Schools: Mansfield ISD – Dispatches from Dallas

School district Saturday – 2025 07 19

This fortnight’s school news you can use, since it took about two weeks to generate this many stories over the summer break.

First, from the Dallas Morning News: Texas can release 2024 A-F grades for schools, court rules. Also in the Star-Telegram: Texas can release 2024 A-F grades for schools, court rules. The Star-Telegram notes that Fort Worth ISD was not part of the 2024 lawsuit, and had already released accountability data for that year. The decision on whether the state will take over Fort Worth ISD is on hold until the 2025 data arrives in August.
Dallas Observer: Texas Schools Add Attack Drones To Protect Students. Apart from the expense, which is always an issue, the folks trying to get this project off the ground are aware of and actively working against the possibility of hacking. The CEO of the company behind this project started his career in cybersecurity.
Star-Telegram: Federal judge sides with Aledo ISD in disability rights case. I don’t understand all the intricacies of the ADA and schools, but I admit that on the one hand the school probably ought to have some way to assess kids to determine their needs, and that on the other hand the IQ test Aledo ISD wants to give a four-year-old isn’t the best assessment of her abilities.
DMN: Dallas ISD left with $22 million gap after Trump education funding freeze. This is what our tax dollars aren’t doing. They’re going to billionaire and corporate tax cuts instead.
DMN: Joyce Foreman has one donor: Ruel Hamilton. Foreman represents part of South Dallas on the DISD board (District 6); Hamilton is a developer of apartment complexes. He was convicted in 2021 of bribing two (by then former) Dallas City Council members to support projects he was developing in southern Dallas. Click through for details that make it sound even worse.
Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD closing Charles E. Nash Elementary, named for hardware store owner. One more school profile of a school that demographics and finances are killing in FWISD.
Star-Telegram: Federal education funding freeze leaves millions in limbo for Fort Worth schools and in the Fort Worth Report: FWISD mentoring, college readiness programs at risk after feds delay $6.8B. More of the things our tax dollars are not buying so billionaires can have tax cuts.
Fort Worth Report: Mansfield ISD adopts largest budget deficit in 10 years as it navigates new funding laws. It’s $13 million on a $400+ million general fund budget.
Star-Telegram: Former Millsap ISD educators indicted in abuse of autistic student: prosecutor. Apparently there was viral video of the teacher yelling at the child, throwing things at him, and attempting to slap his face. According to earlier stories on the same topic, the child, who is nonverbal and autistic, was aged 10. I’m not clear on who hit the child but the failure to report charges are mostly misdemeanors (one is a felony).

School District Sunday – 2025 05 25

This week we start with news from the Legislature and then move into the area districts, with a lot from Fort Worth ISD.

