Math teacher Donnelle Bratton set a timer and roamed around her classroom as her students solved a problem.
Tick. Tick.
The fourth graders at the Leadership Academy Network at Como Elementary needed to place the decimal 0.7 on a number line using the letter Z. With their index fingers, students circled each point representing a whole number and drew arcs on each of the four answer choices displayed on their iPads.
Tick. Tick.
Bratton provided tips as needed, jotting notes on her clipboard she tracked each student’s progress.
“Down to one minute,” Bratton told her students.
If you go
The Fort Worth Report is hosting a conversation about how to turn around Fort Worth ISD.
Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar, school board President Roxanne Martinez, Sid W. Richardson Foundation President and CEO Pete Geren and Hillwood Senior Vice President Reid Goetz are the panelists.
When: 5:30-7 p.m. Dec. 3. Discussion begins promptly at 6 p.m.
Where: Second floor of the Nick and Lou Martin University Center at Texas Wesleyan University, 3165 E. Rosedale St.
Cost: Tickets are $5 and can be purchased here. Your paid ticket helps make events like this possible. However, please know that everyone is welcome. If cost is a concern, simply email us at hello@fortworthreport.org.
Bratton’s students are familiar with her use of aggressive monitoring. Texas Wesleyan University deployed the strategy, alongside a full suite of others, to turn around the school and four other Fort Worth ISD campuses that teetered on the edge of failure seven years ago. The effort — called the Leadership Academy Network — has so far been successful, according to administrators. The schools could show the rest of Fort Worth ISD a path forward as district leaders work to turn around long-languishing academic achievement and deliver improvements in the spring.
Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar is reshaping Fort Worth ISD with a student-centered focus and vowed transparency in reporting academic achievement. She recently hired a turnaround expert to lead the Transformation, Innovation and Accountability Division — her self-described data war room — that will guide many district decisions.
Already, Molinar has looked to the Leadership Academy Network for ideas. For example, on Feb. 17, she announced plans to duplicate the network’s parent-teacher conference day for all Fort Worth ISD schools, she told trustees in November.
Both Fort Worth ISD and the Leadership Academy Network schools serve diverse student populations. However, differences exist. Fort Worth ISD’s overall enrollment is overwhelmingly Latino, with nearly 2 of 3 students so identified. Enrollment in Leadership Academy Network schools is nearly split between Black and Latino students.
Priscila Dilley, senior officer of the Leadership Academy Network, sees plenty of room for improvement for her schools despite their significant academic growth.
“Growth is nice to look at, but that’s not going to get a kid going to college. That’s not going to have a kid being successful and in a career or in a trade,” Dilley said. “We need them to have the skills to be on grade level to be competitive.”
‘Let’s replicate that’
Which schools are part of the Leadership Academy Network?
Texas Wesleyan University runs day-to-day operations at five Fort Worth ISD campuses:
- Como Elementary
- Mitchell Boulevard Elementary
- Maude I. Logan Elementary
- John T. White Elementary
- Forest Oak Middle School
Dilley has marshaled the Texas Wesleyan-Fort Worth ISD partnership since its beginning in 2019. The partnership was created under a state law that allows third parties, such as Texas Wesleyan, to operate schools for either innovation or turnaround.
The campuses lacked student-centered cultures and welcoming atmospheres. Staffing was a revolving door. Academically? The schools consistently received F ratings — D’s, if they were lucky.
When Texas Wesleyan started running the schools, Dilley and her team completely rethought the operations, based on a similar turnaround model from Dallas ISD.
The school day was extended. The best and brightest teachers and school leaders were hired and learned the best evidence-based instruction methods. The expectation now was that students would meet — and exceed — grade-level proficiency.
A new culture was created.
At each campus, teachers come together, analyze their student data and share what works and doesn’t so students down the hall can benefit from work in another classroom.
Leadership Academy Network campuses also receive additional dollars in state funding to bring on additional staff and other resources.
Above all, though, Dilley didn’t want the partnership to be overbearing and issue sweeping mandates, such as requiring unnecessary paperwork to track students or demanding a certain curriculum. Instead, it was her job to support teachers as they worked to advance student achievement.
“At the end of the day, who’s standing in front of our kids is what’s going to really make or break student achievement,” Dilley said. “Our strategy has been where are teachers performing, which ones are the ones that are getting results with kids and let’s replicate that success because we now have models of what good classroom instruction looks like — and let’s replicate that.”
In the partnership’s first year, Leadership Academy Network schools saw significant growth, with failing schools jumping to B ratings. Since then, the campuses have remained at the steady letter grade.
