Lake Worth ISD leaders met with Texas officials behind closed doors in Austin to discuss the state takeover of the 3,200-student district.
Education Commissioner Mike Morath convened Lake Worth trustees at the Texas Education Agency headquarters Friday afternoon for an informal review of the incoming board of managers, conservator and superintendent appointments.
Board President Tammy Thomas and trustees Cindy Burt and Mac Belmontes met with Morath eight days after the state took control of the small district along the northwest border of Fort Worth. The intervention followed nearly a decade of low academic performance, including five consecutive F’s at Marilyn Miller Language Academy, which triggered the takeover.
Trustees were expected to recite their turnaround plans for students’ academic success.
Thomas said there were no decisions made, but she and the other trustees appeared upbeat as they prepared to head back to Tarrant County.
“It went wonderful,” Thomas said after the meeting. “Of course we’re not going to get a decision today. But we had a wonderful meeting. We didn’t expect a decision today. We talked about the situation, and we all have the children in our best interests.”
Morath, who was not available for comment after the meeting, did not signal his next steps or when they are likely to be expected. Lake Worth ISD manager applications are due Jan. 31.
The delegation injected an element of holiday goodwill by presenting the commissioner with a red tin of assorted sweets made by Thomas and a Christmas card signed by the three trustees.
“We will just await his decision,” Thomas said. “We’re all going to go home and get ready for Christmas.”
Ahead of the meeting, Thomas said she wanted to broker a deal with the commissioner: The school board won’t fight the takeover if he retains Superintendent Mark Ramirez. Ramirez has already told staff he will not remain during the intervention.
Neither will Lake Worth’s seven locally elected trustees whose governing powers Morath will transfer to appointed managers.
Ramirez was not at the meeting even as Thomas and other trustees credited him with moving the district forward since he was hired in May. Morath described the superintendent as “a very skilled leader” who might have steered the district away from its academic problems if trustees brought him in five years earlier.
“While this chapter of my service is concluding, the story of student success in Lake Worth is just beginning,” Ramirez wrote to Lake Worth educators.
Morath has said the district has been gripped with a “culture of low expectation.”
“This is the problem — for too long,” Morath said during a Dec. 11 news conference.
Dave Montgomery is an Austin correspondent for the Fort Worth Report.
Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
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