Fort Worth ISD superintendent says schools can’t rest on new A-F rating gains
Although the Fort Worth Independent School District is celebrating dramatic gains in this year’s A-F scores, the district’s superintendent said its leaders can’t lose sight of the fact that schools are still in a reading and math crisis.
Fort Worth ISD has about a third as many F-rated campuses this year as it did last year, according to preliminary A-F scores the district released Wednesday, and more than 60 schools moved up a letter grade. District Superintendent Karen Molinar said those gains are based on progress Fort Worth ISD made at the end of the last school year. But if the district can’t sustain that progress, that success could be short-lived, she said.
“Our campuses who made those tremendous gains, they still have to do something different this coming school year,” she said. “They can’t just do what they did last year.”
Texas A-F school ratings show progress in FWISD
The Texas Education Agency released its A-F accountability scores for 2024 and 2025 on Friday. You can check the grade for your school or district at TXschools.gov.
Fort Worth ISD officials released a preliminary rundown of the district’s scores Wednesday, showing that 63 schools gained a letter grade compared with last year. The district also has 11 F-rated campuses in this year’s ratings, compared with 31 last year.
Molinar told the Star-Telegram that the improved ratings were primarily due to the progress schools made on STAAR exams. A-F ratings are based largely on how students perform on the Texas state test, but there are a number of criteria state education officials consider when they calculate those grades. The school’s overall performance is a big factor, but so is the amount of progress schools made on the test from one year to the next.
But that progress doesn’t necessarily mean that those schools are where they should be academically — if dozens of students on one campus failed the exam one year, then performed just under grade level the next, the school is making strides. But those students still haven’t mastered all the material they should have. That means those schools that improved their ratings this year can’t take their foot off the gas, Molinar said.
“We’ve got to continue to push and grow, or it’s possible those students and those campuses can move backwards if we don’t do something different this year,” she said.
Molinar said the progress schools made this year was due in large part to a shift in strategy that involved more individualized attention for students. School leaders used performance data to see which students were struggling and what concepts they needed help with. Then, Molinar sent about 150 district-level staff members into classrooms three days a week to work directly with those students, giving them extra instruction in the specific areas they needed it.
Molinar said those district staff members helped in two ways: They gave struggling students the support they needed to help them catch up, and they gave teachers the ability to work with a smaller class during the block of time they were in the room.
Having those staff members work directly with students represented a change from the way the district operates, Molinar said. For years, Fort Worth ISD had asked those staffers to focus on helping teachers improve their teaching skills, with the assumption that better instruction — and, therefore, higher test scores — would follow. But the district poured money into that strategy for years and didn’t see results, Molinar said.
This year, Fort Worth ISD is formalizing that change. In March, the district’s board approved a staffing plan that converted instructional coach, district content coach and dean of instruction positions to so-called demonstration teacher jobs. Demonstration teachers spend half the day working with their own classes and the other half offering support to other teachers, either through instructional coaching or by working with small groups of students who need extra support.
Fort Worth ISD faces possible state takeover
The progress comes as the prospect of a possible state takeover looms over Fort Worth ISD. The district is facing state intervention after one of its campuses, Forest Oak Sixth Grade Center, received five consecutive failure ratings. When a campus reaches that threshold, the state education commissioner is required to either close that campus or take over the entire district and replace its school board.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath hasn’t yet said which action he’ll take in Fort Worth ISD. During a State Board of Education meeting in June, Morath said Fort Worth ISD has “pretty profound challenges,” but also acknowledged the district has a new superintendent. The commissioner expects to visit the district in September and announce his decision sometime this fall.
Molinar said she discussed Fort Worth ISD’s progress with Morath a few months ago, including preliminary STAAR scores and the results the district has seen on MAP benchmark tests that students take three times a year. She also discussed strategies the district is putting in place to help students gain ground academically.
Molinar said she worries that a state takeover could pause some of the progress the district is making. Anytime there’s a change in leadership, many people stop what they’re doing until they know what the new leader wants, she said. If enough people in Fort Worth ISD do that, it could mean the strategies that led to success this year could come to a halt. But no matter what Morath ultimately decides to do, Molinar said she’s confident that the plans the district is putting in place this year will help students continue to learn and grow.
This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 1:47 PM.
