Interim superintendent plans student-centered reforms to turn around Fort Worth ISD

The order of classrooms didn’t make sense to Karen Molinar as she walked through Oakhurst Elementary.

The new principal saw a first-grade class next to a third-grade room. One fifth-grade classroom was upstairs, while another was downstairs. No grade levels were together. Instead, teachers’ friendships dictated room assignments.

“This isn’t working for our kids. This is working for adults,” she said to herself.

Molinar knew what she had to do: Make the unpopular decision for the sake of students. Oakhurst Elementary needed a student-centered culture to thrive, she said, and she was going to make it happen.

Now, 17 years later, Molinar faces a similar challenge. This time, she is Fort Worth ISD’s interim superintendent — and potentially its next permanent leader — and has to address turning around a school district that has struggled academically for almost a decade. She knows it won’t be easy, but she sees a path forward by centering students again, rebuilding trust in the greater community, and communicating with parents and residents in a transparent and accessible way.

Molinar is clear about the state of her school district. Bright spots exist, but overall the district is not where she wants it, she said.

The community, Molinar said, has been clear: What Fort Worth ISD has been doing isn’t working. The data supports that, too, she added.

The community wants change.

“Let’s do it. Let’s deliver what’s best for kids,” Molinar said. “We can really change the trajectory of this district and, more importantly, how people feel about us.”

‘My style is going to be different’

The school board appointed Molinar as interim superintendent Oct. 8 after Angélica Ramsey resigned in September amid questions about the effectiveness of her leadership. For the past year, the relationship between Ramsey and the school board grew increasingly tense as they disagreed on academic goals and the overall direction of Fort Worth ISD.

In late August, Mayor Mattie Parker took the rare step of attending a school board meeting to voice the dissatisfaction she and more than 40 community leaders had with the state of the school district and its lack of leadership.

A month later, Ramsey was out.

Molinar, a deputy superintendent whose three-decade career in education has been spent almost entirely in Fort Worth, was in — and ready to take on the permanent gig.

Trustees saw her as the person who can put Fort Worth ISD in the right direction, school board President Roxanne Martinez said shortly after trustees approved Molinar’s appointment.

“She has always been someone who leads with heart, putting students and staff first and, in this time of transition, we are confident in her ability to guide our district forward and continue building on the incredible work already in motion,” Martinez said.

Molinar has heard the questions about whether someone who has spent so much time in a system that needs turnaround can deliver such significant improvements.

She worked as the No. 2 to the district’s past two superintendents, Ramsey and Kent Scribner. As deputy superintendent, Molinar saw her role as supporting the top leader and their decisions. She was more of a behind-the-scenes contributor. She was to work closely with the superintendent, but any final call rested with that person.

Now holding the reins of the district, her leadership will be like neither Ramsey nor Scribner.

“My style is going to be different,” Molinar said. “I’m a very relationship-based person, but I can be very firm, I can be very strategic and very focused. You don’t always get to see that side of me in the roles I’ve done.”

Under Scribner, Molinar was chief of staff. She recalled a staff meeting with the then-superintendent, and no one pushed back — except for her. Scribner appreciated her standing up and voicing her thoughts, Molinar recalled.

Xavier Sanchez and Molinar worked alongside as executive directors before she became his boss. Although they were initially equals, Sanchez remembers Molinar standing out because of her high standards and her focus on students and parents.

“She really just set the bar for all of us, without the title,” Sanchez said.

Once she had the boss title, Molinar was good at setting the stage for decisions and explaining her rationale, he said. Her process meant there was almost always instant buy-in from principals.

“That is really her strength. As a leader, she’s built up the trust from within the school leaders to follow her,” said Sanchez, now a leader of New Heights High School, the state’s first adult charter high school.

Molinar sees her experience as an advantage. Fort Worth ISD has lost a significant chunk of its institutional knowledge during several rounds of layoffs in the past two years.

Fresh faces are in new positions. They’re learning to understand the district as an institution. They’re learning the city’s culture. They’re learning about Fort Worth’s communities and their differences.

“She just has the personality and the relationships to really foster buy-in from not only district leaders, but the school leaders,” Sanchez said. “She knows the communities in our city so well.”

Molinar recognizes that each community is different. For the school district, those differences mean coming up with plans that best fit each school.

“A Ridglea Hills does not need the same thing as a Clifford Davis,” Molinar said of two elementary schools on opposite sides of Fort Worth ISD that serve vastly different communities.

Turnaround first steps

When Molinar hears the phrase “turnaround plan,” she thinks of it as a one and done.

She agrees that Fort Worth ISD needs turnaround. However, her plan emphasizes transparency of student achievement data and the variances in students’ needs across the district’s 210 square miles.

And it won’t be a one off.

“Each priority is going to be unveiled and it’s going to be constant because as we move and change, we’re going to add another layer,” Molinar said. “It’s not one plan where we’re going to check off boxes. Because not every box works for every campus either.”

Fort Worth ISD needs to be transparent about student achievement and set clear expectations, she said.

“When we are transparent about our data, everyone knows where we’re at, everyone knows where we need to go,” Molinar said.

About 2 in 3 Fort Worth ISD students did not meet grade level in reading, according to results from the 2024 state standardized test. In math, 3 in 4 did not meet grade level.

The most recent superintendent used a test tracking academic growth to tell the public about Fort Worth ISD’s progress. However, some experts and education advocates criticized the decision because growth is an expectation and said the test is best used by teachers for changing classroom instruction.

Parent Shield, a group that helps parents navigate the educational system, listed increased transparency and reporting student achievement in an accessible and easy-to-understand format as one of the top priorities it has for a new superintendent.

An Oct. 22 presentation to the school board shows Molinar’s approach to reporting student achievement data — including breakdowns by student demographics. The presentation focuses on the number of students meeting grade level on the state standardized test and an academic growth-tracking exam — and emphasizes the two are correlated.

Fort Worth ISD has missed opportunities because it has not worked enough with community partners, the interim superintendent said. The school district can provide support and leverage its resources, such as professional development. Partners can offer insight on students during off-school hours. Together, they ultimately become better so students can succeed.

“How can we come together? That’s going to be a really big priority for me,” Molinar said.

Leading by example

Shifting mindsets at Oakhurst Elementary wasn’t easy.

Molinar knew she had to model the student-centered behavior she wanted for her school and staff, she said.

In every conversation with educators, Molinar asked the same question: “Are we being student-centered or adult-centered?” She held teachers accountable and expected the same in return.

Every step toward centering students helped Oakhurst Elementary, Molinar said.

“For me, it was saying, ‘We’re about students and parents.’ Everybody fell in line,” Molinar said. “The teachers learned that I wasn’t just saying it. They started to be that way, too. Not that they weren’t, but they really started to actively engage a little differently.”

Parents were brought more into the fold. Teachers received more support. Students succeeded.

Oakhurst Elementary flourished, she said.

The unpopular decision to arrange classroom assignments by grade level ignited Oakhurst Elementary’s late 2000s renaissance.

Now, Molinar is hoping to do the same for the entirety of Fort Worth ISD.

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

This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.