Texas Tribune: Texas School Districts Slam the Senate’s School Finance Plan. The Senate version of the funding bill raises the per-student allotment by only $95.
Dallas Observer: Opinion: Texas Public Schools Aren’t Sunday Schools. Mickey Dollens and Ryan Dudley write about all the legal and constitutional problems with putting the Ten Commandments in every room in the public schools.
Dallas Morning News: Will Texas pass paid teacher training to fix ‘pipeline crisis’? In the school year that just ended, 12% of teachers in Texas public schools were uncertified. The question is about residency training, basically apprenticeship under a veteran teacher for a full year, and whether the state will pay for it ($20,000 per resident, plus $2000 bonus for the mentor). This being Texas, I expect Betteridge’s law to apply.
DMN: Texas schools should get more flexibility on student discipline, Senate decides. Background in this article from the Texas Tribune: Classroom violence went up in Texas after the pandemic. Is more discipline the answer?
Texas Tribune: Texas lawmakers push to enforce election transparency law after newsrooms found school districts failed to comply. This is about campaign finance reports. A lot of districts didn’t post or didn’t have the information because the didn’t know they were supposed to put them online. In a time when school board elections are drawing a lot of money from groups like Patriot Mobile, knowing who financed which candidates is valuable.
Dallas Observer: Texas Students Use Their Voice to Combat Student Paper Censorship. Unsurprisingly, just like at the university level, high school journalists are upsetting their administrations and they have friends in the Lege.
Star-Telegram: Florida expanded school vouchers two years ago. What can it tell us about Texas? School districts are feeling financial pressure and private schools are booming, unsurprisingly. But public school performance also improved.
Texas Observer: Texas Already Gives Public Ed Dollars to Private Operators. Here’s How That Worked Out. There are a lot of red flags even in the clearly well-intentioned partnerships described in this article. And it’s pretty clear that not all of the partnerships were well-intentioned instead of designed to make money. I’m pleased to note that my state Senator proposed an alternative to turning over public schools to private operators.
DMN: Pay raises for Dallas ISD teachers, staff approved in next year’s budget. The budget next year is expected to be $1.9 billion.
Star-Telegram: TEA takeover led to academic gains but also turmoil in Houston. Is Fort Worth next? Pretty interesting, especially if you’ve been following the HISD takeover saga as so many of my Houston friends have been. If you only click through to read one of these links, let it be this one.
Fort Worth Report: Here’s why Fort Worth ISD is bracing for an uncertain funding year in its next budget. They have a $17.6 carryover from the 2024-25 year, property value issues (you may remember that Tarrant County Appraisal District only wants to revise values every other year), and declining enrollment.
Three on Fort Worth ISD’s decision to close 18 schools over the next few years. First from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD board approves plan to close 18 schools over four years; second from the Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD students plead to save schools before board approves closures; and the Star-Telegram again: Why is Fort Worth ISD closing 18 schools over the next four years? What to know.
Two on Mansfield ISD’s decision to extend the contract of their superintendent: one from the Star-Telegram: Mansfield ISD school board extends superintendent’s contract, and one from the Fort Worth Report: Departing Mansfield ISD trustees approve superintendent evaluation 7 days before exit. Three of the board’s seven members were on the way out; they say that it’s only fair for the superintendent to be judged by the board members who have been working with her. They extended her contract an additional year, to 2030, and increased her annual longevity bonus from $20,000 to $35,000.
Dallas Observer: As Plano Schools Close, Parents and Faculty Look Back, Wonder About the Future. They’re only closing four schools: three elementary schools and one middle school.
