On March 24, Roxanne Martinez, the elected president of the Fort Worth ISD Board of Trustees, received an email from the Texas Education Agency notifying Martinez and her colleagues that they were stripped of their authority as a school board, effective immediately. 

Months after Commissioner of Education Mike Morath’s October 2025 announcement that TEA would take over Fort Worth ISD, he had appointed and sworn in the new superintendent – a former Florida superintendent, Peter Licata – and board of managers.

“We were also due to have a board meeting that day,” Martinez told the Chronicle. “We got an email that morning that said, ‘You are effectively no longer in power. A board of managers was appointed this morning. Your meeting is canceled.’”

Within hours of receiving the notification from TEA, she no longer had access to her district email, Martinez said. 

“We had no time to even send out any communications to our constituents or anything. I had to rely on social media to communicate with my constituents,” Martinez continued. “I still do to this day.”

Fort Worth ISD is the second major urban school district to be taken over by TEA, after Houston ISD’s 2023 takeover. Fort Worth’s takeover was triggered by a single school – a campus that only served sixth graders – that received its fifth consecutive failing accountability score in 2023.

That academic benchmark mandates Morath to either close the underperforming campus or take over the entire district, usually replacing the superintendent and locally elected board with state appointments. Morath has opted for the latter option for seven school districts since 2023, taking over Connally, Lake Worth, and Beaumont ISDs last year along with Fort Worth.

And now, Austin ISD finds itself in a similar position as Fort Worth ISD last fall. Three middle schools have four consecutive F’s as of 2025. If any one campus gets a fifth unacceptable score in August, the state could take over Austin’s school district.

AISD is a district that allows its students to exercise their right to protest, despite pushback from Gov. Greg Abbott and top state officials. It celebrates Pride and cultural diversity on its campuses. But now, it could face the test-centric academic and political changes Houston and Fort Worth families have encountered, and lose locally elected trustees who are currently accountable to the Austin community.

“Public schools are strongest when the people who know our students and communities best have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them,” AISD’s union, Education Austin, wrote in a July 20 statement. “Whether or not the state ultimately intervenes, educators cannot afford to wait on the sidelines. We must organize now to protect our schools, our profession, and our students.”

In Fort Worth, Martinez trusts that their appointed managers are “well-intentioned,” but they are not required by the TEA to answer to the community in the same way an elected official is. “Essentially, the board of managers do not report to and do not reflect the views of the community. They are there for one job, and they report to Commissioner Morath,” she said.

“There are a lot of people … who feel like [the managers] are really just there to rubber stamp what the state wants, what TEA says,” Martinez continued. “These people may have the best intentions. The community feels that the state does not have the best interests of our kids in mind.”

The View From Fort Worth

The first few months of Fort Worth ISD’s takeover felt like a waiting game, Martinez told us.

The Fort Worth school board appealed the TEA’s October decision to take over the district in November, which was later denied in February; Austin ISD could also pursue an appeal process and face a similar timeline. But in the six months after the takeover was declared in October, the board received little further communication from the state, Martinez said.

Roxanne Martinez is the elected president of the Fort Worth ISD board Credit: Courtesy Roxanne Martinez

“There was a very clear lack of transparency,” Martinez said. “We weren’t given any timelines, we weren’t given any information on what the transition would be like, or how we needed to prepare.”

In the letter Morath sent to the elected board on March 24, he had suggested a partnership between the elected and appointed boards over the course of the takeover: “My hope is that members of the board of trustees will remain engaged in an advisory capacity,” Morath wrote.

But as of July 21, the Fort Worth elected board has received no communication from the board of managers, Martinez said.

“To this day, I still haven’t met with Superintendent Licata, haven’t had a conversation with him,” Martinez continued. “I’ve reached out to TEA several times to ask clarifying questions about our ongoing responsibilities or legal obligations. … I really don’t have any information from the state at all.”

In the few months since the TEA’s board of managers has taken power, the districtwide changes have already looked similar to Houston ISD’s takeover, Martinez explained. “We were told they would follow the Houston ISD model,” she continued.

As in Houston, in April, the appointed managers at Fort Worth ISD voted to close the district’s specialized campus for students who recently immigrated to the U.S. or who are learning English, the International Newcomer Academy. The managers have also made bilingual and special education staffing cuts districtwide despite community pushback, the Fort Worth Report reported.

 “We needed support from the state. We didn’t need a takeover.”

