Trent Dowd, a former principal, was named acting superintendent of Lake Worth ISD on Monday as the district awaits new leaders under a state takeover.<\/p>\n
Trustees named Dowd to the temporary role as Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath moves to appoint a new superintendent and replace the district\u2019s locally elected board with a state-appointed board of managers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether I\u2019m in this seat for a week or whether I\u2019m in this seat for months, my goal is to make sure that we stay focused on taking care of students and providing high quality instruction,\u201d Dowd said.<\/p>\n
Dowd has more than two decades of education experience. He most recently served as assistant superintendent of teaching and learning after years as the district\u2019s chief financial officer. He steps into the role vacated by Mark Ramirez whose resignation was accepted<\/a> March 9.<\/p>\n Dowd addressed the board and community members after an hourlong closed session, emphasizing instructional continuity as the district\u2019s top priority with STAAR testing just days away.<\/p>\n Dowd told the Fort Worth Report that his decision to serve in the role, however long it lasts, is rooted in preserving the work Ramirez began.<\/p>\n \u201cHe brought in a new, fresh vision and a new, fresh enthusiasm for the students of Lake Worth,\u201d Dowd said. \u201cHe may have left us, but I saw it as an opportunity to continue the work that he was doing and honor the work that he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n Morath ordered the state intervention into Lake Worth schools in December after the Marilyn Miller Language Academy received five consecutive failing<\/a> academic accountability ratings. The education commissioner appointed a new superintendent<\/a> and managers for Fort Worth ISD<\/a> for that district\u2019s state takeover on March 24.<\/p>\n Dowd said he has no plans to introduce new priorities and will remain focused on the instructional framework already in place, including the teaching strategies and lesson structures<\/a> Ramirez put in place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got 3,177 students. That\u2019s how many students we have in our district on the snapshot day, and that\u2019s how many students are counting on us,\u201d Dowd said. \u201cI want to be a part of serving all, all 3,177 of these students.\u201d<\/p>\n Board President Tammy Thomas said trustees appointed Dowd to ensure stability during the transition and expressed confidence in his leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cDowd has shown tremendous leadership the last few years,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIf I were able to choose who would lead us during this remainder of our time, it would be him.\u201d<\/p>\n Morath is expected to announce the new leadership later this spring. The managers will assume the duties of the trustees, who will remain in office but lack any governing authority in the district.<\/p>\n A second training for Lake Worth ISD\u2019s board of managers applicants is scheduled for Saturday, March 28. Only 14 people applied for a seat on the state-appointed board, compared to the nearly 300<\/a> who applied for Fort Worth ISD.<\/p>\n Dowd said the state\u2019s impending moves won\u2019t change the district\u2019s focus.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in times of uncertainty, the thing that we can do is continue to focus on kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicole Williams Quezada is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.williams@fortworthreport.org<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trent Dowd, a former principal, was named acting superintendent of Lake Worth ISD on Monday as the district…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-220183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}