The three interventions come after the state\u2019s education agency announced plans to take over Fort Worth ISD in October.<\/p>\n
The Texas Education Agency is replacing the elected school boards of the Beaumont, Connally and Lake Worth school districts, Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced Thursday.<\/p>\n
State law allows Morath to either close a campus or appoint new leadership if at least one school in the district receives five consecutive failing grades in Texas\u2019 academic accountability system. Each of the districts met that threshold.<\/p>\n
Pending appeals, the commissioner plans to replace each district\u2019s school board with a state-selected board of managers. Morath will also appoint a conservator with governing authority over current district and campus leaders during the transition,\u00a0which typically takes several months to complete.<\/p>\n
The education agency will solicit applications from local community members interested in joining each district\u2019s board of managers. Morath will also appoint superintendents to lead the districts.<\/p>\n
The takeovers add to the growing list of districts subject to state interventions, which also includes two of Texas\u2019 largest: Fort Worth and Houston. The Fort Worth school board has said it plans to appeal the commissioner\u2019s decision, which was\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0in October.<\/p>\n The education agency said in August that five school districts were at\u00a0risk<\/a>\u00a0of intervention after enduring five consecutive years of unsatisfactory ratings. Since then, it has announced plans to take over four of them: Fort Worth, Lake Worth, Connally and Beaumont. Morath has not said whether he plans to intervene in the fifth district, Wichita Falls.<\/p>\n Lake Worth\u2019s Marilyn Miller Language Academy triggered the intervention in that district. In letters informing the districts about the takeovers, Morath noted that during the latest round of accountability ratings, all but one of Lake Worth\u2019s six campuses earned failing grades. Meanwhile, five campuses have received unacceptable ratings for more than a year, while only 22% of students are meeting grade level across all subjects.<\/p>\n Lake Worth school district leaders were acutely aware of the challenges facing the school district leading up to the takeover, said Superintendent Mark Ramirez, who was hired this year. Ramirez said the district has focused on addressing the challenges facing each campus, which should serve as a foundation for the incoming board of managers to build upon.<\/p>\n \u201cOur preparation ensures zero instructional loss for our children,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n The Connally district had two campuses that met the state\u2019s takeover threshold: Connally Junior High and Connally Elementary. Since the 2022-23 school year, the number of campuses with academically unacceptable scores in the district has doubled, Morath noted. Only 24% of students in the district are meeting grade level. The junior high improved from an F to a D in the most recent ratings.<\/p>\n In a statement, the Connally district thanked the efforts of Superintendent Jill Bottelberghe in boosting academic performance in recent years but acknowledged the need for improvements.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize that there is still work that needs to be done,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIt is our hope that the appointed Board of Managers will work to not only improve our district\u2019s academic performance, but also serve our community with the same passion and sincerity as our Board of Trustees has.\u201d<\/p>\n ML King Middle School and Fehl-Price Elementary in the Beaumont district have also endured five consecutive years of failing grades. The commissioner cited data showing that the elementary school has never earned an acceptable rating, while the middle school has gone 11 years without one. The district has seven campuses with unacceptable ratings for more than a year and has not earned an overall acceptable rating since 2019. Thirty percent of students in the district are meeting grade level.<\/p>\n Thomas Sigee Sr., president of the Beaumont school board, said the district had sought to help its struggling campuses \u2014 including by\u00a0partnering<\/a>\u00a0with charter schools \u2014 but ultimately could not lift them up to state standards. He questioned why the commissioner opted to take over the entire district instead of shutting down the schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could have closed the schools for a year and facilitated those students to other campuses and go forward,\u201d Sigee said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want the takeover because I knew it would spread chaos in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n If the decision is finalized, it would mark the second time the state has placed the Beaumont district under its oversight. The education agency did so from 2014-2020 due to financial mismanagement.<\/p>\n Each of the three districts will have opportunities later this month to attend an informal hearing with the commissioner to make their appeals. If Morath stands by his decision to intervene, they can then formally appeal to the State Office of Administrative Hearings.<\/p>\n Takeovers were once rare in Texas, but they have grown more common in the last decade, thanks to\u00a0the 2015 law<\/a>\u00a0that made it easier for the state to step in after five consecutive F grades. It also expanded the commissioner\u2019s ability to initiate special investigations, which could lead to an intervention.<\/p>\n That A-F grading system is\u00a0largely based<\/a>\u00a0on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, a standardized exam that lawmakers voted this year to replace in 2027.<\/p>\n Before 2015, El Paso experienced the only academic takeover in Texas, due to a widespread\u00a0cheating scandal<\/a>. Since the law\u2019s passage, the education agency has officially taken over three districts because of low academic performance: Marlin, Shepherd and Houston.<\/p>\n Morath and state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles believe the Houston ISD intervention was warranted, and they tout as evidence the improved test scores in the two years since it started. Students have improved in every tested subject. None of the district\u2019s campuses received an F on the state\u2019s accountability ratings in the 2024-25 school year, a drastic improvement from the 56 underperforming campuses in 2022-23.<\/p>\n But the intervention has also run into strong criticism. Teacher departures have\u00a0skyrocketed<\/a>. Thousands of students have\u00a0unenrolled<\/a>. And improved test scores have\u00a0sparked concern<\/a>\u00a0that the district has accomplished its gains, in part, because of a hyperfocus on testing and moving students into less rigorous math and science classes.<\/p>\n Source: Jaden Edison, The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n Photo Credit: Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath announced on Thursday his agency will take over the Beaumont, Connally and Lake Worth school districts.\u00a0Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans \u2014 and engages with them \u2014 about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The three interventions come after the state\u2019s education agency announced plans to take over Fort Worth ISD in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-84883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84883","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=84883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}