Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath visits FWISD ahead of takeover decision
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath visited three campuses in the Fort Worth Independent School District on Thursday ahead of his decision on whether the agency will take over the district
.Morath visited Clifford Davis Elementary School, William James Middle School and the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Middle School. Morath said he hoped to see the strategies the district has in place for supporting teachers and principals.
During a news conference at Willam James, Morath said he planned to draw on what he saw during the campus visits, as well as data on the district’s performance overall, to make the decision on whether a takeover would be necessary. Morath visited classrooms in third through seventh grade and observed instruction in English and math.
A few minutes after noon on Thursday, Morath was in Cindy Ortega’s eighth grade math classroom at William James, looking over a pair of students’ shoulders as they worked on algebra problems. Across the room, Ortega was working with a pod of four students, walking them through a problem they were struggling with. A few desks away, Superintendent Karen Molinar, who accompanied Morath on his site visits, talked another student through another math problem.
Morath said the site visits allowed him to sit with teachers as they went through their planning processes, delivered instruction and reflected on the lessons they’d taught. That time gave him a sense of how teachers in the district approach the curriculum. What he saw in the district included “highs and lows,” he said.
Fort Worth ISD faces the possibility of state takeover after one of its campuses, Forest Oak Sixth Grade Center, received five consecutive failure ratings. The school’s fifth F came as a part of TEA’s 2023 ratings, which the agency released in June after a two-year court battle. The district closed the campus in 2023 and merged it with nearby Forest Oak Middle School. Morath has said the fact that Forest Oak Sixth is already closed has no bearing on his decision. The commissioner said Thursday that he plans to announce his decision within the next three months.
‘Hyper-focused’ on student performance, superintendent says
More recently, Fort Worth ISD has been able to point to academic progress. The district posted gains across almost every grade level and subject — including reading, math, science and social studies — for students meeting grade level. Only in fifth grade math did the district see a decline, with 34% of students scoring on grade level this year compared to 36% last year.
In a prepared statement, Molinar said the district is “hyper-focused” on improving student performance.
“There is no time to waste when it comes to our students’ success in the classroom, and we are grateful to Commissioner Morath for taking time to visit with our students and see our progress firsthand,” she said.
The idea of a state takeover has been met with pushback from some parents in the district, who argue that such a drastic intervention could upend the district’s progress before it has a chance to completely take hold. A new parent organization, Families Organized Resisting Takeover, or FORT, began this month. The group plans to lobby local elected officials whom they hope could influence Morath’s decision.
Morath acknowledged that a takeover would be a big change, but he said the district needs major changes. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be in the position it finds itself in, he said. If a takeover happens, it will be laser focused on making sure every student in the district has a safe school with caring adults who deliver high-quality instruction, he said.
“I want all five and a half million kids in Texas to have access to a great school,” he said. “And that’s all that we are focused on trying to make sure happens in Fort Worth.”
This story was originally published August 28, 2025 at 1:18 PM.
