Fort Worth ISD will report nine educators to the Texas Education Agency for quitting after the district\u2019s resignation deadline \u2014 a move that could put their teaching certificates at risk.<\/p>\n
The state-appointed board of managers approved the action 7-1 Tuesday, with Secretary Rosa Maria Berdeja, who participated virtually, casting the only dissenting vote and Bobby Ahdieh absent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Superintendent Peter Licata said 45 certified employees asked FWISD to release them from their contracts after the June 26 deadline. The district approved 36 requests, while the remaining nine either did not provide enough documentation to justify their departures or did not respond when administrators reached out, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want people to be happy where they are,\u201d Licata said. \u201cBut when you make a commitment, you make a commitment to teach children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas educators generally can resign without penalty up to 45 days before the first day of instruction. After that, districts can agree to release them or report them to the State Board for Educator Certification for contract abandonment.<\/p>\n
The state then determines whether an educator had good cause or other circumstances that justify leaving. Depending on when an educator resigned, a contract-abandonment finding can result in a reprimand or suspension of an educator certificate.<\/p>\n
What counts as \u2018good cause\u2019 for leaving a teaching contract?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The State Board for Educator Certification may consider four circumstances as good cause for contract abandonment:<\/p>\n
Those are separate from \u201cmitigating factors\u201d \u2014 other circumstances SBEC can consider when deciding whether to reduce or impose no discipline.<\/p>\n
Several Fort Worth-area districts have used the process in recent years, including Crowley, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Everman, Lake Worth, Northwest and White Settlement. Northwest and Crowley have pursued multiple cases, according to board documents.<\/p>\n
But Steven Poole, executive director of United Educators Association, said he does not remember Fort Worth ISD doing so during his 26 years working with area educators.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big shift in Fort Worth ISD,\u201d Poole said.<\/p>\n
Manager Laurie George, a former educator, said she initially misunderstood what the district was asking the board to do but came away from the closed-session discussion supporting the recommendation. Teachers should be treated as professionals, she said. She emphasized that managers reviewed each employee\u2019s circumstances individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want teachers to be there. We want you to be there,\u201d George said. Employees who needed to stay home with their children or step away because of a mental health crisis were not the people the district was seeking to report, she said.<\/p>\n
Poole said some late resignation requests did involve medical issues, which the district has taken into consideration. Others came from employees who felt overwhelmed by the changes under the state takeover, he said.<\/p>\n
Teachers returned July 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of teachers didn\u2019t really fully understand, and the district didn\u2019t explain what\u2019s expected of them until they reported back July 30,\u201d Poole said. \u201cSo they realized real quickly it may not be for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berdeja made a similar argument before casting her vote.<\/p>\n
She said educators should honor their commitments, but the district is operating under unusual circumstances after the state takeover brought significant changes in a matter of months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t believe that this situation is the time to do it,\u201d Berdeja said.<\/p>\n
Sanctions, she said, should be reserved for misconduct or truly egregious contract abandonment, rather than educators who leave during a period of \u201cextraordinary\u201d organizational change.<\/p>\n
Her dissent drew applause and a cheer from audience members.<\/p>\n
The managers have disagreed on procedural questions before. In May, they split 6-3 over whether to delay the renaming of C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez Elementary but ultimately voted unanimously to rename the campus Esperanza Elementary<\/a>.<\/p>\n Berdeja\u2019s vote is the first dissent on a final substantive action since the managers took control in March.<\/p>\n Poole said United Educators Association is still receiving more inquiries than usual from FWISD employees considering leaving, including employees reporting medical-related stress and mental health concerns.<\/p>\n He expects the issue could return to the board.<\/p>\n \u201cMy guess is that the Fort Worth ISD board of managers may have to consider more,\u201d Poole said.<\/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\/12\/fwisd-reported-9-educators-for-contract-abandonment-what-does-that-mean\/”>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=726169&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/08\/12\/fwisd-reported-9-educators-for-contract-abandonment-what-does-that-mean\/”, 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 12, 2026 Fort Worth ISD will report nine educators to the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":997877,"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-997876","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997876","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=997876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}