Nearly 300 people want a seat on the Texas-appointed board replacing FWISD’s nine locally elected trustees, but none of their names are publicly known.  The Fort Worth Report requested the list of applicants seeking to serve on the board of managers through Texas’ open records law. Agency officials declined to release it, requesting an opinion from the Texas attorney general’s office. That lack of transparency frustrates Fort Worth parents and residents as Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath prepares to appoint the managers in the coming weeks. The appointees will govern the district during the state takeover intended to bring significant academic gains for students.  view article

This fall, the Austin Independent School District will close 10 campuses as it tries to cut a $65 million deficit after 15 years of declining enrment.  Get Digital Access and Stay Informed.  For decades, these campuses anchored neighborhoods, shaped families and kept traditions alive as new students grew and learned. view article

Opponents warned the policy’s vagueness could push professors to self-censor and leave students less prepared for the workplace.  The University of Texas System’s Board of Regents unanimously approved Thursday a rule requiring its universities to ensure students can graduate without studying “unnecessary controversial subjects,” despite warnings it could leave them less prepared for the real world.  The rule also requires faculty to disclose in their syllabi the topics they plan to cover and adhere to the plan, and says that when courses include controversial issues, instructors must ensure a “broad and balanced approach” to the discussion. view article

Opponents warned the policy’s vagueness could push professors to self-censor and leave students less prepared for the workplace.  The University of Texas System’s Board of Regents unanimously approved Thursday a rule requiring its universities to ensure students can graduate without studying “unnecessary controversial subjects,” despite warnings it could leave them less prepared for the real world.  The rule also requires faculty to disclose in their syllabi the topics they plan to cover and adhere to the plan, and says that when courses include controversial issues, instructors must ensure a “broad and balanced approach” to the discussion. view article

Houston ISD is preparing what Superintendent Mike Miles calls “the next stage in changing the American public education system” with the launch of two Future 2 schools, a pilot program designed to rethink how students learn in the age of artificial intelligence. view article

The Midway Independent School District is considering closing Speegleville Elementary School to address financial challenges after recent state funding laws reportedly left the district underfunded. Superintendent Dr. Chris Allen addressed the school board, staff and parents Tuesday night about how recent state funding has limited the district’s spending options. view article

Two Everman ISD schools will be run by a Colorado-based nonprofit next year after the district board voted to outsource operations at two campuses whose continued failing accountability score performance could put the entire district at risk of state takeover. The district will pay Third Future Schools millions of dollars to take over Townley Elementary and Baxter Junior High schools for the next three years. The TEA gave Townley F grades in 2023 and 2024 and a D in 2025. It gave Baxter F grades all three years. Five years of failing grades puts the district at risk of state takeover. view article

Hitchcock Independent School District has been placed on an “Accredited–Warned” status by the Texas Education Agency after receiving failing financial accountability ratings for two consecutive years. In a letter sent to families Tuesday, the district said its accreditation status for the 2025–2026 school year was changed due to deficiencies identified in the state’s financial accountability rating system. view article

De Zavala Elementary will close at the end of the 2025-2026 school year if the Fort Worth Independent School District board approves the move in March. Fort Worth ISD said its Superintendent, Dr. Karen Molinar, plans to make the recommendation, which will be reviewed in the March 24 board meeting. Students from Dassett Montessori school will move on to the campus sooner. view article

Second grader Felix Moreno isn’t sure if he’ll see his friends at school next year.   Felix and his family thought they had one more year at De Zavala Elementary before it closed its doors for good in 2027. Now, they have three months left at their FWISD school.  De Zavala is closing in May so Daggett Montessori, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, can move out of its structurally unsound building and into the nearby elementary campus, Fort Worth ISD leaders said. The school board will formalize the decision in March.  Kelly Moreno, Felix’s mom, said the decision frustrates parents. view article

A Euless charter school superintendent has been cleared of wrongdoing following a months-long investigation by the Texas Education Agency.  Last summer, a contingent of parents at Treetops School International accused James Whitfield, who joined the campus in 2023, of financial mismanagement and of failing to report an alleged incident of physical abuse by a teacher.  At the time, the parents were vocal in their displeasure with Whitfield’s leadership, but there was little in the way of concrete evidence to support the claims against him. Much of the uproar came after Treetops administrators voted to adopt a four-day school week and eliminate seventh through 12 grades beginning with the 2025-26 school year.  The school now operates as a kindergarten through sixth grade campus. view article

