Parents and community members who attended Fort Worth ISD’s recent series of community listening events and superintendent strategic action sessions most commonly named scripted lessons, campus-wide mandates, micromanagement and rigid schedules as their largest concerns since state-appointed leadership took over the district in March, according to data released by the district.
Superintendent Peter Licata and the state-appointed Board of Managers, who were appointed to their roles following the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of the district due to stagnant academic performance, held 41 total listening sessions as part of their community listening series. The district listed a total of 3,027 respondents during the sessions and through digital forms.
District leaders posed five main questions to attendees at the listening sessions, which were: What should students know and be able to do, what describes a successful graduate, what are values and non-negotiables for the district, what is the district doing that is working, and what is the district doing that is not working.
Parents, community not in favor of scripted lessons
The largest complaints at the sessions were related to scripted lessons and instructional mandates, responses show.
As part of Fort Worth ISD’s effort to overhaul the way instruction is delivered to students, state-appointed leaders developed a stricter scripted curriculum model for its campuses. Higher-rated schools gained more autonomy to teach in different ways, while lower-rated schools are required to strictly follow the model, with little tolerance for going off script.
But several parents and teachers at campuses that gained “autonomy status” who spoke to the Star-Telegram still say they have been subject to strict scripted curriculum with little opportunity for independence.
The district’s new overall instruction framework, Cowtown 12, is followed by all campuses district-wide. It includes first-teach lessons, and “demonstrations of learning” intended to prove students are absorbing content by testing their knowledge at the end of lessons.
“The one-size-fits-all mentality just does not work,” said Angie Still, a parent of two Fort Worth ISD students, in an interview with the Star-Telegram last week. “People are not airplanes; they’re not cars. They’re human beings. And they aren’t even adult human beings — they’re children. Having scripted learning takes the flexibility and creativity out of it and you’re making them lose education. How I learn may be different than how you learn.”
Other common concerns raised at listening sessions, according to the data released by the district, included cutting time for lunch, recess and arts. Part of the district’s new instructional model includes teaching from bell to bell to spend as much time as possible delivering instruction.
“If we let our teachers say, ‘OK, you’ve worked hard enough. Why don’t you put your head down for five minutes.’ Five minutes every day, that’s 25 minutes by the end of the week,” Licata told the Star-Telegram. “So we need to count on every minute. Is school going to be all unicorns and rainbows? No, school is going to be about school and learning. But we are also making sure that we aren’t taking the fun out of it.”
Reading, grade-level core academics remain most important to parents
Listening session responses released by the district show parents view reading and grade-level core academics as the most important things that Fort Worth ISD students should know.
Other top responses included: critical thinking, communication, financial literacy, and math.
Almost 21% of responses, both in-person and via virtual forms, listed reading as the most important thing for students to know how to do, while 19% listed grade-level core academics. Fort Worth ISD students are reading on grade level well below the state average, according to recent STAAR test data released over the summer.
Just 40% of students in grades 3 through 8 in Fort Worth ISD met grade level on reading STAAR exams this past school year, according to TEA data. For high school freshmen, that number was even lower, at just 38% meeting grade level on the English I STAAR exam.
Licata and members of the Board of Managers have called the district’s literacy crisis the most important issue they face.
Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Peter Licata speaks to a crowd of people at a strategic action listening session at Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School on Aug. 27. Samuel O’Neal FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Trust, communication and transparency among parents’ ‘non-negotiables’
Twenty-one percent of respondents said that trust was the most important value or non-negotiable for the district to establish, while honesty and transparency was the second most important, with 16% of responses.
Parents have clashed with district-leaders over transparency and communication concerns since they were appointed by TEA in March. Appointed Board of Managers Chair Pete Geren began his tenure by giving public speakers at board meetings more time to talk, attaching more explanation materials to board agendas, and hosting listening sessions. He described those moves as “radical transparency” with parents and members of the community.
But still, hundreds of Fort Worth ISD parents have felt like the district isn’t doing enough. They have raised concerns over a suddenly adopted classroom web camera policy, campuses not receiving promised applied learning programs, staff and program cuts, and campus closures.
“We have seen the term ‘radical transparency’ used by this board,” said Keith Annis, a Fort Worth ISD parent, during a board meeting. “Answering our questions and holding to those answers is my definition of radical transparency.”
Licata, district leaders say they need more community involvement in listening events
Despite more than 3,000 responses at in-person events and through digital forms, Licata still believes the district has not heard from enough parents.
“We need to be honest about this,” Licata wrote in a news release earlier this month. “We did not reach enough of our community. We heard from people who were willing and able to come to us, but Fort Worth ISD serves approximately 63,000 students, and we have to do a better job of reaching the families of all 63,000.”
Licata also wrote in the release that community engagement cannot only be limited to the loudest parents who show up to the most listening sessions or school board meetings, but the district has to do a better job at finding voices that are harder to reach.
“Our communication can always be better,” Licata told an attendee during a listening session at Diamond-Hill Jarvis High School earlier this month. “I hear about transparency a lot. So when we aren’t communicating well, you’re right. I don’t know how much more you want to get out of me, but you’re right and I hear you. That is why we are sitting here [at the listening session] right now.”
Licata and members of the Board of Managers will hold a goals and guardrails board workshop on Saturday, Sept. 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to closely go over responses from the community during the listening sessions and implement changes using the feedback. The meeting will be held at the District Service Center, at 7060 Camp Bowie Blvd. It will be livestreamed and archived on the Fort Worth ISD Live YouTube channel, and on the FWISD Video on Demand site.
Editor’s note: Fort Worth ISD Board of Managers chair Pete Geren is the president and chief executive officer of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, which is a funder of the Star-Telegram’s Crossroads Lab. The Star-Telegram retains independence in all coverage decisions.
This story was originally published September 24, 2026 at 10:27 AM.
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Samuel O’Neal is the K-12 Education Reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, covering public schools and policy that impacts them. He previously worked as a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a graduate of Temple University.