FORT WORTH, Texas – The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is officially taking over the Fort Worth ISD school district, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath told FOX 4 on Thursday morning.
The state will appoint a board of managers from within the Fort Worth community to replace the district’s elected school board members.
Mike Morath on Fort Worth ISD State Takeover
Mike Morath on FWISD state takeover | FULL INTERVIEW
FOX 4’s Shaun Rabb talked to TEA Commissioner Mike Morath about his decision to take over the Fort Worth Independent School District. The plan involves replacing the current school board with a state-appointed board of managers.
What we know:
“What we have announced today is that the enforcement decision that we’re making, that we’re required to make under state law, is to install a board of managers for Fort Worth ISD. So, this is not actually happening today. There’s a lot of process that we will unfold over the coming months. But the decision is to install a board of managers. A board of managers has the same powers and duties as an elected board of trustees. We will choose individuals from Fort Worth to serve on that board of managers,” Morath said.
Morath said TEA will be looking for people in the community to fill the board of managers with a broad base of experiences and different backgrounds, including parents, community leaders, and professionals who are united in a belief that all children should be able to learn and achieve at high levels.
A website will be launched soon to collect applications from volunteers interested in being on the board.
The decision also means Fort Worth ISD’s new superintendent, Dr. Karen Molinar, will likely be replaced.
“We will be conducting a search process for who the appointed superintendent is, because when a board of managers is named by law, the commissioner also has to appoint a superintendent. So, we’ll be interviewing the best and brightest leaders from the state and from the country for consideration for that job,” Morath said.
Morath thanked Molinar for her service to the district over the past few months. He also said she will be able to apply for the role. However, she’d be facing an uphill battle.
“We’ve actually seen an increase in the number of chronically unacceptable campuses. Back in 2022, there were eight multi-year, academically unacceptable campuses. Today there are 20. And even with some of the more recent improvements in the district, still only 34% of students in Fort Worth are meeting grade level. That is a full 16 percentage points below state average. It’s way below the numbers in Dallas and Houston,” Morath said.
Morath said the state owes this to the families of Fort Worth ISD.
“It’s really incumbent upon us to ensure that we, the adults that are in charge of those school systems, give the kids our absolute best, our best efforts. And that effort actually has to deliver results,” he said.
What does the change mean for students and teachers?
Fort Worth ISD families and staff members won’t see any immediate changes.
Molinar and the board of trustees will continue to oversee the district for the next few months until TEA has gone through its board of managers recruiting, interview, and appointment process. That’s expected to be completed sometime this spring. Then, the state will name its new superintendent.
The elected board will stay in office but without decision-making power.
How long will the intervention last?
Morath could not give an exact answer. He said it will depend on how well the changes work. The goal is always for the state intervention to be temporary.
“These are always temporary interventions that we get in. We attempt to change the systems that have caused low levels of academic engagement from students. And then we get out,” he said. “The question is, how long does that take? And that is, in fact, somewhat of an unknown question with precision, because this is a lot of upgrades to the curriculum, upgrades to the support of teachers, that sort of thing that will have to happen. We will be looking for evidence that the district has changed their internal systems to such a degree that there are no more multi-year, failing campuses. This is the basic moral commitment we have to have in public education to children that, children need to have access to great schools, and we don’t live in a utopia. So, there will be from time to time that a school may struggle individually, but we cannot have a situation where schools struggle for five, six, eight years in a row without any kind of academically acceptable environment for kids. So, our primary exit condition is that there are no more multi-year failing campuses when we reach that condition whether it’s one year from now, two years from now. We will then revert back and start the process of rolling back to the elected school board.”
Fort Worth ISD’s Failing Grades
The backstory:
The decision follows months of uncertainty and comes after the state released 2023 accountability ratings in April.
Fort Worth ISD maintained the same C rating it received last year. While the district earned a D two years ago and reduced its number of F-rated schools from 31 in 2024 to 11 in 2025, a history of poor ratings kept it at risk of a state takeover.
A key factor in the decision was the now-closed Fort Worth ISD campus, which received a failing grade for the fifth consecutive year. State law requires Morath to either close the campus or take over the district in such a situation.
Fort Worth ISD chose to close the school in 2023, but the repeated failing grades ultimately triggered the state takeover.
Houston ISD has been under state control since 2023, with that arrangement planned to continue until 2027.
2025 Fort Worth ISD State Accountability Ratings
Possible Takeover of Lake Worth ISD
The TEA is also considering a state takeover of the much smaller Lake Worth ISD due to its low accountability ratings.
Morath, who heads the agency, visited the district’s six campuses in June. His attention was focused on the district’s dismal accountability ratings for the two most recent school years.
According to the TEA, five of the district’s six campuses had F ratings, and the remaining campus received a D. Marilyn Miller Language Academy had its fifth-consecutive unacceptable academic accountability rating.
Because of this, Morath said he has only two choices: close the school or take over the district.
The commissioner noted that Lake Worth ISD has had chronic academic problems at several campuses.
“The children of Lake Worth ISD deserve better. Bold action is needed to improve conditions for students in the district,” Morath wrote in part in a letter sent to the district’s new superintendent, Dr. Mark Ramirez.
Morath explained what students in the district have been missing.
“What has unfortunately been true in Lake Worth for a very long time is that the kids have access to schools that do have hard-working, loving adults, but they’re not consistently learning how to read, write and do math or science or history,” Morath said.
Ramirez, who started in June, was at the news conference but did not speak to the media.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Texas Education Agency and previous FOX 4 coverage.