Longer school days. Fewer electives. Improved test scores, at least for a time. Inside the pricey new experiment aimed at turning around schools with failing grades.  WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Texas school districts are opting to outsource their failing campuses to third-party operators in a little-known, but increasingly common attempt to avoid state takeovers, a WFAA investigation found.  In exchange for paying millions to a third party with the promise of improved accountability scores, the TEA grants a two-year reprieve from state intervention and sends the district additional public education funds to help cover the cost. In these scenarios, superintendents and school boards keep their jobs and retain at least partial local control over their schools — all of which would be at risk with a state takeover.   Texas school districts are opting to outsource their failing campuses to third-party operators in a little-known, but increasingly common attempt to avoid state takeovers, a WFAA investigation found.  In exchange for paying millions to a third party with the promise of improved accountability scores, the TEA grants a two-year reprieve from state intervention and sends the district additional public education funds to help cover the cost. In these scenarios, superintendents and school boards keep their jobs and retain at least partial local control over their schools — all of which would be at risk with a state takeover.  view article

Austin Independent School District will run its own special education department without state oversight for the first time in nearly three years. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath on Tuesday told the district he was removing the two state-appointed monitors who have overseen AISD ever since 2023 when a state investigation found the district repeatedly missed strict state and federal deadlines for evaluating kids suspected of needing special education services. view article

Two Everman ISD schools will be run by a Colorado-based nonprofit next year after the district board voted to outsource operations at two campuses whose continued failing accountability score performance could put the entire district at risk of state takeover. The district will pay Third Future Schools millions of dollars to take over Townley Elementary and Baxter Junior High schools for the next three years. The TEA gave Townley F grades in 2023 and 2024 and a D in 2025. It gave Baxter F grades all three years. Five years of failing grades puts the district at risk of state takeover. view article

The Texas Education Agency has placed Kingsville Independent School District on accredited warning status due to its F-rating, but another South Texas district's successful turnaround demonstrates that recovery has been achieved before in the region. view article

Austin ISD can now run its special education services on its own, after three years under state oversight. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath sent a letter on Tuesday to AISD Superintendent Matias Segura saying he was removing the two monitors appointed by the state to oversee AISD's special education program. view article

Austin ISD leaders announced that the district’s special education program is no longer under state oversight, marking a major turning point nearly three years after the Texas Education Agency (TEA) ordered sweeping improvements. The district had been under scrutiny since 2021, when a TEA investigation found AISD had failed to properly evaluate students eligible for special education, causing a backlog that left many waiting months for support. In 2023, the state assigned monitors to oversee the district’s progress. view article

The call caught FWISD mother Adrienne Haynes off guard.  A Dunbar High School counselor was checking in about her son’s academic progress — something she said she had not experienced before then.  “I give credit to the superintendent,” Haynes said. “Before her, a lot of times we wouldn’t know what was happening in the schools.”   Each grade level saw improvements on recent midyear exams that track students’ progress. The average reading score increased by 1 to 8 points while the average math score bumped up 1 to 5 points. view article

Fort Worth mother Marisol Herrera couldn’t shake a question from the top of her mind Thursday following the announcement about the state takeover of FWISD.   Will students have the same opportunities she had growing up here as an immigrant? Will they have the same chance to succeed as her son, a junior at I.M. Terrell Academy?   The answers to those questions will come in the coming months and years, as state appointees replace locally elected trustees to control the nearly 70,000-student district with 10,000 employees, marking the second-largest takeover in Texas history.    Herrera is disappointed that Fort Worth ISD will go through immense change when it needs consistency and a steady hand, she said.   Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath launched the intervention Oct. 23 after the now-closed Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade failed to meet state academic standards five years in a row.  view article

A mass “sickout” is planned across Houston ISD on Thursday, as parents, students and community members continue protesting the state takeover of the district. Organizers are calling on families to keep students home or bring them to school after lunch so they will be counted absent. The goal, they say, is to send a message to state leaders and demand the return of the district’s elected school board. view article

4 views Feb 10, 2025 #news #DFW #dallas  The state’s top education official briefed state lawmakers in Austin Monday morning. The state of education in Texas is not the best. Texas spends below-average per student and is getting below-average results according to national standards. NBC 5's Phil Prazan reports with how lawmakers want to address the issue. ----   view article

Just after Fort Worth ISD trustees lost their legal fight to stop the state takeover of the district, school board member Wallace Bridges announced his resignation on Friday. A state administrative court ruled in favor of the Texas Education Agency, concluding no factual disputes would justify overturning Commissioner Mike Morath’s decision to intervene in the 70,000-student district because of failing academics. This clears the way for Morath to install new leadership over the city’s largest school system. view article

