In Fort Worth ISD, higher academic ratings now come with more freedom.<\/p>\n
Officials laid out the full rules of their new earned autonomy framework Aug. 11, a week after announcing eight campuses received greater flexibility<\/a>.<\/p>\n The framework sorts every FWISD campus into one of three groups: Elevate, Emerge or Exemplar. The lower a school\u2019s academic performance, the more decisions the district makes for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n But autonomy has limits at every level.<\/p>\n All schools must use FWISD\u2019s new instructional model, administer district assessments and follow teacher and principal evaluation requirements.<\/p>\n Here is what changes from one level to the next.<\/p>\n Level 1: Elevate \u2014 the district makes most decisions<\/p>\n The district classified 24 campuses as Elevate schools, consisting of an initial 19 schools and five additional campuses added using A-F academic accountability rating estimates.<\/p>\n These schools receive what FWISD calls its highest level of support \u2014 and its highest level of district direction:\u00a0<\/p>\n A campus is placed in Elevate if it:<\/p>\n To move out, a campus must earn at least a B for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n Superintendent Peter Licata said the district wants to avoid removing intensive support after one strong year, only to see a campus fall backward.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to see them sustain that success,\u201d Licata said. \u201cIt\u2019s not fair to them to rely on those services and support mechanisms that got them there to just pull the training wheels off.\u201d<\/p>\n Level 2: Emerge \u2014 schools choose, but within district guardrails\u00a0<\/p>\n Most FWISD schools fall into the middle.<\/p>\n Emerge campuses have more leeway than Elevate schools, but decisions still require district review or approval.<\/p>\n Campus leaders may:<\/p>\n Emerge campuses also must use FWISD\u2019s instructional model and classroom-observation tools and give daily demonstrations of learning.<\/p>\n Deputy Superintendent Daniel Soliz described the difference as more \u201cguidance and partnership\u201d instead of the prescribed schedules and staffing models used at Elevate schools.<\/p>\n An Emerge campus can receive greater independence after earning an overall A and an A for student achievement for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n Level 3: Exemplar \u2014 the most autonomy, but not independence<\/p>\n Eight schools begin the year with the broadest decision-making authority as Exemplar campuses, achieved after three consecutive A ratings:<\/p>\n Together, the schools enrolled 3,254 students, according to state data.\u00a0<\/p>\n Exemplar campuses may design their own programs, build their own schedules, decide how to allocate their budgets and design professional development on designated dates. They also may choose among the state\u2019s approved instructional materials and select supplemental resources.<\/p>\n That does not mean principals have the final word on everything.<\/p>\n Program, lesson, scheduling and staffing decisions still carry regional chief approval. Exemplar schools also remain subject to the district instructional model and other systems.<\/p>\n A campus that falls below an A will be reviewed. Under the framework presented by Soliz, one year below an A can send an Exemplar campus back to Emerge or Elevate.<\/p>\n Karen Perry, a parent with students at two Exemplar campuses, questioned whether practices such as prescribed seating arrangements and scripting would still apply and asked the district to consider whether high-performing individual teachers or programs within larger campuses could earn greater flexibility, too.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does autonomy mean to the students and the teachers\u2019 experience in the classroom?\u201d Perry asked.<\/p>\n Why three years?<\/p>\n The board of managers also questioned why administrators chose three consecutive years of A ratings as the bar for its highest level.\u00a0<\/p>\n Licata said the district wanted evidence that a school\u2019s performance represented a sustained pattern, not a single strong year.<\/p>\n He acknowledged the cutoff leaves some schools close to qualifying.<\/p>\n Over the next several months, Licata said, the district plans to form a committee of principals \u2014 including leaders of Exemplar campuses and schools near the threshold \u2014 and other district employees for refinements.<\/p>\n The district\u2019s ultimate goal, Licata said, is to eventually have every campus reach the highest level \u2014 a process that could take years.\u00a0<\/p>\n An Elevate campus that improves quickly would need three consecutive years at a B or higher to reach Emerge, then three consecutive years with an overall A and an A for student achievement to reach Exemplar.<\/p>\n Does an A rating tell the whole story?<\/p>\n For some parents, the framework raises a different question: What should count as earning autonomy?<\/p>\n The eight Exemplar campuses operate under vastly different circumstances. Five are specialized secondary schools students choose to attend. By contrast, the three neighborhood elementary schools serve far larger shares of white students and far smaller shares of low-income students than FWISD overall.<\/p>\n Christina Rangel-Bautista told the board of managers her family has experienced two sides of that divide.<\/p>\n Her family previously lived in Overton Park and intentionally enrolled their son, who receives special education services, at highly rated Overton Park Elementary. Rangel-Bautista said her family ultimately had serious concerns about his treatment there.<\/p>\n After moving to Ridglea North, her children enrolled at Mary Louise Elementary, which has a high concentration of students from low-income families that recently improved from an F to a B.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere, we found the exceptional education we thought we were moving to Overton Park to find,\u201d Rangel-Bautista said.<\/p>\n The experience changed what she believes a state accountability rating can say about a school.<\/p>\n An A or B, she said, does not show where students started, what resources surround them or the barriers educators had to overcome.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we reward only the finish line and ignore the distance traveled by those schools, we aren\u2019t measuring excellence, we\u2019re just measuring advantage,\u201d Rangel-Bautista said.<\/p>\n Licata and Soliz said their goal is a transparent path for campuses to earn greater decision-making authority while directing the greatest support to schools with the greatest academic needs.<\/p>\n For now, the district has drawn that path in three levels \u2014 and made clear that even its most autonomous schools remain part of one instructional system.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or @matthewsgroi1<\/a>.<\/p>\n Disclosure: FWISD manager Pete Geren leads the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report\u2019s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/08\/16\/fort-worth-isd-has-3-levels-of-school-autonomy-heres-what-each-means\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=729681&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/08\/16\/fort-worth-isd-has-3-levels-of-school-autonomy-heres-what-each-means\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Matthew Sgroi, Fort Worth Report August 16, 2026 In Fort Worth ISD, higher academic ratings now come…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1006003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,14948,7372,60054,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1006002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-isd","tag-fortworth","tag-takeover","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117109531880092055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1006003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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