Star-Telegram: Carroll ISD parents keep pressure on trustees over Principal Ryan Wilson’s contract. Parents and students are unhappy about the board firing and reassigning their favorite educators, as mentioned in previous editions of this roundup.

School District Saturday – 2025 05 03

Back to it after a weekend away.

Texas Tribune: 1 in 5 Texas schools got a D or F rating under new performance standards. More on Dallas’ and Fort Worth’s scores below, but yeah, it’s not good. On the other hand, the Lege could help by giving schools more money.
Dallas Morning News: Texas’ teacher recruitment and retention problem: See the data schools face. We have a lot of uncertified teachers and it’s because the job of teaching sucks and pays poorly.
Star-Telegram: If Texas wants to bolster school choice, it needs fair funding for charters. Op-ed from the CEO of a charter network.
KERA: North Texas voters to decide on billions in school bonds this election. A good description of what’s on the ballot for a number of local districts.
DMN: Data: Gun threats prompt Texas students to stay home from school. The paper based its story on safety-related attendance waivers requested from the state.
Fort Worth Report: Most AP exams will be digital this May. Here’s how a Fort Worth teacher is preparing students. The entirety of this story made me feel ancient, particularly the part where they had to teach kids to type on a keyboard because students are doing most of their work on phones or tablets.
Arlington Report: Here’s how much Arlington ISD receives in funding from the federal government. $37.5 million in federal funds in 2024-25, which was $3.8 million less than the year before.
The most recent in a series of stories about a shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas ISD is this item from the DMN: A Dallas high school fortified its campus after a shooting. Then gunfire struck again. They’re doing all the things they’re supposed to do, but someone was let in a side door with a gun, bypassing the security systems.
Dallas Observer: Dallas ISD Has The Worst Graduation Rate Of Major Texas Districts. They had a four-year graduation rate of 81.4%.
Dallas Observer: Dallas ISD Gets ‘C’ Rating in Newly Released District Accountability Rating. Could be worse, but could be a lot better.
A number of stories from the Fort Worth Report about Fort Worth ISD school closings: FWISD recommends closing 2 schools, rebuilding another to reshape Northside campuses; FWISD recommends three closures, consolidation of schools in Polytechnic area; Fort Worth ISD slates De Zavala Elementary for possible 2027 closure; Fort Worth ISD proposes closing Atwood McDonald Elementary in 2027. Also, from the Star-Telegram: Elementary closure in Fort Worth ISD leads to school attendance zone changes. This one is about the closure of S.S. Dillow Elementary because of foundational issues (the foundation of the building).
Star-Telegram: New A-F ratings put Fort Worth ISD at risk of state takeover. What does it mean? One sixth-grade campus that is now closed got an F for five years running, which is the cue for a state takeover (like HISD). But since the school in question is closed, which is one of the ways to deal with a failing school, that means the risk of a takeover is low. Also in the Fort Worth Report: Here’s why Fort Worth ISD believes district is not at risk of state takeover.
Star-Telegram: Keller plans to give teachers 1% pay raise next school year as district cuts budget.
Star-Telegram: Heritage subpoenas Keller school board’s attorney for records over split scheme. Heritage is the HOA that’s suing Keller ISD over the plan to split the district that failed.
DMN: Keller ISD’s controversial proposed split spurs debate over how Texas districts divide. HB 5089 is still in committee in the House.
Star-Telegram: Was Keller ISD split racially motivated? A ‘backroom’ deal’? Trustees respond. Unsurprisingly, the school board VP and one of the trustees involved in the split plan deny everything. This was at the committee hearing in the DMN story above.
Fort Worth Report: Debate over partisanship, culture wars in Mansfield ISD at center of school board race. Unsurprisingly, the candidate wanting partisanship is a Republican supported by the True Texas Project.
DMN: State ethics panel to review allegations of ‘dark money’ in Prosper ISD trustee race. Two candidates got $50K from a PAC in Washington DC and nobody knows where the money came from.

