5 Fort Worth ISD school board seats are on May ballot. Here are incumbents’ priorities.
Five out of the nine seats on the Fort Worth Independent School District school board are on the ballot this spring. All incumbents have filed or confirmed their intentions to run for reelection, but it remains to be seen which challengers might come forward with their own campaigns and whether voters could initiate more leadership changes as the district also searches for a permanent superintendent.
The filing period began on Jan. 15, and three incumbents have formally filed to run for reelection in the past week: Trustees Michael Ryan of District 7, Anael Luebanos of District 8, and Wallace Bridges of District 4. Trustees Camille Rodriguez of District 1 and Roxanne Martinez of District 9 confirmed they are also planning to have their names on the May 3 ballot. Applicants have until Feb. 14 to fill out the paperwork.
No challengers had come forward to compete for these four-year, single-member-district seats as of Wednesday, according to the district’s election page.
The election comes against the backdrop of Fort Worth ISD’s heightened focus on improving literacy and academic achievement, underscored this week by a news conference where board members announced a pledge to ensure all students can read on grade level while directing Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar to create a plan that moves the district toward that goal. During the Tuesday, Jan. 21 school board meeting that followed the press conference, the board also approved a five-year strategic plan that includes a literacy goal of having 50% of third-graders reading on grade level by 2029 with annual gains leading up to it.
The strategic plan and the district identifying literacy as its top priority comes after Mayor Mattie Parker and several community leaders in August publicly called on the district to turn around its stagnant performance. Superintendent Angélica Ramsey resigned from her position almost a month later after serving in the role for about two years. Interim Superintendent Molinar, who has worked for the district for 26 years, was appointed to the role in October. The school board began accepting applications from interested superintendent candidates starting Thursday, Jan. 23 for a 10-day window. Officials plan to hire someone before the 2025-26 school year.
In addition to literacy priorities and leadership transitions, the district is also focused on rebuilding its relationships with community organizations and devising a facilities master plan that is expected to result in school closures. Officials have already decided to close the district’s sixth-grade campuses, sending those students to nearby middle schools with seventh- and eighth-graders.
Here what the board’s incumbents are saying about a few of these topics and their vision moving forward. It should be noted that Board President Martinez was unable to answer all of the Star-Telegram’s questions by Wednesday evening due to having limited time related to a personal matter.
Why they’re running & why voters should consider them
Wallace Bridges said voters should keep him in office because he’s stayed consistent with the three focuses of his original campaign: third-grade reading, particularly for African-American students, parent engagement and teacher morale.
“I’ve been very consistent in that. Pretty much everything that I’ve done has kind of been built around that,” Bridges said. “I feel very, very optimistic in terms of where we will be going. These are the issues — the issues that I talked about are now at the top.”
Anael Luebanos said he has eight years of experience on the board and is committed to his community.
“(I) try to find solutions and try to provide the best for our students and for our teachers,” he said. “The board approved the new strategic plan (on Tuesday). So I want to be able to make sure that we follow that plan for the next four years.”
Roxanne Martinez, who currently serves as board president, said in a statement she wants to continue the work she’s started, such as helping navigate the district through the pandemic and working with her colleagues to pass the strategic plan.
“As a product of FWISD and a parent of students in FWISD, I am running for re-election to FWISD school board because I care about FWISD students and want every FWISD student to have an opportunity to succeed. As a trustee, I have helped navigate our district out of the pandemic and worked with staff and colleagues to pass the new strategic plan. I would like to continue this work on the board.”
Camille Rodriguez said voters should elect her to stay on the board because she’s a product of the community and has shown her dedication to it over her lifetime while continually allocating several hours a week to school board activities.
“I invested in the community. I invested in Fort Worth ISD schools. I live in the community. I shop in the community. I worship in the community. I go to the post office,” she said. “I know what needs to be done to best educate our kids, and I am willing to work hard.”
Michael Ryan said there’s unfinished business from when he first joined the board, such as implementing fiscal responsibility in how the district operates. There are also decisions to be made later this year about which schools might have to be closed in the face of declining enrollment and underutilized campuses and facilities.
