Newly elected Democratic state Sen. Taylor Rehmet vowed to fight for public education at the Texas Capitol while urging constituents to keep up the fight on the local level.
About 100 people joined Rehmet Thursday night for his first public town hall since winning in January the Texas Senate District 9 seat that represents much of Tarrant County. The evening featured a panel discussion on Texas public education and Q&A with the senator as two of the 15 school districts in his district recently relinquished local control to state-appointed boards of managers.
“This is our first town hall and we start with public education for a reason,” Rehmet told the crowd. “If we want to be serious about the future of Texas, this is where our conversation has to begin.”
The panel featured Fort Worth ISD elected board President Roxanne Martinez, FWISD teacher Ale Checka and Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers.
Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, left, speaks during a Public Education Town Hall on April 30 at the Northpark YMCA in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Sen. Taylor Rehmet opens up the Public Education Town Hall on April 30 at the Northpark YMCA in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
The town hall came more than two months after Rehmet took his oath of office in Austin. While he seeks reelection in November for his first full-length term, his current term is largely ceremonial as the Legislature doesn’t return to session until 2027.
Preparation for the next legislative session began in March when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, assigned senators to committees that study policy topics. Rehmet was one of four senators to not receive an assignment — the other three are set to vacate their seats.
At the time, Rehmet accused Patrick of silencing his district over “petty partisan politics.” Rehmet flipped the seat left vacant for months by former Republican Sen. Kelly Hancock, who now serves as the state’s acting comptroller.
Thursday night’s event was about “listening and learning,” Rehmet told the Fort Worth Report after the event. He added that it’s important to him that his constituents have a forum to engage with their government. Other elected officials, including Fort Worth ISD trustee Anne Darr, Keller ISD trustee Randy Campbell and Northwest ISD trustee Steve Sprowls, were also in attendance.
“It’s a way that I can say we’re doing something right now, and we’re not waiting till 2027. We’re not waiting for a committee. We’re not waiting for these things,” Rehmet said. “We’re actually doing something in our community that’s measurable.”
The conversation quickly turned to the state’s recent takeover of Fort Worth and Lake Worth ISDs, a move panelists and attendees repeatedly criticized as an overreach that stripped local control from voters.
“In our own backyard, the state recently replaced our superintendents and our elected school boards, undermining our local control and cutting our community out of the conversation,” Rehmet said.
Attendees listen to the Public Education Town Hall on April 30 at the Northpark YMCA in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has defended the state’s intervention as necessary to address years of low academic performance. He has also emphasized that board of managers members are selected for their local ties and experience.
FWISD President Martinez, whose authority was removed when the state installed managers, said the shift has left families without answers.
“I still have parents calling me daily with questions that I have no answers to,” she said. “Transparency has been lost.”
Community input has diminished under the new governance structure, she said, even as major decisions — including program changes and campus closures — move forward.
The Fort Worth ISD board of managers voted Tuesday to approve a sweeping restructuring plan that includes the closure of the International Newcomer Academy and staff reductions to bilingual and special education services, despite hours of public comment opposing the moves.
In a Wednesday statement, Superintendent Peter Licata said the changes are intended to strengthen Fort Worth ISD and improve outcomes for all students by more effectively using resources.
The restructuring is not meant to reduce services but to “direct more support into classrooms and toward the students who need it most,” he said, adding that no student will lose access to required services.
“I know my constituents rarely attend a board meeting, but they have lots of questions that are unanswered,” Martinez said Thursday night.
Fort Worth ISD elected board President Roxanne Martinez speaks during a Public Education Town Hall on April 30 at the Northpark YMCA in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
Also attending the town hall, Fort Worth ISD Chief of Staff Louis Kushner said district leadership has been in communication with Rehmet.
Licata met with the senator and his chief of staff, Jason Ballmann, in recent weeks to discuss the district’s priorities, emphasizing the need for an open line of communication and outlining the district’s plans, Kushner said.
Rehmet confirmed in a statement Friday that he met with Licata, adding that the superintendent emphasized student outcomes “above all else” during the meeting.
“If I had been notified in that meeting of the board of managers’ intent to lay off special education staff and close campuses that specifically help the students most in need of our support, I would have expressed the same concerns I expressed publicly after Tuesday’s board meeting,” Rehmet’s statement read.
During Thursday’s event, Rehmet said International Newcomer Academy’s shutdown happened quickly and without adequate input. He lamented the closure and noted his own need for special education as a student with dyslexia — Fort Worth ISD students deserve the support he had growing up, he said.
“This was a bit too far,” he told the Report. “We have to find a way where the community has a say, because they did have their say and (the board of managers) still decided to (cut staff).”
Panelists connected concerns about the takeover to broader decisions at the state level, citing school funding and the expansion of voucher programs.
Capo said the state’s new voucher-like program — which provides more than $10,000 per student for private education — will likely grow over time. He believes it will divert resources from public schools.
Gov. Greg Abbott has pushed back on that criticism.
“Some people say, ‘Well, this is going to cause schools to shut down,’ or something like that. That’s very uninformed,” the governor said in a 2023 interview with KDFW/Channel 4.
Attendees ask Sen. Taylor Rehmet questions during a Public Education Town Hall on April 30 at the Northpark YMCA in Fort Worth. (Christine Vo | Fort Worth Report)
That shift in policy comes as the state’s base level of school funding has remained largely unchanged for years, panelists said.
Texas’ basic allotment — the per-student funding amount that drives school finance formulas — was set at $6,160 in 2019 and saw a modest increase to about $6,215 under recent legislation, which is set to take effect next school year.
Increasing that funding level would be one of Rehmet’s top priorities heading into the next legislative session, he said.
“That right there is one of the biggest indicators of student outcomes,” Rehmet said. “That’s where we have to start the conversation.”
He also pointed to the state’s reliance on average daily attendance — rather than enrollment — to determine funding as another issue districts face.
“We need to look at how we fund our schools and whether those systems are actually serving students,” Rehmet said.
The strain from limited funding shows up in classrooms through staffing shortages and larger class sizes. Increased testing requirements are a separate challenge in the classroom, educators said.
“I don’t care about STAAR, I care that I’m losing five weeks of instructional time every year,” Checka said.
She said the volume of testing — much of it tied to state accountability systems and incentive programs — takes away instruction without improving student outcomes.
Those policies reflect broader decisions made at the state level that prioritize accountability systems over classroom flexibility, panelists said.
“We have policies that are incongruent. They don’t align, and they work against one another,” Capo said.
During the senator’s Q&A with attendees, Rehmet faced questions ranging from his legislative priorities to his approach to bipartisanship.
Throughout the evening, he urged attendees to stay engaged at the local level. Although many speakers voiced concerns about the FWISD board of managers ignoring the public, Rehmet repeatedly urged attendees to hold the board accountable by showing up to school board meetings, voicing concerns and keeping up the pressure.
“I hate that we’re having to go through this, and we need to fight back by contacting our officials, letting them know how we see things and how stuff like that is an attack on all of us,” Rehmet said.
Disclosure: FWISD manager Pete Geren leads the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report’s reader advisory council. FWISD manager Courtney Lewis is a member of the Report’s business advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/01/fort-worth-senator-blasts-state-takeover-tells-residents-to-hold-board-of-managers-accountable/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=521927&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/01/fort-worth-senator-blasts-state-takeover-tells-residents-to-hold-board-of-managers-accountable/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>