{"id":150192,"date":"2025-08-16T09:55:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T09:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150192\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T09:55:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T09:55:19","slug":"five-texas-school-districts-at-risk-of-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150192\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Texas school districts at risk of takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up for The Brief<\/a>, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.\n<\/p>\n

A record five Texas school districts are now at risk of the state replacing their democratically-elected school board with the latest release of school performance ratings. <\/p>\n

Connally, Lake Worth, Beaumont, Wichita Falls and Fort Worth school districts have all amassed five consecutive failing grades at one or more of its campuses, the threshold to trigger state action, a Texas Education Agency spokesperson confirmed with The Texas Tribune on Friday.<\/p>\n

TEA Commissioner Mike Morath has made no decisions yet on the future of these districts, the spokesperson said. The state could also order the underperforming schools to shut down instead of replacing school district boards.<\/p>\n

The state has replaced a district\u2019s school board and superintendent with a board of managers about 10 times since 2000.<\/p>\n

The record high number of districts at risk of sanctions comes from three years\u2019 worth of ratings released this year \u2014 the state released school ratings<\/a> for the 2023-24 school year and the 2024-25 school year on Friday and 2022-23 school year data<\/a> in April. <\/p>\n

A ruling from a state appeals court last month cleared the state to make the scores public, overturning a lower court decision that had tied the state\u2019s hands from releasing ratings for years. A similar ruling from the same high court freed the state to release ratings for the 2022-23 school year in the spring.<\/p>\n

Connally ISD\u2019s Connally Elementary School and Lake Worth ISD\u2019s Marilyn Miller Language Academy reached the threshold for state sanctions when ratings were released for the most recent school year. <\/p>\n

After years of underperformance at Kirby Middle School, Wichita Falls ISD closed the campus and moved the students to Hirschi Middle School<\/a>. That alone won\u2019t be enough to stop TEA from stepping in.<\/p>\n

At Fort Worth ISD, Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade shut down before TEA released its fifth F rating. District leaders initially believed they weren\u2019t at risk of a takeover but Morath said in a letter the closure doesn\u2019t absolve them of \u201ccompulsory\u201d state action<\/a>. A district spokesperson has told the Fort Worth Report<\/a> they intend to appeal the rating. <\/p>\n

Schools have an option to enter a partnership with a charter school network to avoid state sanctions. Beaumont ISD entered such a partnership with Third Future Schools for one of its<\/p>\n

struggling campuses, Fehl Price Elementary. For its second struggling campus, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, the board of trustees unanimously ordered its closure<\/a> in 2024. <\/p>\n

The Beaumont school district has faced state intervention before. About a decade ago, the state stepped in after a series of financial scandals. The districts only regained local control in 2020.<\/p>\n

Most recently, TEA took over control of Houston ISD, the largest district in the state. Its state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles has had a controversial tenure \u2014 boasting a boost in test scores<\/a> that came at the cost of drops in enrollment<\/a> and widespread staff layoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on education pathways coverage.<\/p>\n

More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 13\u201315! This year\u2019s lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly<\/strong>, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder<\/strong>; Abby Phillip<\/strong>, anchor of \u201cCNN NewsNight\u201d; Aaron Reitz<\/strong>, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico<\/strong>, D-Austin. Get your tickets today!<\/a><\/p>\n

TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,80,46301,5528,5526,5523,5525,5524,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-150192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-public-education","12":"tag-state-government","13":"tag-texas-government","14":"tag-texas-news","15":"tag-texas-policy","16":"tag-texas-politics","17":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115037845880957566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150192","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=150192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}