\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,\u201d Morath said.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Peter Licata said the district bears responsibility at William James and other struggling campuses, including at two schools that received their fourth F.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt every campus where students are not yet seeing the outcomes they deserve, we must own the results and respond with urgency,\u201d Licata said. \u201cOur expectation is clear: Every student in Fort Worth ISD deserves access to an excellent school, and we will continue raising the bar until that expectation is a reality across our entire district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Licata was appointed superintendent<\/a> after Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath intervened over years of low academic performance and a campus that received five consecutive failing academic accountability grades under the Texas\u2019 school rating system. Morath also appointed a nine-member board of managers<\/a> alongside the superintendent.<\/p>\n Board President Pete Geren said the ratings carried both good and sobering news. He cautioned that the letter grades obscure the figure he considers most important: how many students read at grade level.<\/p>\n “We see progress, but we can’t forget that when we finished the school year, only 41% of our kids were reading at grade level,” Geren said. “That data is really lost in these A-F ratings.”<\/p>\n Licata sees encouraging signs in the ratings. FWISD is making progress, which he has attributed to the leadership of his predecessor, Karen Molinar.<\/p>\n Zach Leonard, a leader with Families Organized Responding Takeover, called the results promising and encouraging while also crediting Molinar\u2019s leadership. But he said the gains do not change the group\u2019s opposition to the state takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trenace Dorsey-Hollins, executive director of the parent advocacy group Parent Shield, said the ratings show what the district\u2019s students are capable of but credited the gains to work that predated the takeover, not the intervention.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it shows that our kids have potential,\u201d Dorsey-Hollins said.<\/p>\n FWISD entered this year with two consecutive years of improvement in its overall rating. This year\u2019s C had a score of 77. The district scored 73 in 2025, up from 70 in 2024.<\/p>\n That 4-point gain masks considerably more movement campus by campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among 117 campuses with ratings in both years, 41 improved by at least one letter grade, 53 stayed the same and 23 declined.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe will celebrate the gains our students, teachers and school leaders have earned while staying relentlessly focused on the campuses where we must accelerate improvement,\u201d Licata said.<\/p>\n The number of A- and B-rated campuses grew from 43 to 52, while D- and F-rated campuses fell from 35 to 25.\u00a0<\/p>\n The improvement stretches back further. An analysis by the Fort Worth Education Partnership found FWISD\u2019s number of F-rated campuses has fallen from 45 in 2023 to seven this year. The share of district campuses rated D or F dropped from 61% to 21% over the same period.<\/p>\n Some of the swings were dramatic:<\/p>\n Diamond Hill Elementary climbed from a D to an A. \u201cThree consecutive years of improvement, more schools earning A and B ratings, and fewer schools rated D or F demonstrate that our work is making a difference,\u201d Licata said. \u201cBut progress is not the finish line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The district now has seven F-rated campuses, down from last year\u2019s 11. Morningside Middle School received its fourth consecutive F.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carter Park, Sunrise-McMillan and Woodway elementary schools each fell from a C to an F.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have nearly 13,000 of our kids in schools that were rated D and F at the end of last year, and that’s not acceptable,\u201d Geren said.<\/p>\n FWISD has begun addressing its systemic academic underperformance. Licata placed William James and 23 other chronically low-performing schools under a district-built turnaround model called the Elevate Network.<\/p>\n The district infused $25 million into the schools<\/a> to ignite academic turnaround. Elevate teachers are eligible to earn up to six-figure salaries<\/a>.<\/p>\n Classrooms in Elevate schools follow a more structured two-step teaching model than the one rolled out to the rest of the district. Teachers first deliver whole-class instruction that includes checks for understanding. Using data gathered from those checks, teachers pull students who don\u2019t grasp the material into small groups.<\/p>\n Other campuses now teeter on the edge of retriggering the intervention law. Morningside Middle School, W.M. Green Elementary and Edward Briscoe Elementary received their fourth F. Briscoe shuttered in May<\/a> as part of FWISD\u2019s five-year school closure plan<\/a> that elected trustees approved.<\/p>\n Campuses with four or five failing ratings need strategies tailored to the barriers their students face, Leonard said, rather than simply receiving the same Elevate model. He pointed to issues such as food insecurity and high student mobility.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout removing those barriers, we\u2019re going to continue seeing problems in some of those schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dorsey-Hollins sees promise in specific pieces of the Elevate model that will help push growth and close gaps. But like Leonard, she questioned applying a single model across campuses with different needs. Some students require more individualization than a uniform approach allows, she said.<\/p>\n The Elevate model is the district\u2019s answer to turning the chronically underperforming campuses, Geren said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe district is hyper-focused on those schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On the first day of school<\/a>, some Green Elementary parents said they were taking a wait-and-see approach to the takeover. Others welcomed the intervention.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed this,\u201d said Patrice Smith, a grandmother of two Green students.<\/p>\n Texas assigns A-F ratings based on three broad areas: student achievement, school progress and how well districts and campuses are closing gaps among groups of students. At the high school level, ratings incorporate measures including graduation rates and college, career and military readiness.<\/p>\n The grades measure performance during the 2025-26 school year, most of which unfolded before Licata and the appointed managers took control. The results provide a new benchmark for the district under state intervention, but they are not a clean measure of the state-appointed leadership\u2019s work.<\/p>\n The results are still far from Morath\u2019s criteria to return control back to elected trustees: eliminate campuses with multiple years of unacceptable ratings; meet or exceed state or regional averages for students reaching grade level in reading and math; and improve the appointed board\u2019s governance performance.<\/p>\n Next year\u2019s ratings should be judged not only by whether A\u2019s and B\u2019s rise and D\u2019s and F\u2019s fall, but by whether the improvement is sustainable, Leonard said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just hope that this momentum continues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or @_jacob_sanchez<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or @matthewsgroi1<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. 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\nM.H. Moore Elementary moved from a D to a B.
\nWest Handley Elementary jumped from an F to a C.<\/p>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786859780_154_full.png\")
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