Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath is expected to announce a state takeover of Fort Worth ISD on Thursday, a move required under state law after one campus failed to meet academic standards for five consecutive years.<\/p>\n
Morath is scheduled to meet privately with reporters at 9 a.m. to discuss the district\u2019s future. Under House Bill 1842<\/strong>, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2015, if a single school fails to meet accountability standards for five straight years, the commissioner must either close that school or replace the district\u2019s elected board with a state-appointed board of managers.<\/p>\n That process, commonly referred to as a \u201cstate takeover,\u201d appears to be the direction Fort Worth ISD is heading, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision. The Texas Education Agency has not confirmed the plan.<\/p>\n It is unclear whether Morath will also replace Superintendent Karen Molinar, who is new to the position and widely supported within the district. In previous takeovers, Morath has replaced both boards and superintendents simultaneously.<\/p>\n Morath has been publicly critical of Fort Worth ISD\u2019s performance in recent months. In August, while praising Dallas ISD\u2019s academic growth, he referenced Fort Worth directly.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, in cases where a school board has failed to be able to do that, like in Fort Worth, the question is how do we turn those around as rapidly as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, just two days before the expected announcement, Morath again addressed Fort Worth and neighboring Lake Worth ISD, both facing accountability challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, the buck still stops with the local school board, and the school board is not brand spanking new,\u201d Morath said. \u201cThe question is where was the urgency four years ago, five years ago, six years ago, to say, \u2018It is our responsibility, we have been elected, we are held in trust by the taxpayers to provide for kids.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n District leaders appeared to be caught off guard by Thursday\u2019s planned announcement. A Fort Worth ISD spokeswoman said the district was unaware Morath had scheduled a briefing with reporters. Several board members, Molinar and cabinet officials were in Philadelphia attending a conference where they were scheduled to present on Thursday.<\/p>\n Sources tell NBC 5 that district officials quickly boarded a flight back to Texas late Wednesday after learning of Morath\u2019s expected announcement.<\/p>\n An official letter from the commissioner is expected to be released Thursday morning following the news conference.<\/p>\n For parents and community members fighting to keep local control, the news is deeply disappointing. Marisol Herrera, a member of Families Organized and Resisting Takeover (FORT), said their advocacy will continue.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the beginning of the resistance, the fight. We’re going to keep advocating for our students, advocating for public schools,\u201d Herrera said. \u201cWe believe it’s best to have local control. However it goes tomorrow, we’ll keep advocating for that.\u201d<\/p>\n If Morath confirms a state takeover, Fort Worth ISD\u2019s elected board will be replaced by state-appointed members. The current board could return if the state ends its intervention while those members are still in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath is expected to announce a state takeover of Fort Worth ISD on Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":325525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,8973,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-325524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-education-agency","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115421467340967342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325524","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=325524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}