong message to instructors in topics like electives and social studies, who may be making significantly less money than their colleagues teaching reading and math. HISD also can’t afford higher teacher salaries long-term.

What we saw: As one of the inaugural schools in Miles’ overhaul model, all teachers at Forest Brook Middle had to reapply for their jobs before the 2023-24 school year. The district also offered salaries that often exceeded $80,000.

Over that summer, Lewis spent a month logging 12-hour days interviewing candidates, Garibaldi said. Forest Brook Middle ended up with a higher concentration of top-notch teachers than many of the other campuses she supervises, Garibaldi said. The average annual teacher salary increased from about $61,000 to $86,000 last year.

The higher salaries changed the level of expectations that campus leaders could impose on teachers, said Metoyer, who is in her fourth year at Forest Brook Middle.

“Before, when you had autonomy and no accountability and low pay, you didn’t care,” Metoyer said. “You came to work, you didn’t care. There was no real planning, there was no intention behind what you did. Now, teachers are making $80,000, of course I’m going to show up to work.”

With the high pay, Lewis maintains a high bar for performance. She had to whittle her teaching staff from about 50 last year to 40 this year due to budget constraints, dropping enrollment and districtwide staffing adjustments after the first year of the overhaul. In the process, she let go of several teachers who she thought were not driving results for students.

“Some of the people who left … there was a conversation, like, ‘Is this really a good place for you?’ And it’s not. It’s not the place for you,” Lewis said. “So, let’s find you somewhere else to go.”

Student, parent reviews

What Miles says: Campuses are improving, allowing communities to take pride in their neighborhood schools for the first time in years.

What critics say: Families don’t support the overhaul model, and some are choosing to leave the district.

What we saw: The Landing spoke to nine parents and guardians who had come to pick up students. Lewis briefly spoke with them first to prepare them for talking to a reporter, though she did not pre-select them for interviews. At a follow-up visit, school staff selected five students for the Landing to interview, citing the need for family consent to talk to minors.

The 14 students, parents and guardians had nuanced views of the recent changes.

Sixth grader Da’Liyah Green described mixed feelings about the level of rigor. She said she sees the emphasis on STAAR tests as a way to “push us to be the best that we can be” and feels she’s learning more than at past schools. At the same time, she wishes there was more time to relax.

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“It’s kind of draining because we sit in the class for a long time, and then, after we finish, we’ve got to come downstairs and do more work (on accelerated worksheets),” Da’Liyah said. “I feel like that will help us better, but it’s still work on top of work.”

Family members of students at Forest Brook Middle were largely enthusiastic about the campus, describing frequent, personal communication from Lewis. They also noticed their children had a better attitude about school.

Shanita Mathis, whose seventh grade daughter attends the campus, said the school pleasantly surprised her family. Her daughter had one brief bullying issue last year, but leadership “nipped it in the bud,” she said.

“In sixth grade, I was nervous coming here because I didn’t hear anything good about the school. But Ms. Lewis does a phenomenal job,” Mathis said, explaining that her daughter had received praise for scoring at a “master” level. “They’re really good at hyping them up.”

Despite the strong reviews, Forest Brook Middle continues to lose families. Its enrollment has dipped from about 800 to 600 students in the past three years, and the school is on track to lose several dozen more this year as the district’s total enrollment continues to slide.

HISD North Division Superintendent Orlando Riddick said the school’s improved academics are the best way to reverse the trend, though he declined to speculate on when enrollment would jump back up.

“You don’t lose (students) instantly. You lose them over time, and you’ve got to win them back. People want to play for a winner,” Riddick said. “You’ve gotta be a winner. You got to be a place where people and families feel that they can come to and they know it’s reliable around the academic side. And that’s the standard (Lewis) is building.”

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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