School District Sunday – 2025 03 30

Normally this is a Saturday event, but this week we’ve had to delay to Sunday evening.

Texas Monthly: “We Might Have a Mutiny on Our Hands”: Why One Texas District Won’t Abandon the Four-Day School Week. An interview with the superintendent of Athens ISD, which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Dallas in East Texas. They’ve been running a four-day school week for six years. Since a lot of rural districts are now looking at moving to four-day weeks for retention reasons, this is a preview of the rural future.
Texas Tribune: Texas schools have leaned on uncertified teachers to fill vacancies. Lawmakers want to put a stop to it. Almost 40% of new teachers in Texas are uncertified this year. The state will pay to help them get certified, but there will still be a shortage, and according to the article, teacher salaries in Texas are about $9,000 less than the national average. All this explains why rural districts are willing to go to four-day weeks to retain the good teachers they have and attract new ones.
Fort Worth Report: Fact brief: Can Texas school districts use voter-approved bonds for budget deficits?. Answer: NO.
Texas Observer: ‘We’re Not Just Some Bureaucrats’: DOE Employees on How Their Work Helps Texas Students. Former employees from the Dallas office of the Department of Education talk about what they did until their office was shut down by the current administration.
Dallas Observer: North Texas School Districts Among The Wealthiest in Texas. Our area took seven of the top ten spots, including Highland Park and Southlake-Carroll, which are tied for first place.
Moving into local districts, we have news from Coppell ISD (which is one of those top ten districts). From KERA: Texas AG sues Coppell ISD in response to undercover ‘critical race theory’ video. This is Accuracy in Media, and “edited” may be doing a lot of work there along with “critical race theory”, which often means any accurate history of how badly America has treated her Black citizens, during and after slavery. Also in the Texas Tribune: Texas AG Ken Paxton accuses Coppell ISD of violating Texas’ “critical race theory” ban.
We have two stories from the Fort Worth Report about Eagle-Saginaw ISD. First, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD looks to lower student-to-teacher ratios despite $10M deficit. Even if they lower the ratios to 24:1, they’ll still be above the state requirement of 22:1 and need to get a waiver. Second: Why Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD’s new superintendent is hopeful about public education. A bit of a puff piece but note, as a piece of the larger pie, that the new superintendent calls out the Lege’s refusal to increase the per-pupil allocation for schools since 2019.
KERA: To cut costs, Euless charter school to lose middle, high school grades. They’re also going to a four-day school week next year to keep their teachers.
There’s a lot of news about Fort Worth ISD and its new superintendent, mostly but not all from the Fort Worth Report.
- Fort Worth Report: How much will Fort Worth ISD’s new superintendent earn? Here are the details from her contract? $360,000 annually for the next three years, without the bonus structure that the previous superintendent got.
- Fort Worth Report: Q&A: Superintendent Karen Molinar outlines Fort Worth ISD’s turnaround efforts. Also: Transcript: Newsmaker Q&A with Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Karen Molinar.
- Fort Worth Report: Educators vie to represent southwest Fort Worth ISD on school board. This is for the District 7 election.
- We have two stories on literacy efforts in FWISD. First, from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD wants to redirect $22.7 million toward reading, which will mean job cuts. And, related, from the Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD looks to spur reading renaissance through literacy-infused budget. There are a lot of statistics and charts about FWISD’s performance in this one.
- Last, but not least, a follow-up to a story from last year in the Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD apologizes to North Side cheerleaders following fall racist incident. Last year, during the previous superintendent’s tenure, North Side high cheerleaders were insulted with (anti-Latino) racial slurs by Arlington Heights students. The district can’t pin down exactly who said what so nobody’s getting punished and the cheerleaders are unsurprisingly unsatisfied.
We also have a lot of fallout from the Keller ISD situation even after the board made the decision not to split the district. Most of the news is from the Star-Telegram.
- Star-Telegram: ‘It’s not over’: Opponents of squashed Keller ISD split rejoice, but demand transparency.
- Star-Telegram: Keller ISD’s pursuit of a split district is over, but the school board’s legal woes aren’t.
- Star-Telegram: Keller school board may have violated open meetings act with decision to kill split. Unsurprising, since they’ve been violating it all along.
- Star-Telegram editorial: Effort to divide Keller schools was sneaky to the end. How do we prevent a repeat? | Opinion. The answer seems to be “throw the current board out”, which is probably a good idea. I’ve heard but haven’t seen proof that the board members behind the plan were Patriot Mobile candidates, so they need to go if that’s the case regardless of their position on the split.
- Star-Telegram: Keller trustees who were ‘blindsided’ by split plan surprised again when plan is called off. This is my lack of surprise face.
- Fort Worth Report: Council approves new zoning for planned Cultural District hotel, Keller ISD properties. This is about the properties in the Fort Worth city limits that it really looks like the district-splitters wanted to sell off to make a bunch of money.
- Two on the same move by the Heritage HOA, one of the groups opposed to the Keller split. First, from the Fort Worth Report: Heritage HOA demands removal of Keller ISD trustees over alleged open meetings violations. Also in the Star-Telegram: Keller school board member calls latest legal move a ‘publicity stunt,’ waste of money. I hope all the board members involved end up out on their ears in May and that part of the lawsuit is rendered moot.
Fort Worth Report: Mansfield ISD trustees approve library books every month. Now, the policy might go statewide. This is about SB 13. You’d have to have a small district and the number of library books you add each month would have to be small for the policy of taking individual book choices to the trustee level to make sense.
Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD is spending $3 billion on new schools, stadiums. Here’s where projects stand. Mansfield currently has 33,000 students and is expecting another 18,000 by 2033, so they need more facilities.
Dallas Morning News: Plano arts center: $67.5M building offers new amenities in Dallas suburb. I attended a couple of events in a Plano ISD auditorium when my niblings were in high school there, so I’m glad to see them building something nice(r) for the kids. I’m interested in this venue for non-school shows, too; I’ve been to shows at the Eisemann, which is one of their comparison halls, and I’m happy to see some competition for shows. I hope it means we’ll get more acts in suburban venues.

School District Saturday – 2025 02 15

There is regularly a lot of news about the school districts here in North Texas, which is because just as Texas is the national laboratory for bad government, North Texas is one of the state laboratories for terrible school district decisions. So I’m going to try to round up what’s going on with our local districts and what’s going on statewide (and nationally, if needed) that will affect our local schools.

