Fort Worth ISD board grants superintendent more powers to handle coronavirus closure
In a historic move, the Fort Worth Independent School District board Tuesday night voted to give the superintendent executive powers to streamline decision-making during the coronavirus shutdown.
Tuesday night’s FWISD board meeting was also the first time that all members joined virtually — the meeting was held on the Zoom video platform and members of the public were able to call or video in.
The board voted to allow Superintendent Kent Scribner to unilaterally make decisions that fall under 11 categories, including decisions regarding payment of employees, altering the Fort Worth ISD 2019-2020 school calendar, making purchases for FWISD and authorizing waivers with the Texas Education Agency.
Scribner also has the authority to provide educational services to students through e-learning.
“It was historic in that regard because the board has never met before in that type of a meeting setting and, to anyone’s knowledge, the board has never delegated so much authority to the superintendent,” FWISD Communications Executive Director Clint Bond said.
The resolution will last during the school district’s emergency closure for at least the next 90 days.
Bond said Scribner will report all decisions to the board, but will not need to consult them beforehand.
“There might be an opportunity for us to do something in this particular time period that if we had to wait for the board to meet, it might be disadvantageous,” he said.
The board also discussed at-home learning for students. On Monday, FWISD launched its online learning platform and encouraged students, parents and teachers to log onto the website.
By April 6, teachers will be able to reach out directly to students to give them assignments and give them help through the platform, Scribner said in a video announcement of the program.
The district has been prepping its online curriculum since before spring break, Bond said, and developing e-learning tactics for much longer.
“We have developed something that we’ve thought about for a long time, and that is online learning and distance learning,” Bond said. “And we were pushed into that much sooner than we thought we would be.”
FWISD asked parents to fill out a survey about their technology needs and has been handing out iPads, laptops and hot spots to families that indicated they need them.
The FWISD website includes resources for teachers on how to conduct virtual classes.
“We’re eager to see how that all works out by the end of the week,” Bond said. “We’ll probably make mistakes, but we’ll go back and correct them and learn from those mistakes.“
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 6:32 PM.
