{"id":1049239,"date":"2026-09-07T17:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:39:15","slug":"fort-worth-isd-schools-should-protect-children-and-remove-classroom-cameras-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049239\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth ISD schools should protect children and remove classroom cameras | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fort Worth Independent School District elected to install cameras<\/a> that livestream children in struggling elementary school classrooms without telling parents, betraying the trust granted from the families who attend these schools.<\/p>\n

A district spokesperson said these cameras are for “instructional continuity,”<\/a> meaning when a student is sent out of class or a teacher is absent, then instruction can be beamed in through speakers from another class.<\/p>\n

However, when the news was leaked through an anonymous source<\/a>, it was reported the children were being filmed rather than the teacher. This caused justifiable backlash from Families Organized & Responding to Takeover<\/a>, a Fort Worth advocacy group hoping to improve the school district, which caused the group to put pressure on FWISD.<\/p>\n

Dionna Deardorff, Fort Worth ISD parent and communication director of FORT, said teachers were told that students\u2019 faces would be included in the video instructions but district officials are now “pivoting”<\/a> and will be using tripods pointed at teachers.<\/p>\n

But these are not college lectures where a tripod can be set up in the back of an auditorium and film only the professor. The cameras are going in third to fifth<\/a> grade classrooms. Kids get up and move around, so there is no way these kids will not end up on camera.<\/p>\n

The district said the cameras are not for surveillance<\/a> and will not record the classroom, but this does not answer why administrators require the Zoom password for all classes or why teachers must livestream every class. Even if the teachers are the targets of surveillance, rather than the students, it does not make these livestreams any more justifiable.<\/p>\n

FWISD knew this ridiculous idea was not going to go over well, which makes its lack of communication with parents look intentional.<\/p>\n

There is also no explanation of why it will only be implemented in Elevate<\/a> classrooms \u2014 the 24 schools in FWISD needing the most academic support \u2014 and not in the other two tiers. Surely, in the Emerge and Exemplar schools, students get sent out of class and teachers get sick.<\/p>\n

The district has also had a rocky relationship with Zoom since the COVID-19 pandemic. FWISD had instances of unauthorized users breaching<\/a> password-protected classrooms and in the most recent case in 2024, users broadcasted pornography<\/a> during a sex education committee meeting.<\/p>\n

But in the first full school year since being taken over by the Texas Education Agency in March of 2026, Zoom will be back in the classrooms of some of the youngest and most vulnerable students. The same agency who cost Texans $8.4 million<\/a> to fix their error ridden textbooks is rewriting history by diminishing civil rights leaders and downplaying American racism and slavery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the TEA took over Houston ISD in 2023 they implemented a similar policy<\/a> for its 29 most-struggling schools. In its New Education System, every classroom has a 24\/7 Zoom going and disruptive kids are sent to a “team center” and shown the live feed from the class.<\/p>\n

Under this model, the schools also got rid of their librarians<\/a> and, as of 2025, about 2,500 teachers in HISD are uncertified<\/a>, including the superintendent, Mike Miles. FWISD is following a similar trend with a reported 308 uncertified teachers, or a 569 percent<\/a> increase, from the previous 40 to 50 the district had. However the district has zero teacher vacancies after over 1,000 teachers left due to the TEA takeover.<\/p>\n

Uncertified teachers cannot teach core classes in FWISD and Texas. FWISD Superintendent Peter Licata claims all teachers in the district have a degree, stating that the teachers are uncertified, not “unlicensed.”<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a distinction without a difference.<\/p>\n

School bus drivers need a commercial drivers license and are required to pass a school bus driver certification course<\/a>. This means someone can already have a CDL and have operated for years, but until they get their certification they can not transport children.<\/p>\n

The standard should not be different for teachers. While teachers are not charged with the responsibility of transporting students on a roadway, they are responsible for teaching children how to think, which is severely important.<\/p>\n

Despite these controversial moves, HISD has seen improvements<\/a> under the NES model and has received a B rating for the second year in a row. However, the TEA will still maintain control of the district at least until 2027<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, will these radical measures taken by FWISD lead to similar results? More importantly, if they improve, will the state relinquish control?<\/p>\n

FWISD needs to step up and be transparent about what is going on in its schools, but more importantly they need to protect these elementary school children. If the district cannot ensure kids will not be filmed, or that external parties cannot gain access to these Zoom streams, then the cameras need to be removed now.<\/p>\n

The safety of children is far more important than boosting the rating of a school district and if FWISD leaders cannot think of a safer way to educate children, they should find another career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth Independent School District elected to install cameras that livestream children in struggling elementary school classrooms without…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1049240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,1269,106099,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1049239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-fort-worth","tag-fortworth","tag-opinion","tag-staff_columns","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\/117230984861912650","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049239","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=1049239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1049240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}