{"id":247676,"date":"2026-04-13T15:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/247676\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:24:10","slug":"how-texas-school-district-takeovers-work-as-tea-expands-state-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/247676\/","title":{"rendered":"How Texas school district takeovers work as TEA expands state control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Under a 2017 state law, districts can partner with nonprofits, universities, charter schools or other groups to manage low-performing campuses \u2014 also known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/news\/houston-texas\/education\/hisd\/article\/sb-1882-innovation-partnerships-21118417.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an 1882 partnership<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>When districts make these partnership deals, the state gives them additional funding and a two-year pause on sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>Some districts have used this to avoid a takeover. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.austinisd.org\/announcements\/2026\/03\/27\/austin-isd-moves-forward-1882-partnership-burnet-dobie-and-webb-middle\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin ISD<\/a>\u2019s board of trustees gave a nonprofit control of three struggling middle schools to maintain local control of the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Duncan Klussmann, a clinical associate professor of education at the University of Houston, said it\u2019s important for districts to have a plan and adopt it as quickly as possible to avoid a takeover.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest aspect of what I&#8217;ve witnessed is just districts not having a clear plan in place in the early years,\u201d Klussmann said. \u201cSay you&#8217;re in year one and two (of failing accountability grades), and then they&#8217;re waiting with their backs to the wall later on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Districts can also opt to close a school with consecutive failing accountability scores before it reaches its fifth one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Austin ISD, which was facing a budget crunch and increased state scrutiny, Superintendent Matias Segura said that accountability ratings put some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.austinisd.org\/announcements\/2025\/09\/05\/austin-isd-accountability-update-next-steps-en-espanol\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cimportant limits\u201d<\/a> on how the district closed schools. The district ultimately decided to close 10 campuses, including seven that had three years of failing ratings.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If a school receives four failing ratings, districts have three options to prevent a takeover: close the campus,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-247676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247676","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=247676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}