If a school receives four failing ratings, districts have three options to prevent a takeover: close the campus, partner with an outside organization to manage the campus, or turn the school around themselves.
Under a 2017 state law, districts can partner with nonprofits, universities, charter schools or other groups to manage low-performing campuses — also known as an 1882 partnership.
Through the partnership, the district authorizes an outside organization to operate a school to try and turn it around. That group then takes on day-to-day management, including staff, curriculum, calendars and assessments.
When districts make these partnership deals, the state gives them additional funding and a two-year pause on sanctions.
Some districts have used this to avoid a takeover. Austin ISD’s board of trustees gave a nonprofit control of three struggling middle schools to maintain local control of the district.
Duncan Klussmann, a clinical associate professor of education at the University of Houston, said it’s important for districts to have a plan and adopt it as quickly as possible to avoid a takeover.
“The biggest aspect of what I’ve witnessed is just districts not having a clear plan in place in the early years,” Klussmann said. “Say you’re in year one and two (of failing accountability grades), and then they’re waiting with their backs to the wall later on.”
Districts can also opt to close a school with consecutive failing accountability scores before it reaches its fifth one.
In Austin ISD, which was facing a budget crunch and increased state scrutiny, Superintendent Matias Segura said that accountability ratings put some “important limits” on how the district closed schools. The district ultimately decided to close 10 campuses, including seven that had three years of failing ratings.
However, a campus closure does not always prevent a takeover. Beaumont ISD closed Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in 2024 after it received multiple failing grades. A state takeover, however, was triggered when the delayed release of 2023 accountability scores showed that the middle school, along with another campus, had received five consecutive failures.