Leaders back Superintendent Molinar, warn against adding chaos during FWISD takeover

Instability has defined Fort Worth schools for more than a decade, former and current city leaders say.

Their message to Texas’ education commissioner was simple: Don’t add to the chaos.

Immediately after the state moved to replace Fort Worth ISD’s nine elected trustees, business leaders, parents and educators called for stability — and, in many cases, for Superintendent Karen Molinar to stay and use her nearly 30 years of experience working in the district to build it better. 

They argued the fastest way to help students is keeping classrooms focused and leadership consistent while Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath installs a conservator, selects a board of managers and searches for a superintendent.

Molinar took the job in March after five months acting as interim. District mother Neisha Lomax hasn’t agreed with every decision the short-time superintendent has made. 

For example, she pointed to the closure of her two daughters’ school, Edward J. Briscoe Elementary, and the district’s adoption of Bluebonnet Learning, state-endorsed reading lessons for kindergarten through fifth grade that incorporate Bible stories. 

Regardless, Lomax said, the superintendent deserves a chance to see her plans through.

“She’s brought structure to the classrooms,” Lomax said. “My daughter is finally achieving well in math and science where she wasn’t before.”

Seventh graders work on an assignment in a class at Fort Worth ISD’s William James Middle School on Aug. 28, 2025. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)

Constant change would undo progress teachers and students have made, Lomax said. Her message to state leaders: Let the families and communities have more of a say.

“Don’t just take it over and change everything,” she said.

Fort Worth ISD has cycled through four superintendents and two interim superintendents in 10 years. Priorities shifted as each leader had their own ideas on how to run a large, urban school system. Inconsistency contributed to students falling behind peers across the state.

Students don’t have time to waste, said Melody Johnson, a former FWISD superintendent from 2005 to 2011 who wants Molinar to stay.

“The No. 1 thing we need is stability, direction, intense focus and doing the right thing every single day for kids,” said Johnson, who promoted Molinar to principal of Oakhurst Elementary in 2007 and has known and mentored her for two decades. “We’re looking at 13 years of low performance and changes in superintendents.”

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Pat Linares, a former Fort Worth ISD administrator who served as interim superintendent in the 2010s, has watched and mentored Molinar as she’s risen from an elementary reading teacher to deputy superintendent to now superintendent. 

Linares can think of no one better to lead FWISD than Molinar.

“She brought us out of a time of tumultuousness and brought the city and the district back together,” Linares said. “She has the integrity. She has the dedication to this district. Above all, she has the will, the drive, the tenacity and the fortitude to get it done.”

Fort Worth ISD’s academic decline started in 2017 under Kent Scribner’s superintendency, according to Texas Education Agency data. The district went from 56% of all students meeting grade level in 2016 to a low of 25% in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Proficiency rates increased into the low 30s by the time Scribner exited in 2022 — and remained there until 2025.

Molinar became superintendent after Angélica Ramsey led Fort Worth schools for two years. Ramsey’s tenure was marked by clashes with trustees, deteriorating academics and loss of community trust. Ramsey did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Adults disagreeing ultimately took away from students, leaving Molinar to settle down the disruptions and chaos of the past few years, her supporters said. The takeover threatens to return FWISD to a similarly tumultuous state.

“That kind of instability is the worst thing that can happen when you are in the kind of situation we’re in with student achievement,” Johnson said. “And the needs of our kids in our school system are so incredibly critical right now.”

That urgency stems from years of uneven progress. The Leadership Academy of Forest Oak Sixth Grade — the campus whose repeated F ratings on the state’s academic accountability system triggered the state’s intervention — was far from the only school that struggled. Several others have failed or underperformed multiple years in a row. 

Roughly a third of students across the district currently read on grade level, while slightly more than a quarter are on track in math.

Students and parents walk through the halls of Mary Louise Phillips Elementary in Fort Worth during FWISD’s first day of school Aug. 12, 2025. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)

Tom Harris, chair of the Fort Worth Mayor’s Council on Education & Workforce, said the community should work with the state — and not lose ground already made under Molinar.

“I do think Superintendent Karen Molinar has done a great job in the short time that she’s been in the position,” Harris said. “Going forward, she’s already initiated a lot of the things that the state is contemplating. I’m hopeful they’ll take that into consideration as she goes through the interview process.”

He added: “She is qualified to get the job done.”

Molinar supporters want Morath to understand what she’s accomplished in just seven months. Since March, Molinar has restructured academic leadership, closed underenrolled campuses to better distribute resources and formulated a districtwide turnaround plan focused on students and literacy. 

Decisions on school closures and Bluebonnet Learning drew criticism. However, Molinar said they ultimately were in the best interest of students.

Johnson posed a question about the district’s next leader: “What is going to be brought in that’s substantively different from what she is trying to put in place right now?”

On campuses, the mood is tense, said Steven Poole, executive director of United Educators Association of Texas.

Educators are frustrated, he said, wanting to know what comes next. Molinar’s credibility as a former Fort Worth ISD teacher matters, he said. 

“She should be given a shot to continue forward,” Poole said. “Without her leading the district, I can see a lot of turnover and turmoil in Fort Worth for quite a while.”

When the state took over Houston ISD in 2023, the district saw a sharp rise in teacher departures, according to reporting from the Houston Chronicle. By the start of this school year, 1 in 4 Houston ISD teachers were uncertified, the newspaper reported. 

Fort Worth educators fear a similar exodus if uncertainty drags on, Poole said.

Mayor Mattie Parker talks to a pre-K student on the first day of school at Fort Worth ISD’s T.A. Sims Elementary on Aug. 14, 2023. (File photo | Fort Worth Report)

Mayor Mattie Parker brought up Houston ISD during a Thursday news conference, saying Morath can’t have an apples-to-apples comparison of the two. Houston ISD faced a prolonged road to takeover as a result of a lawsuit.

“It created a chasm, a lot of political fighting in Houston. I really don’t anticipate that here for a variety of different reasons,” Parker said.

In August 2024, Parker said FWISD was in an “unacceptable” state under Ramsey’s leadership and called on trustees to step up and turn around the district. A month later, Ramsey was out and Molinar was interim leader.

Parker wants Molinar to remain as superintendent but acknowledged the commissioner must go through the search process.

Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare also has backed Molinar, citing her recognition of Fort Worth ISD’s problems and her improvements for students.

“I appreciate her efforts and look forward to seeing what Dr. Molinar and a new board can do to alter the trajectory of FWISD, ensuring a quality education for all students,” O’Hare said in a statement.

Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Karen Molinar greets families in line for the Tarrant County Back to School Roundup on Aug. 8, 2025, at Tarrant County College’s South Campus in Fort Worth. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)

Still, Harris said the moment calls for cooperation, not brinkmanship. The business community’s role now is to take a calm, thoughtful approach and to work hand in hand with Morath and his team, Harris said.

“I don’t think it makes any sense at all to try to fight with the state of Texas and the commissioner,” he said. “Our community needs to support the process.”

For Molinar, that process comes back to a single focus: Keeping students learning. It’s why she wants to keep her job.

“My job is to get results for our students,” she said. “Not for adults. But for our students.”

Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. 

Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1. 

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