First, another piece of the Keller ISD puzzle from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth City Council calls for zoning changes to 23 Keller ISD properties. Looks like they think some of the properties might be sold off for parts when the district breaks up, so they’re going to prevent that by zoning them all as community facilities (not commercial, industrial, or residential).
Second: our state government at work: KHOU: Yes, there is a lawsuit that could eliminate Section 504. This lawsuit is Texas v Becerra, which seeks to remove protections for gender dysphoria, but as a part of its arguments says Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protects folks with disabilities from discrimination, is unconstitutional. More on this case from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, who are understandably unhappy.
Fort Worth Report: Fact brief: Did the Texas Lottery start as a way to help fund public schools?. The answer, which I am old enough to remember, is yes. Apparently people on social media think it was supposed to fund all of our public school needs, which is of course not true.
Texas Tribune: With vouchers fast-tracked, other Texas public education issues to watch this session. What we need to talk to our legislators about.
Texas Observer: Molly Ivins on School Vouchers (1997). We have been having this fight for a long time. Also, I still miss Molly.
Texas Tribune: In quest to infuse more religion into Texas schools, advocates say courts are now on their side. One of the bills to get more religion in school is from Sen Phil King (R-Weatherford), from just west of Fort Worth.
KERA: Majority of Texas school districts aren’t in compliance with armed security requirement. This was last session’s unfunded mandate placed on schools.
DMN: More North Texas teachers under investigation for alleged cheating and Star-Telegram: State identifies more teachers from North Texas districts in certification investigation. This is ongoing fallout from the big fake certification scandal in Houston. We’ll be hearing more about this for a while.
Dallas Observer: Every Texas School District Book Ban. This is about the PEN America report discussed in this Guardian article: Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America.
Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD trustees discuss possibly closing as many as 25 schools to rightsize district and What are Fort Worth ISD’s school closure options? Here’s what’s on the table. Also, from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD gathers community feedback with school closure decisions on the horizon. Demographics and funding are a merciless pair.
Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD cuts student programs as $16M deficit forces staff reduction, larger classes. At the same time, the Lege continues to want to send more money to private schools.
‘It Doesn’t Make Any Sense’: More Local Schools Proposed for Closure. This time it’s Carrolton-Farmers Branch ISD. Three of the four schools slated for closure are Title I schools, with 40% of kids qualifying for free/reduced lunches. Also more Black and brown kids.
Arlington charter school principal, 2 others charged in connection to child sex abuse. The two other adults are staff members at Newman International Academy High School in Arlington; one had the relationship with the child and the other two covered it up.
AP: DOGE cuts $900 million from agency that tracks American students’ academic progress. “Some of the biggest contracts were for long-term studies that track students’ learning from kindergarten through high school, a study evaluating strategies for teaching elementary school reading, and research on the effectiveness of supports for youth with disabilities, according to list of cuts obtained by The Associated Press.” Your tax dollars are not at work.
Fort Worth Report: Feds file lawsuit against maker of AI-powered weapons screener used in Mansfield ISD. Mansfield ISD stands behind the screening devices after spending about $2.3 million to put them in across 49 campuses in the fall.
KERA: Texas AG Paxton investigating two more school districts over trans athlete policies. One of the two districts is Richardson ISD, where I’m zoned. (The other is Hutto ISD near Austin.) I would like to think the Attorney General of the State of Texas has better things to do with his time than panty patrol on teenaged girls, but apparently not. Previously in the Dallas Observer: Ken Paxton Bullies Dallas, Irving ISDs Over Transgender Youths in Sports.
DMN: North Texas schools rebounding from pandemic learning loss, new rankings show. This is the Children at Risk (private) ranking since the TEA rankings are still in court.
KERA: Grand Prairie ISD approves separation agreement with former superintendent. I still have no idea who Jorge Arredondo pissed off within the first two months of his job as superintendent there, but whoever it was had the pull to get him out. That said, the agreement here is keeping all the details under wraps, so if he did something heinous, nobody will know.
Star-Telegram: With eyes on the future, Fort Worth Country Day unveils new $25M lower school. Fort Worth Country Day was, when I was in high school at St. John’s School in Houston, one of the schools in the same prep league. This is how the other half lives and where your voucher money is likely to go. I don’t begrudge more middle class kids getting into schools like Fort Worth Country Day–it’ll do both the rich kids and the less-rich kids some good–but at the same time, we need to fund our public schools fully before we consider putting extra money into private schools, most of which are not of the caliber of Fort Worth Country Day.