Roxanne Martinez

“I want to say there were over 140 speakers at that meeting. The community came out in full force in support of keeping our International Newcomer Academy open,” Martinez remembered. “And the board voted to close that campus.”

Martinez also expects more systemwide changes to roll out next school year. Fort Worth ISD is hiring teachers to turn its campuses that are scoring lower on math and reading standardized tests into “Elevate” schools, reminiscent of Houston’s lower-scoring campuses becoming New Education System schools.

The Elevate model is based on “frequent coaching” and “clear expectations” for teachers, providing more “consistent instruction” across classrooms that is “aligned to posted lesson objectives.” NES schools are known for scripted, timed lessons that teach content aligned with the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams, the Houston Chronicle has reported. 

The shifts that were made in a few short months toward more standardized instruction “have been highly disruptive to the classroom,” Martinez said.

“I’ve talked to several teachers,” she continued. “They’ve talked about curriculum changes, just new micromanagement and processes that have been put in place. … There’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainty around job security and staffing changes.”

In total, 1,026 teachers resigned from their jobs at Fort Worth ISD when the school year ended as of July 23, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. The new administration has scrambled to fill those positions before the new school year starts, Martinez explained.

“What they’re not saying is that a large majority of those gaps are going to be filled with uncertified teachers,” Martinez said.

Amidst curriculum shifts in the classroom and an exodus of certified teachers, the appointed managers have not provided the community with “any data or supporting evidence” that the districtwide changes will actually improve academic performance in Fort Worth ISD, Martinez added.

“Our parents, our families, and our community want an evidence-based model that we know is proven to increase student outcomes,” Martinez pressed. “We have yet to receive that under the new administration. With everything that TEA has put in, we’ve yet to receive any type of clear evidence that this model works for our students.”

“I do want to make clear that I do believe, as a board trustee, Fort Worth ISD did need significant improvement,” Martinez continued. “We needed support from the state. We didn’t need a takeover.”

“Begin Organizing”

Martinez said the greatest consequence of state takeover for the Fort Worth families has been the loss of any local accountability over the leaders of their school district.

“The loss of trust, and the loss of our families and community members having a voice in the decisions impacting their kids,” she continued. “After the takeover, the community feels they have lost their voice. And by not having an elected board, they have.”

That shortage of accountability has fostered a lack of communication and transparency from the school administration to the community, Martinez said. Community members have expressed frustration to Martinez that no “clear, measurable plans” for next school year have been shared yet with the public.

“There have been no improvement plans that show … how these program changes are being tracked and measured,” she said. “Those are really the high points of what I hear the community saying: ‘If you’re coming in and making these changes, tell us how they’re going to be effective and what results we can expect.’”

With Austin ISD facing imminent risk of state takeover this fall, Martinez urges the Austin community to “begin organizing and having discussions now,” and prepare concrete demands of a state-appointed district administration in advance.

“One of the things I would tell the Austin community and stakeholders is to become highly engaged and involved right now. … If it goes the same way as Houston and Fort Worth, there’s not going to be a lot of answers,” Martinez said. “Create communication around asking for clear, measurable plans from the state. Demand opportunities for families, educators, and stakeholders to have their voices heard.”

Austin PTAs and families have already been in communication with Fort Worth PTAs as of last fall, Crystal Brothwell Hernandez, the president of the Austin Council of PTAs, told the Chronicle. 

“They are giving us advice on [what to do] if a TEA takeover does happen in Austin … when it comes to parent engagement, when it comes to the board of managers, when it comes to trying to maintain as much local control and input on what’s best for our school district,” Brothwell Hernandez said. 

ACPTA is also trying to educate local advocacy groups and campus-level PTAs about what a state takeover could mean for AISD, Brothwell Hernandez added. “We are definitely putting things into motion within the next month or so, in order to brace ourselves for the possibility,” she continued. “A lot of this comes from guidance from what is happening at Fort Worth.”

The possibility of a state takeover feels like a “huge weight” on many AISD families’ minds right now, on top of the dozen school closures and steep budget cuts they experienced last school year, Brothwell Hernandez reminded us: “It has been a very, very difficult year.”

The fact that Austin parents and community members have begun organizing for the possibility of state takeover after such a school year inspires Brothwell Hernandez, she said. “They will fight tooth and nail in order to protect the community.”

This article appears in August 7 • 2026.

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