This announcement comes after the previous superintendent resigned earlier this month.

LAKE WORTH, Texas — Following the resignation of its superintendent amid an imminent takeover by the Texas Education Agency, Lake Worth ISD has named a new acting superintendent.

The district’s assistant superintendent of teaching and learning. Trent Dowd has been appointed to serve in the role. 

Dowd will remain in the position until the TEA commissioner names a new superintendent.

In a statement, Dowd said he is honored to serve as acting superintendent and emphasized that the district “will remain steadfast in its mission and vision, keeping students at the center of every decision.”

The previous superintendent, Mark Ramirez, announced his resignation at a board meeting in early March. His last day was March 13, less than a year after he joined the district in May of 2025.

In December of last year, the TEA announced it would be taking over operations of the district after all but one of its campuses received failing grades.

In a letter to Lake Worth ISD’s superintendent and board of trustees in December, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath wrote that he was ordering the appointment of a board of managers and a conservator to oversee the district after TEA conducted an analysis of district data and vetted its systems, leadership and student results.

“Unacceptable academic performance in a single year represents significant academic weakness – typically less than one-third of students in those campuses reach grade level and less than one-half of students on those campuses demonstrate a year’s worth of academic growth,” Morath wrote. “When that unacceptable performance continues for multiple years, the children in those campuses develop significant academic gaps. Multi-year unacceptable ratings represent a school district’s most fundamental mission failure and a complete inability to take necessary action to provide a high quality education for students.”

Morath wrote that Lake Worth ISD has also shown a chronic inability to support students to achieve and learn at high levels, with only 24% of students across all district students meeting grade level, 28% below the state average. This is worse than in 2019, Morath said, when only 27% of the district’s students met grade level.