Fort Worth ISD kicked off its 2026-27 school year last week as the first full year under a state takeover by the Texas Education Agency. The week brought a lockdown, board member apologies, new accountability grades and a fresh instructional model aimed at turning around low-performing campuses.<\/p>\n
Here are key takeaways:<\/p>\n
Fort Worth ISD began the school year with zero classroom teacher vacancies after offering a 5% raise, following more than 1,000 teacher resignations in prior months, according to Superintendent Peter Licata\u2019s first-day remarks<\/a>.Five people, including an 18-year-old student identified as Lucio Garcia, were arrested after a gun photo prompted a lockdown at O.D. Wyatt High School<\/a>, though no weapon was recovered. Garcia faces a terroristic threat charge.A teacher at Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School was placed on administrative leave over allegations of inappropriate communication with a student<\/a>, with the matter reported to law enforcement and state agencies.The Board of Managers voted to report nine teachers to the state for breaking their contracts<\/a> after the 45-day deadline, with only member Rosa Maria Berdeja opposing the action.Board members Tennessee Walker and Laurie George apologized to speech-language pathologists over April staffing cuts<\/a>, and Licata pledged a recruitment and retention report within two weeks.Fort Worth ISD\u2019s overall rating stayed a C, but its score rose from 73 to 77, with F-rated campuses dropping from 10 to 7 and D-rated campuses from 27 to 19, per newly released 2026 A-F accountability grades<\/a>.TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said the agency will not close William James Middle School despite its fifth consecutive F rating<\/a>, citing the district\u2019s improvement plan under the Elevate Network.Principal Melissa Strom and Licata described a \u201c180-degree\u201d turnaround at William Monnig Middle School under the Elevate Network\u2019s district-defined curriculum and bell-to-bell teaching model<\/a>, now expanding to 24 campuses.The district unveiled a three-tier system \u2014 Elevate, Emerge and Exemplar \u2014 letting campuses earn autonomy<\/a> by meeting benchmarks for three consecutive years.Former Superintendent Karen Molinar revealed more about her new role as CEO of REV Partnership<\/a>, a Tarrant County education nonprofit that will collaborate with her former district under Licata\u2019s leadership.A Texas appeals court ruled Aug. 13 that a 14-year whistleblower case brought by former assistant principal Joseph Palazzolo will return to a jury trial<\/a>, calling the district\u2019s actions \u201cblatant retaliation.\u201dThe Board of Managers launched a community listening survey open through Sept. 15<\/a> to gather parent and community priorities as part of its \u201cradical transparency\u201d pledge.<\/p>\n The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The source reporting referenced above was written and edited entirely by journalists.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth ISD kicked off its 2026-27 school year last week as the first full year under a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-409607","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\/409607","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=409607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}