{"id":407174,"date":"2026-08-15T07:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/407174\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T07:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:44:16","slug":"tea-commissioner-wont-close-failing-fort-worth-isd-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/407174\/","title":{"rendered":"TEA commissioner won\u2019t close failing Fort Worth ISD school"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas Education Agency won\u2019t close William James Middle School in Fort Worth following its fifth straight F rating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TEA commissioner Mike Morath said at a press conference Aug. 14 that the school\u2019s failing grade doesn\u2019t change things substantially.<\/p>\n

The Texas school accountability law<\/a>, passed in 2015, allows for the commissioner to order the campus to close or impose a state takeover of the district after five consecutive failing grades. Fort Worth ISD is already under a state takeover.<\/p>\n

Morath said the Fort Worth school district has a team in place that has a plan to improve the middle school at 1101 Nashville Ave, but did not specify what it was. William James Middle is part of Fort Worth ISD\u2019s new Elevate Network<\/a> instructional model, which emphasizes a consistent routine to maximize time students spend learning, district officials have said.<\/p>\n

Ratings are based<\/a> on student achievement, student progress and how well a school or district is ensuring that all student groups are successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur real high hope is that the students at William James will see a significant improvement in the quality of their experience this school year relative to what has happened for many, many years past,\u201d Morath said<\/p>\n

\"Texas Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath visits Bell Manor Elementary to talk about the release of the 2026 A-F accountability ratings on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in Bedford. Abigail Dollins Fort Worth Star-Telegram \"Texas Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath visits Bell Manor Elementary to talk about the release of the 2026 A-F accountability ratings on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in Bedford. Abigail Dollins Fort Worth Star-Telegram \"Teachers Teachers and staff of Bell Manor Elementary listen to Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath talk about the release of the 2026 A-F accountability ratings on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in Bedford. Abigail Dollins Fort Worth Star-Telegram <\/p>\n

This story was originally published August 14, 2026 at 7:24 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Maven Navarro<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n

Maven Navarro is a local news reporter at the Star-Telegram. She covers Fort Worth and Tarrant County.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Education Agency won\u2019t close William James Middle School in Fort Worth following its fifth straight F…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-407174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407174","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=407174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}