“Everybody wants us to be fiscally responsible and close those schools that aren’t needed, but at the same time, if it was their school, they don’t want it to close. You got to work through that and try to take care of everybody and be open enough and explain why you’re doing what you need to do to be, like I said, fiscally responsible in the district,” Ryan said.
Superintendent search
Bridges:
“I want someone to be able to say, ‘Here’s some real problems, but here’s the things that we’re doing to address the problems, and here’s the thing that you can do from your space to address those problems,’” he said. “I’m not leaning any way, one way or another. I just want someone who’s able to fulfill those shoes.”
Luebanos:
- “(I’m looking for) someone who has experience dealing with business, going out to a nonprofit, being in the classroom, and someone that understands the issues that we have, and understands the TEA system.“
Rodriguez:
“We want someone with superintendent experience, leadership experience, a doctorate (and) principal experience… We want someone who can come in and is ready to go,” she said. “I want somebody who’s dedicated to our children, is going to feed our strategic plan and goals that we have in place, and be passionate about learning and teaching our students and our teachers and our school community to be as one.”
Ryan:
“(Molinar) is a rock star, and it’ll take even bigger rock star to go beyond that, but there are people out there who could. So I’m looking forward to hearing what the folks in my district have to say. And once we get any of the applications in, we look at them, see what they’ve got, see what quality there is out there.”
Student literacy & the district’s strategic plan
Bridges:
“I’m 100% supportive of (the strategic plan). I think we’ve got to be bold. I think we’ve got to be aggressive. I think what I see different is not only the resources… but the energy is kind of built around that,” he said. “It’s almost like, for the first time, all the stars are lined up in agreement that these are issues that we’ve got to address, and ‘how can we all kind of roll up our sleeves in the space that we’re in to make that happen?’”
Luebanos:
“Fifty percent may not be what we all want. We all want 100%, but we have to be realistic. We have to see where the state is and where the nation is. And I believe that we can get to 50% by 2029,” he said. “I would encourage everybody that has the time, to read to their kids at home and the people who can come during the day, I would encourage them to be volunteers at our schools. We all can do a little bit to help out.”
Martinez:
“It will be crucial that we establish a monitoring calendar and report progress towards our goals on a regular basis. I would love to see FWISD exceed the designated targets and believe that we can. Progress monitoring will allow us to propose changes should goals need recalibration to reflect higher targets.”
Rodriguez:
“I’d like to see it at 60 or 70% in five years. So then 70% would be passing. Ideally, we get 100%, but that’s going to take a little longer because of where we are and where we have been for the past 20 years. So it’s going to be a long and thoughtful process. And we are ready to put in everything that needs to be done to make sure our students are successful. It’s been way too long that our numbers have been this low.”
Ryan:
“I think that it’s really possible to reach that 50%. Now, if I’m on the outside looking in and going, ‘They only want half their kids to be able to read in five years?’ I’d be going, ‘It needs to be better than that.’ The board wants to be better than that, and I know that Dr. Molinar and her team wants it to be better than that, too, but (we’re) trying to be realistic to get up there.”
Facilities master plan & school closures
Bridges:
“Some of those tough decisions is going to benefit our students further down the road,” he said. “We have to have conversations, real hard conversations, about how we’re going to address (declining enrollment). But at the same time, how we are going to make the district more attractive as well... I think that people have seen that, but it has not been clearly explained. That’s something that we’ve got to do a better job.”
Luebanos:
“We heard the stakeholders, the community, and then we also heard the teachers. We know by having a bigger campus with more students, we can offer more choices to our students,” he said in reference to the closure of McLean Sixth Grade Center and transferring those students to McLean Middle School. He also noted that a facilities task force is evaluating potential consolidations while receiving community feedback across the district.
Rodriguez:
“I believe our last facilities master plan was in 2007, so almost 20 years ago. A lot of our buildings were built in the 1940s and ‘50s. So it’s well past due. I’m glad we’re finally doing it. It is expensive, but it’s a necessity because there’s no sense in continuing to put money into schools that are not sustainable,” she said. “We can’t continue to have schools with the enrollment of 300, which cost the same to maintain as it does a school of 700. That’s not fiscally responsible.”
Ryan:
“Hopefully by May or June, we can make those decisions on what, if any, schools need to close.” (See more comments under the “why they’re running & why voters should consider them” subheading)
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 11:44 AM.