The revolving door was gone. The Leadership Academy Network has retained 93% of its teachers for the past three years.
Consistency, Dilley said, came to communities that had never experienced it.
What law allows for the partnership?
Texas Wesleyan University runs five Fort Worth ISD schools through the Texas Partnerships program.
A 2017 law, Senate Bill 1882, established the program as a way to provide incentives for school districts to partner with charter schools, higher education institutions, nonprofits or government entities.
The law provides additional state funding for campuses that fall under a partnership. Additionally, the schools are exempt from certain accountability interventions — a state-required turnaround plan, state-appointed board of managers and state-mandated closure — for two years.
Partnerships can be used for either turnaround or innovation.
Fort Worth ISD has used the partnerships law primarily for turnaround.
Other than Texas Wesleyan, Fort Worth ISD had a short-lived partnership with Indiana-based charter operator Phalen Leadership Academies to run Jacquet Middle School. In a mutual agreement, the partnership ended after no progress was made on the school’s low academic performance.
‘To be successful’
Fifth graders Jailynn Smith and Leo Corona love math. They can walk anyone through fractions. Adding, subtracting and even simplifying.
Their grades reflect their interests. Still, they both know where they need improvement.
Jailynn, a straight A student, wants to focus more on science because she has a hard time understanding some of the concepts.
Leo wants to do better in reading and writing. His science and math grades are solid, he said. Writing is not his forte, but he plans to practice more at home.
Students and teachers across all Leadership Academy Network schools know their expectations and monitor progress, Dilley said.
The expectation? Students need to meet grade level on state assessments. Approaching grade level, one of the four metrics by which the state groups student performance, does not cut it for students, the school or Fort Worth.
“We’ve been entrusted with kids. They come in here and we want to be able to deliver a product — our children — to be able to be successful in our communities and beyond,” Dilley said.
Practices scalable, partnership not
Dilley sees many of Leadership Academy Network’s practices as scalable for Fort Worth ISD. Texas Wesleyan didn’t have to reinvent schooling. Instead, it relied on what worked to move the needle on achievement based on data and research, Dilley said.
“When you have a larger system, we all speak the same language. We all can support our teachers and principals,” Dilley said. “Our job is to make them better and help them in getting the results that they need.”
The partnership model likely cannot be replicated entirely for the dozens of elementary schools across Fort Worth ISD.
The cost alone is prohibitive.
Each of the schools cost around $1 million annually to operate, Dilley said. Additional state funds allow Leadership Academy Network schools to receive more money than other Fort Worth ISD schools.
Despite the additional dollars, Leadership Academy Network schools and Fort Worth ISD campuses are still at the mercy of the Texas Legislature. Legislators have not increased public education funding since 2019.
“Where we were able to do some really intensive work up front, we’ve had to scale back,” Dilley said, comparing the partnership’s early years to now.
After Election Day, Gov. Greg Abbott issued his support to add more dollars to public schools — if lawmakers expand private school choice through a voucher-like program called education savings accounts.
Fort Worth ISD deals with larger teacher and principal retention issues than the five Leadership Academy Network schools. More principals left Fort Worth ISD during the 2023-24 school year than in any year since 2017. Fewer teachers left the district organically during the 2023-24 school year and instead chose to exit because of frustration.
‘Talk to us’
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Ethereal music rang from a speaker on math teacher Bratton’s desk, signaling to her students time was up.
With a swift motion on her computer, Bratton displayed all of her students’ work on an interactive display at the front of the class. Her eyes darted to one answer filled with hand-drawn lines and circles.
“Alright, Kylan,” Bratton said, “stand up and talk to us about what you did.”
Kylan walked from his desk to the front of the room and examined his work.
“I looked at the whole numbers on the number line,” he said, as his teacher encouraged him to continue.
“And then I looked in between the numbers,” Kylan said, in a raspy, quiet voice.
“Were there any tics between the whole numbers, guys? Y’all see any tics between the whole numbers?” Bratton said, as a chorus of noes quietly rang out. “Oh, so you had to really do some math on this one.”
Kylan had the wrong answer. However, Bratton warmly asked the class to help him eliminate the incorrect choices.
Together, Kylan and his classmates worked through the problem and found the right answer: Z needed to be past the halfway mark between 0 and 1 but not too close to 1.
“Those of you who didn’t have it, do you understand?” Bratton said as students nodded. “Great. OK. Because you have one more — one more — chance.”
Bratton reset the timer.
The lesson continued.
Tick.
Disclosure: Texas Wesleyan University has been a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
