DFW News App

The Fort Worth ISD school board listens to a presentation in the District Service Center on Jan. 13, 2023. (Jacob Sanchez | Fort Worth Report)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/FWISDResolution_Sanchez-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/FWISDResolution_Sanchez-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C585&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>
Fort Worth ISD is “disappointed” over not being able to showcase progress made between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years due to another delay in the release of the Texas Education Agency’s annual school ratings, the district said in a recent statement.

The anticipated Aug. 15 publication of A-F ratings was halted by a Travis County court order Aug. 12 due to ongoing legal disputes over the state’s revised accountability measures. Thanks to the legal challenges, schools and districts throughout the state haven’t been graded since the 2021-22 school year. 

For educators and parents seeking to gauge school performance throughout Tarrant County, the uncertainty that began in September 2023 — when grades were also withheld due to similar legal disputes — will continue, according to legal and education experts. 

Across Tarrant County, school districts are divided on their feelings toward the grades’ release being blocked this year. 

While Fort Worth ISD welcomes the eventual release, its neighbor to the south, Crowley ISD, expressed support for the delay in releasing the ratings. Superintendent Michael McFarland cited concerns over the ratings’ accuracy given the current state of the assessment tools.

“I definitely think it’s good that they’re holding them off,” McFarland told the Report.

He emphasized the importance of the district having an accurate and clear indication of the results of the effort put into its schools. With the current system, which many districts expect to lower their letter grades, that wouldn’t be possible, McFarland said. Crowley ISD received a B in 2022.

The temporary restraining order issued by Travis County Judge Karin Crump stems from a lawsuit filed Aug. 12 by North Texas districts Forney ISD and Crandall ISD, along with Fort Stockton ISD, Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD and Kingsville ISD near Corpus Christi. 

Initial lawsuits filed in 2023 involved more than 100 Texas school districts, including Fort Worth ISD, Crowley ISD and Arlington ISD. Those challenges focused on the TEA decision to change the system’s metrics to one that districts said would hurt their ratings.

The rating system would be more rigorous, districts said, including within it higher benchmarks for categories like college, career and military readiness. 

Districts also said the changes weren’t sufficiently communicated and were applied retroactively. 

Fort Worth ISD, which was given a B rating by the TEA in 2022, said that while the district respects the judicial process and awaits the forthcoming outcome, it’s since seen progress.

“During this time, we have successfully moved more campuses to A, B and C ratings, while also reducing the number of D and F schools,” the district’s statement said.

The final outcome Fort Worth ISD awaits could be months away, TCU professor Matthew Montgomery said. While Crump barred the release until a hearing scheduled for Aug. 26, afterward the judge could either lift the restraining order or continue to block TEA from releasing the A-F ratings until the case is decided.

“I imagine partisan judges in Travis County helped with this decision,” Montgomery said.

He predicts a challenging path ahead for the state education agency and its prospects of releasing ratings in the coming months.

“It’ll get appealed to the Third Court of Appeals, where all six judges are Democrats, so TEA will probably find a hostile crowd there,” he said. “It’ll probably have to go to the Texas Supreme Court to get overturned.”

The other 18 districts throughout Tarrant County, like Castleberry ISD and Arlington ISD, also anticipated an Aug. 15 release. Castleberry ISD, a district in west Fort Worth that also serves River Oaks and Sansom Park, is proud of the academic growth it has shown across its schools the past year, Superintendent Renee Smith-Faulkner told the Report Aug. 7. Castleberry ISD was given a B by the TEA in 2022.

Still, Arlington ISD, which also received a B in 2022, recently applied TEA’s new grading standards to the district’s 2022 data. Its B score dropped 7 points to a C. 

Arlington ISD trustee Justin Chapa said during an Aug. 1 board meeting that the new standards will hurt the district’s upward momentum and make recent progress appear to be a decline.

Castleberry ISD and Arlington ISD did not respond to a request for comment on the latest delays before publication. Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD, which was given an A by the TEA in 2022 as it received the highest-performing STAAR results in Tarrant County, said it was not prepared to comment on the recent court order. 

“We have been super busy this week getting students settled,” HEB ISD spokesperson Deanne Hullender said.

Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @MatthewSgroi1. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.