Seven elementary schools closing, one new middle school opening, and a fresh map of school boundaries-- these are the solutions Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD) officials proposed Monday as ways to handle the district’s budget and overcrowding issues. view article

New data from Fort Worth ISD shows that test scores are improving. According to a progress report that will be shared with trustees Tuesday night, a mid-year assessment showed that 40% of 3rd graders meet or exceed grade level in English Language Arts and Reading. Earlier in the school year, it was only 20%. The 3rd grade class has shown even larger gains in math. In the first assessment of the school year, about 29% of 3rd graders were at grade level or above for math. That doubled to 60% for the mid-year assessment view article

The Austin school district has not met minimum state exam standards for students with disabilities in the past four years, according to an independent review of the district’s special education programs. Stetson and Associates, a consulting firm, conducted a review of the Austin school district’s services for students with disabilities starting during the 2019-20 academic year, although the evaluation was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a change in leadership at the district. view article

A Valley school district is working to convince parents that it’s safe for their kids to be in school. Officials at the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District say they’re working hard to help families feel more comfortable about students being back in the classroom. view article

The Waco Independent School District and its charter school partner, Transformation Waco, could see more than half of their students start the school year Sept. 8 via remote instruction, according to registration numbers provided by both entities. view article

Dallas ISD is in a precarious position when it comes to grading. About 86 percent of its student body is classified as economically disadvantaged, more than 25 percent higher than the state’s average. Its population of limited English speakers is almost half, more than double the state’s. There are significant challenges when it comes to making sure all of its students are receiving adequate learning despite the disruption from the pandemic. More than 12,000 hot spots were purchased for students who lacked access to internet. All of these things affect grading, especially when these kids don’t have a school to go to. view article

Lloyd Potter, researcher and director of UTSA’s Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research, is supporting local Head Start and Early Head Start programs toward being more effective. Potter has worked with the City of San Antonio’s Department of Human Services Early Head Start-Child Care and Head Start Programs, and with local nonprofit San Antonio AVANCE Inc. to better assess their programs to provide information about how they are meeting the needs of the children and families they serve. view article

For years, Stephens Elementary School in Aldine ISD has been defined by the challenges that it faces rather than its academic successes. Nearly 90 percent of its students are considered economically disadvantaged by the Texas Education Agency. Nearly half are English language learners. And to state education officials, the school was failing academically. view article

A fifth grade Lumberton Independent School District student reported "vulgar" language in the STAAR reading test last month, according to information from LISD.  view article

On Nov. 9 Hays CISD released the draft of its innovation plan, which must be approved by the board of trustees in order to receive a district of innovation designation. If approved, the district would be able to make changes to the academic calendar and to exempt some Career and Technical Education instructors from teacher certification requirements. The district of innovation designation was created by the Texas Legislature in 2015 as a way to give independent school districts some of the flexibility that charters schools have under state law. While becoming a district of innovation can allow for numerous exemptions to curriculum or logistics requirements, the most-used exemption is the one that allows schools to start earlier in August. view article

Some Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District students will have the opportunity to graduate with a high school diploma and an associates of science degree. At a recent school board meeting, the administration provided the board with information on a pilot initiative in partnership with Lone Star College CyFair, the College Academy, which will provide 2017-18 freshman students at Cypress Lakes High School with an opportunity to graduate with a high school diploma and an associates of science degree. view article

At the center of our district’s Learning Model, one of our Guiding Documents that directs all we do in LISD, is “focus on student learning.” After all, the whole reason our district exists is to provide an education to the children in our boundaries. While our teachers and staff have done an outstanding job over the years working to foster a challenging, supportive and effective learning experience, we recognize the benefit of taking a step back every so often to ensure our many educational pieces are creating a cohesive puzzle. Our last official audit was conducted nearly 20 years ago under Superintendent Tom Glenn. Since then, we have experienced incredible population growth in our area, as well as great strides in the teaching and assessment arenas.  view article

Perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of the new Crosby High School is the flood of natural light flowing throughout the building. Windows line the hallways, classrooms, offices, cafeteria, library and other rooms that would traditionally be encased in brick and mortar. The new Crosby High School opened in August 2016. It was a part of the $86.5 million bond passed in May 2013, which incorporated the high school, stadium renovations and the new baseball and softball complex. This year's freshmen students may not have anything to compare the new high school to. But, as its inaugural school year draws to an end, some may wonder what the new building looked like through the eyes of those who did walk the halls of the former Crosby High School. view article