8 Fort Worth ISD schools receive more flexibility. What does that mean? 5%
By Matthew Sgroi3%
8/4/2026, 8:15:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 3 faulty reasoning types, including Representativeness Heuristic and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 9% saturation with 140 hits. Analysis detected 176 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,557 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 13.3% and a BS Rank of 5% (26,543 of 27,733 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 95.70% of the article peer group.
Eight Fort Worth ISD campuses will receive greater control over schedules, staffing, budgets and other day-to-day decisions under a newly introduced earned autonomy framework, while still following the district’s new instructional model.
FWISD leaders announced guidelines for schools to earn greater flexibility Monday evening, less than a week before students return to class.
The rules are based on the state’s A-F academic accountability system.
Schools qualified by earning an overall A rating and an A in student achievement, one of three rating measurements, for three consecutive years in the state’s academic accountability rating system.
The eight campuses being granted earned autonomy are:
Young Women’s Leadership Academy.
Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences.
Marine Creek Collegiate High School.
TCC South/FWISD Collegiate High School.
I.M.
Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA.
Tanglewood Elementary.
Westpark Elementary.
Overton Park Elementary.
The district’s announcement did not identify which three years counted toward the designation or spell out which requirements will no longer apply.
The Texas Education Agency is expected to release new ratings Aug.
14.
“These schools have established a consistent record of high levels of student achievement and instructional excellence,” Superintendent Peter Licata wrote.
“As a result, they have earned the opportunity to continue implementing the curriculum plans that have contributed to their success.”
Licata and Deputy Superintendent Daniel Soliz offered their clearest public explanation of the designation Tuesday evening during a town hall hosted by state Rep.
Nicole Collier.
FWISD does not plan to disrupt campuses that have demonstrated sustained success, Licata said.
“One year is an incident, second year maybe a pattern, three years a trend,” Licata said.
“Why would we change that?
That’s not going to be our focus.
Our focus are the schools that are just struggling and haven’t gotten the attention.”
Soliz said earned autonomy does not allow the eight campuses to select any instructional approach they want, however.
The campuses will receive greater control over their master schedules, staffing models, budgets and other daily operations, Soliz said.
But they must continue delivering lessons under FWISD’s definition of “high-quality instruction” and will be evaluated using the same indicators as other schools.
“How we define high-quality instruction and the indicators of which we rate high-quality instruction remain unchanged, even for those schools that have the highest levels of autonomy,” Soliz said.
Soliz described inconsistent instruction among campuses as one of FWISD’s greatest barriers to districtwide improvement.
“The era of isolated excellence is over,” he said.
“We are defining what high-quality instruction looks like, and we are going to insist that that be implemented across all schools in Fort Worth ISD.”
Questions remain about the precise boundaries of the eight campuses’ authority, including whether they may depart from district expectations involving lesson pacing, classroom observations and required instructional activities.
Schools must maintain an overall A as well as an A in student achievement to retain the designation in future years, according to FWISD’s email.
Licata previewed that philosophy during a recent interview with the Fort Worth Report, describing an approach in which campuses receive greater latitude in lesson planning after producing strong results.
“You can’t have teacher autonomy and have bad results,” Licata said.
“Once schools get to that super high level, then we let them have that autonomy.”
What that autonomy means in practice remains unclear.
FWISD leaders said principals will provide more information to their school communities but did not list exemptions involving lesson planning, pacing, classroom observations, staffing or budgets.
Megan Breedlove, a Spanish and French teacher entering her seventh year at W.P.
McLean Middle School, said she learned about the framework through the same message sent to families.
“We were talking about the subject, but we didn’t know that earned autonomy was a thing,” Breedlove said.
McLean teachers had been told to expect prescribed lessons and activities, restrictions on flexible seating and frequent classroom observations, Breedlove said.
District leaders’ town hall comments indicate the eight campuses will still follow the districtwide instructional model, but they did not explain whether every individual practice will apply equally at those schools.
To teachers at schools that did not qualify, Breedlove said, the word “earned” sounds like a judgment about their ability.
“We hear that as: You can’t do it,” she said.
“It’s got to be earned, and you’re clearly not doing it.”
The eight campuses also operate under widely different conditions.
Five are specialized secondary schools that students choose to attend.
The other three are neighborhood elementary schools serving much smaller shares of low-income students than FWISD overall.
