Students arrive at W.M. Green Elementary School for the first day of school on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026, in Fort Worth.
Amanda McCoy
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
The Fort Worth school district will begin the school year with zero core classroom teacher vacancies, Superintendent Peter Licata announced Monday morning on the first day of school.
More than 1,000 teachers resigned from Fort Worth ISD after the Texas Education Agency took over the district in March due to stagnant academic performance. That number was up 58% from last year’s deadline. By last year’s deadline, just 648 teachers had announced their resignation.
Licata said Monday that the district’s decision to give classroom teachers a 5% raise was a major recruiting tool and made Fort Worth ISD an attractive destination for teachers in nearby school districts.
“There were over 1,000 separations, and those happened for various reasons,” Licata said. “But starting a school year with zero teaching vacancies, that is unprecedented.”
District leaders held hiring fairs several times a week throughout June and July to aggressively address the larger-than-usual number of open positions. They also offered a virtual information session for potential teachers outside the Dallas-Fort worth area.
The district worked with partners across the state and the nation to identify teachers who may be a good fit. They also sent emails to a number of education departments at universities across the United States promoting teaching opportunities in Fort Worth.
“At our virtual information sessions, we had teachers who were from all over,” said Fort Worth ISD’s Human Resources Chief Denisha Presley. “There were teachers there who were in the Philippines. There were teachers who were logging on from Georgia, California, just all over the country. And certainly there were teachers here in Texas as well.”
Fort Worth ISD’s job board still shows dozens of openings for teaching jobs, as of Aug. 10. Those positions include: Dyslexia teachers, arts, athletics, health and physical education teachers, CTE teachers and special education teachers. There are also vacancies for bilingual support teachers, speech language pathologists, school psychologists, dyslexia specialists, inclusion teachers and bilingual support specialists. Those openings are not counted toward the zero vacancies reported by the district.
“Every single classroom has a teacher in front of them,” Licata said. “We also have additional teachers at the district office waiting to make sure that no one calls out sick. That is unprecedented in Fort Worth, and it’s unprecedented in many other districts.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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.