Houston area officials ask Cy Fair board member to resign after racist outburst

Henry, a Cy-Fair ISD board member, spoke out against hiring Black teachers at a Monday board meeting.  

“Cy-Fair has what? 13 percent black teachers?” Henry can be heard saying in a video. “Houston ISD is 36 percent. Their dropout rate is 4 percent. I don’t want to be 4 percent. I don’t want to be HISD. I want to be a shining example.”

“As a product of Cy-Fair ISD, I’m appalled by Board Member Scott Henry’s insinuation that more Black teachers lead to more dropouts,” Hidalgo said on Twitter. “Divisiveness and racism are what’s hurting our students. Not diversity. Resign.”

County Attorney Chris Menefee called the remarks offensive and shameful, and said Henry should not be making decisions that impact the district.  

In a statement, Cy-Fair American Federation of Teachers President Nikki Cowart also called on Henry to resign.

“Scott Henry’s statements at Monday’s School Board meeting are ignorant and appalling, and he should resign immediately,” Cowart said. “Henry falsely equated lower student performance with Black teachers—something unfounded and vile, but not unexpected since he ran his campaign for trustee on the notion that we shouldn’t ever be talking about racism in schools. And yet, he’s happy to exemplify racist opinions from the dais of a school board meeting.

More than 100,000 students attend CFISD in northwest Houston.

In a statement on Facebook, Henry said his words were “getting twisted by political actors for political purposes.”  

“I was defending our school district against attacks from an out-of-state political organization that claimed our schools were failing our students because we did not one [sic] pre-determined diversity metric,” Henry wrote.

Henry was elected in 2021. He is among two other new trustees that ousted incumbents on an anti-Critical Race Theory platform. His term ends in 2025.