About 6% of Overton Park students, 19.7% of Tanglewood students and 39.7% of Westpark students were low income in 2025, according to Texas Education Agency data.
FWISD’s districtwide rate was 83.1%.
The five specialized secondary schools ranged from 48.7% low income at I.M.
Terrell to 80.3% at TCC South/FWISD Collegiate.
Board of Managers President Pete Geren said during the town hall that FWISD has “islands of excellence” among campuses serving both higher- and lower-income communities.
He said the board’s future academic goals will apply across the district regardless of students’ neighborhoods or demographics.
Toni Templeton, a University of Houston professor who studies school systems and state interventions, said those differences make school ratings an incomplete measure of whether instructional practices alone produced the results.
“The premise is that the accountability system itself is a quality measure, is an equitable measure of performance,” Templeton said.
“I do not think that it is.”
Still, she said she does not oppose treating campuses differently during a takeover.
High-performing schools may not require the same intervention as chronically struggling campuses, she said, but student demographics, admissions structures and access to resources also shape their outcomes.
“I don’t think that the answer is lower the bar,” Templeton said.
“I think that the answer is provide more support.”
TEA comparison data shows six of the eight newly autonomous campuses had a higher share of students meeting grade level than most of the 40 Texas schools considered most similar to them.
Tanglewood outperformed all 40 comparison campuses, while Westpark surpassed 39 and Overton Park surpassed 36.
I.M.
Terrell and Young Women’s Leadership Academy each outperformed 32, and TCC South Collegiate outperformed 29.
Marine Creek Collegiate and the Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences ranked lower within their peer groups, outperforming seven and three campuses, respectively.
TEA forms the groups using factors including grade levels served, enrollment, low-income families, student mobility, emergent bilingual and special education enrollment, and early-college participation.
How Houston’s earned-autonomy model works
Fort Worth ISD leaders have not said whether its new framework will mirror Houston ISD’s, but the districts use similar language tying campus freedom to sustained academic performance.
Houston began tying schools’ decision-making authority to academic performance in 2024.
In July 2026, it replaced that system with a five-level earned autonomy framework.
Schools at the three lowest levels remain subject to varying degrees of district control over lessons, schedules, classroom observations and instructional practices.
Campuses qualify for greater flexibility by maintaining stronger accountability ratings over multiple years.
At Levels 4 and 5, qualifying schools may seek formal performance agreements granting broader authority over:
Lessons and instructional models.
Staffing and budgets.
Teacher and principal evaluations.
Purchased programs and services.
Those levels require sustained scores of at least 90, limits on achievement gaps and approval from Houston’s board of managers.
Schools that meet the academic criteria but do not enter a formal partnership remain at Level 3, where they still follow district evaluation systems, instructional strategies and classroom-observation requirements.
Fort Worth leaders have so far announced only one category: eight campuses with three consecutive overall A ratings and three consecutive A ratings in student achievement.
Unlike Houston’s highest autonomy levels, FWISD’s designation does not allow campuses to operate outside the district’s instructional model.
Leaders have not said whether FWISD will establish additional autonomy levels for B-rated or improving campuses or whether qualifying schools will enter formal performance agreements.
Dionna Deardorff is a leader of the community advocacy group Families Organized and Resisting Takeover, or FORT, and is the incoming PTA president at I.M.
Terrell.
She called autonomy good news for the eight schools, but said FWISD released only a sliver of its framework.
“There are many other A-rated and B-rated campuses that were not included in that list,” Deardorff said.
“What is the plan for those campuses?”
She urged FWISD to publish the metrics and timeline other schools can use to earn greater flexibility and to consider academic growth, special education populations and emergent bilingual enrollment.
Trenace Dorsey-Hollins, executive director of parent advocacy group Parent Shield Fort Worth, said families outside the eight campuses felt blindsided and still do not know what the designation changes.
“If those schools are doing so great, then why are we not giving everybody that playbook?”
Dorsey-Hollins said.
“They owe parents information.
They owe the community information.”
Education editor Jacob Sanchez contributed reporting.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report.
Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1 .
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’s reader advisory council.
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 .
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7speakers25%attributed speech1,173writer words
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64%flagged-word coverageTrenace Dorsey-Hollins
25 attributed words6.5% of attributed speech14% writer coverage
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