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FWISD changing approach for struggling schools

Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner revealed a reorganization plan that aims to raise academic achievement at the district’s lowest-performing schools.

<p>An educator in a FWISD classroom.</p>

FORT WORTH -- Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner revealed a reorganization plan that aims to raise academic achievement at the district’s lowest-performing schools.

The hope is that by streamlining and eliminating some administrative positions at central offices, the district will operate more efficiently and free up money that can be put to use in the classroom.

Scribner is eliminating all deputy superintendent roles and shrinking his leadership team to ten people.

The staff reorganization could generate as much as $1.3 million to spend on improvements at low-performing schools. The money saved would be spent on teacher training, after school programs, and tutoring.

Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Dr. Kent Scribner

According to a Fort Worth ISD news release, money would also be redirected to four critical areas: kindergarten readiness, early grades reading, middle grades math, and high school graduation.

District spokesperson Clint Bond said some of the eliminated positions are currently held by people who will retire or will move to other jobs within the district, while other positions have never been filled.

“He has done away with some positions that are no longer needed,” Bond said. “Positions that put too much administration between him and the principals and the teachers.”

Clint Bond

W.C. Stripling Middle School is not on the list of low-performing schools, but PTO President Sylvia Rodriguez said, like many of the schools in FWISD, it has more students needing help than there are resources to help them.

She has a seventh grader at Stripling and a ninth grader who attends Arlington Heights High School. Rodriguez supports the changes the superintendent is making, but said students need more access to computers and tutoring.

“I mean, if they are going to do that, that would be fine in the long run. Because colleges, and as they go and proceed with their education, there’s more homework,” she said. “But if they don’t have the resources, that’s just going to set the kids up for more failure."

Seventy teaching specialists from central administration will be reassigned. Instead of working from district offices and floating from school-to-school, Bond said they will instead be assigned to specific schools that need the most help.

Right now, 21 schools in the district are on the state’s watch list, after getting a rating of "improvement required."

Scribner presented the plan at Tuesday night’s meeting of the FWISD Board of Education, and it was approved by the trustees.

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