FWISD’s first day of school brings excitement despite looming state takeover
A bubble machine, blue and yellow balloons, and a colorful “welcome back to school” sign greeted families as they entered the doors of Mary Louise Phillips Elementary School on Tuesday morning to kick off the 2025-26 school year in the Fort Worth Independent School District.
Superintendent Karen Molinar danced with students and gave them high-fives. Parents paused in the hallway to take a photo of their child posing with a balloon shaped like a school bus. The campus in west Fort Worth was buzzing with excitement. This year marks the test of new districtwide policies, like photo-ID badges for students, and new statewide laws, such as a ban on cellphone use during the school day.
Before Molinar and Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker visited classrooms to continue mingling with teachers and students, they shared their enthusiasm for the new year during a news conference where they also addressed an ominous cloud that is still hanging over the district: a potential takeover by the Texas Education Agency.
Molinar said she’s been updating Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath on Fort Worth ISD’s progress and the district’s new academic policies that are being introduced, such as a new lesson structure for teachers and block schedule for middle schools.
Parker said no matter what the decision ends up being from the state, “we are ready.” She underscored her support of Molinar’s leadership since she took over the district last October as interim leader and was later selected to the superintendent position permanently in March.
“What you heard from (Molinar) is: whatever that decision, we are ready. We’re going to operate at top level for the next several months, demonstrating whether we have the right plan in place for this school district and for this community. That’s what we can control right now,” Parker said of a possible state takeover.
Fort Worth ISD will continue serving its students while moving forward with the school year as it awaits a decision from Morath this fall, Molinar said. The commissioner will visit and tour schools in the district next month before he decides whether to move forward with the takeover.
“We’re going to continue to move on and do what’s right for our students and really become student-centered and student-focused here in Fort Worth ISD,” Molinar said.
Over 50 schools improve in state A-F grades
On Friday, new insights into the district’s academic performance will be released through the state’s 2025 A-F accountability ratings, which measure academic performance of campuses and districts with an emphasis on scores from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam, or STAAR. Molinar said on Tuesday that more than 50 Fort Worth ISD campuses improved by a letter grade in the 2025 rankings.
“We decreased our F campuses from 31 to 11, so we have wonderful news to share about the great things that are happening in Fort Worth Independent School District,” Molinar said, noting that officials would share more examples of progress later in the week.
She highlighted M.L. Phillips Elementary as “a beacon of success.”
“M.L. Phillips has grown more than 30 points to go from an F-rated campus to a B-rated campus. That is from the dedication of the students, the faculty, the parents, and, of course, their amazing principal,” Molinar added.
Drasean Gray’s daughter, Amya, was starting third grade this year at the campus, he said. She’s an A-student who enjoys reading, but Gray hopes she can enjoy math more this year.
“There’s not much to improve on, but I would like for her to like math like I do,” Gray said.
Down the hallway, a fourth-grader in Zoe Willey’s classroom told Mayor Parker she was 9 years old, a fan of Hello Kitty and that her favorite subject was math. Another student told Molinar some of his favorite things were his Xbox and fried chicken from Popeyes.
Willey, a fourth-grade reading teacher, said she was eager to get to know all of her new students and see their personalities. Willey is looking forward to reading “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson with them during the school year, as the students tend to enjoy learning about the pirates in the book.
“We end up being like our own little family,” she said of her students. “It’s really exciting to see them starting out all young and little and then being big fifth-graders by the end of the year.”
Why is Fort Worth ISD at risk of a state takeover?
The Texas Education Agency releases A-F accountability ratings for campuses and school districts annually. They are intended to give a snapshot of how campuses and districts are faring academically through a formula that is heavily weighted by scores from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam, or STAAR. If a campus receives five failed ratings in a row, state law requires the commissioner of education to intervene through two options: closing the school or replacing the school board with a state-appointed board of managers.
The Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade received its fifth failed rating upon the delayed release of the 2023 ratings. Those grades were put on pause for two years amid a lawsuit from various school districts disputing the state’s change in how it calculates the accountability ratings. The 2023 grades were recently released in April, triggering the warning to Fort Worth ISD of a possible state takeover. The district has appealed the 2023 F rating for the campus, and the appeals process is expected to be finished this month.
But Fort Worth ISD already closed Forest Oak Sixth Grade at the end of the 2022-23 school year and consolidated it with Forest Oak Middle School. Morath told district officials that he might still be obligated to take action regardless of the school’s closure. On June 24, Morath told the State Board of Education he plans to make a final decision later this year.
What’s new this school year in Fort Worth ISD?
District officials declared literacy as their top priority in the midst of the previous school year and rolled out a five-year strategic plan for the district to meet certain academic performance goals. This includes increasing the percentage of third-graders reading on grade level to 50% by 2029. In spring 2025, 36% of third-graders across all demographics in the district met this benchmark.
The new school year marks a shift in classrooms, with a new lesson plan structure focused on creating consistency in reading and math instruction and cutting down planning time. Teachers will be supplied with slide decks and lesson materials by the district while following a three-part framework: first teach; demonstration of learning; and reteach and challenge.
Beyond academics, a new safety measure requires Fort Worth ISD students to wear ID badges with their photos during the school day and after-school activities. The badges will also be scanned when students get on and off school buses and will be used to check out library books and buy snacks during lunch.
In addition to new district-led policies and focuses, new state laws impacting all Texas public schools are going into effect in the coming weeks.
Cellphones are banned from being used by students during the school day. Fort Worth ISD is allowing students to have their cellphones in a nonvisible place, like their pocket or backpack, for safety purposes but is requiring them to be turned off.
The Fort Worth ISD school board must approve all new library materials with recommendations given by the district’s local school library advisory council at an open meeting, in accordance with another state law. A list of new library materials under consideration must be made public for review at least 30 days before it can be approved. Parents are able to access a list of all library books and flag certain ones they don’t want their child checking out from the library. Any person residing in the district can file a challenge to a library material.
Another law requires school districts to create a policy that prohibits employees from using a transgender student’s preferred name or pronouns, which the law refers to as “social transitioning.” Districts are also barred from sponsoring student clubs that are based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and instruction on the same topics is prohibited.
Starting Sept. 1, public school classrooms are required to have a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments displayed “in a conspicuous place.” If a classroom doesn’t have the biblical text posted, the school must accept a privately donated poster or copy that contains specific wording and size requirements. Schools may purchase the materials using district funds but are not required to. At least two lawsuits have been filed challenging this law.
This story was originally published August 12, 2025 at 12:40 PM.
