Fort Worth ISD could turn this struggling campus over to Texas Wesleyan. Here’s why.
.JPG "Changes could be coming for Leonard Middle School in Fort Worth ISD.")
Officials in the Fort Worth Independent School District are looking to turn over operations at a struggling middle school to Texas Wesleyan University as a part of an six-year-old partnership with the college.
Fort Worth ISD’s board will consider a proposal to renew its partnership with the university to run the five campuses currently in the district’s Leadership Academy Network, and also to add Leonard Middle School to the network.
Leonard Middle School has struggled academically for years, posting an F rating every year that the Texas Education Agency has released A-F accountability scores, except for 2022, when the agency didn’t award failure ratings. Just 8% of the campus’ students scored on grade level in math on last year’s state test. About 17% scored on grade level in reading.
Karen Molinar, the district’s interim superintendent, said in a statement that the expanded partnership between the district and the university “reinforces Fort Worth ISD’s commitment to providing high-quality educational opportunities for all students.”
In 2017, Fort Worth ISD transformed five chronically underperforming campuses —Mitchell Boulevard, Como, John T. White, and Maude I. Logan elementary schools and Forest Oak Middle School — into leadership academies as part of a $5.5 million effort to boost academic performance at those schools. The schools got an extended school day, and district leaders offered stipends to entice the most effective teachers to come work at those campuses.
Two years later, the district partnered with Texas Wesleyan to operate those campuses under a framework laid out in Senate Bill 1882, which offers financial incentives for districts to partner with universities, charter school operators and other outside organizations. Under the partnership, those schools remain zoned neighborhood campuses in Fort Worth ISD, but Texas Wesleyan takes over day-to-day operations.
In an era before the state issued A-F scores, all five campuses received “improvement required” ratings the year before the partnership, indicating they failed to meet state standards. All five received either a B or C rating in Fort Worth ISD’s most recent A-F scores, which were calculated by the district and confirmed by TEA.
The board is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18, at the Fort Worth ISD Service Center, 7060 Camp Bowie Blvd.
