The Fort Worth ISD school board will meet for the first time Tuesday with new state-appointed leadership, including new Superintendent Peter Licata, after the Texas Education Agency completed its takeover of the district earlier this week.
Tuesday’s board meeting, which will include the district’s nine new state-appointed Board of Managers members who replaced the previous elected school board, comes after a special board meeting scheduled for Friday, March 27, was canceled following TEA Commissioner Mike Morath announcing the district’s new leadership.
Here is what’s on the agenda Tuesday for the Fort Worth school district’s first board meeting since new leadership was appointed by the state.
Electing a board president, VP, secretary
Fort Worth ISD’s new Board of Managers will formally vote Tuesday on who will assume duties as board president, vice president and secretary, according to the district’s meeting agenda.
The nine board members: Bobby Ahdieh, Rosa Maria Berdeja, Luis Galindo, Laurie George, Pete Geren, Courtney Lewis, Frost Prioleau, Jay Stegall and Tennessee Walker will all cast votes.
Officials said at a new conference earlier this week that Geren is expected to serve as president of the board.
Peter Licata, the state-appointed superintendent of the Fort Worth school district, speaks during a news conference Tuesday, March 24, 2026, at the Reby Cary Youth Library. He was joined by board member Courtney Lewis, left; board chair Pete Geren; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; his wife Maria Licata; and board members Rosa Maria Berdeja and Luis Galinda. Samuel O’Neal soneal@star-telegram.com
Texas state law requires school boards to reorganize and elect officers, like president, vice president and secretary, at the first meeting following a school board election or after state-appointed selections. Officer roles are typically rotated or re-elected every year.
Superintendent agreement and certification waiver
The Board of Managers will also vote Tuesday to confirm Licata, most recently superintendent of Broward County Schools in South Florida, as the new acting superintendent of Fort Worth ISD, according to the agenda.
Licata was appointed by Morath after a nationwide search for the district’s new leader. He has never worked in education in Texas, which will require the board to grant him a waiver of his Texas state certification to confirm his hiring.
Licata is working under a 21-day interim contract until the Board of Managers gives formal approval of his long-term contract. The length of Licata’s contract is not listed on the agenda, and a copy of his contract has not been posted to the district’s website.
The superintendent certification waiver is an authorization granted by the TEA that allows a district to hire a superintendent who does not hold state certification. It was established to provide additional flexibility to districts to go out of state to find qualified leaders to right the ships of struggling districts. The waiver usually remains valid for one to three years, according to the TEA website.
All the state-appointed Board of Managers members are Texas residents, but Licata has never worked in education outside of Florida prior to his appointment this week. Morath said he hired out of state for the superintendent position because of the district’s long-standing struggle to meet statewide reading and math grade-level benchmarks. The waiver is often used to hire candidates with exceptionally strong managerial skills when a district faces specific performance challenges, like Fort Worth ISD has in recent years, according to TEA.
The state takeover of the district began when Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade received its fifth consecutive F grade in the state’s yearly accountability ratings. That triggered a Texas law that allows the state to either take over the entire district or close the campus that received the F ratings. The district had already closed the campus.
Twenty Fort Worth ISD campuses have had unacceptable ratings for at least two years. Eight schools in the district have three consecutive years of failing grades, from 2023-2025. Those outcomes gave Morath more reason to look outside the state and utilize the superintendent certification waiver.
Temporarily suspending local board policies
Tuesday’s agenda also lists the temporary suspension of several existing local board policies, which according to the district’s current online manual, are policies that deal with board members’ duties and requirements, authority, and ethics; and employment practices including at-will employment, and employee assignment and schedules.
A spokesperson for the Fort Worth school district did not immediately respond to the Star-Telegram’s request for comment on what suspension of the policies would mean.
The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Fort Worth ISD District Service Center, 7060 Camp Bowie Blvd.
Residents may sign up for public comment by calling 817-814-1920 until 4 p.m. the day of the meeting or sign up at the meeting until 5:20 p.m.
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 2:21 PM.
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Samuel O’Neal is a local news reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram covering higher education and local news in Fort Worth. He joined the team in December 2025 after previously working as a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He graduated from Temple University, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the school’s student paper, The Temple News.