A Fort Worth community member has filed a federal complaint against the Fort Worth Independent School District, accusing the district of racial discrimination with a lack of investment in African-American students. Other community members and organizations are planning to come forward in support of the complaint.
Wanda McKinney, a Fort Worth ISD taxpayer and volunteer reading coach with local literacy nonprofit Read2Win , is leading the charge on the complaint filed on Monday evening with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. McKinney alleges Fort Worth ISD violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by inequitably distributing federal COVID-19 relief funds, specifically the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund known as ESSER. This funding came in three rounds, and the complaint focuses on the district’s spending of the $262 million final round .
“Despite pre-existing data and ongoing reports indicating that African-American students were the lowest-performing student group, FWISD failed to implement an intentional, equitable plan to distribute ESSER funds to improve learning outcomes for African-American students,” the complaint reads. “The regression of African-American students and the district’s failure to equitably distribute ESSER funds are indicative of discriminatory practices based on race. These actions demonstrate a clear violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as they deny African-American students equal access to educational opportunities and benefits.”
A demand letter requesting the district to address the issues laid out in the complaint will be sent to officials next week, garnering support of other community members and organizations such as the NAACP of Fort Worth-Tarrant County, Unity in the Community and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, according to McKinney.
“As of now, Fort Worth ISD has not received a complaint or demand letter. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on investigations or potential litigation,” district spokesperson Cesar Padilla said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
The complaint comes against the backdrop of McKinney’s involvement in Fort Worth ISD as a literacy advocate who’s overseen Read2Win’s program at Maudrie M. Walton Elementary School in east Fort Worth for about a decade, she said. During her time there, it became apparent that students were not reading on grade level and “there was no real intentional intervention at that school,” she added.
“If it wasn’t for a volunteer program… What intervention would these students have? Very little to none,” she said.
Details of the complaint
The complaint hones in on three areas of focus: inequitable funds distribution and oversight, lack of intentional interventions, and removal of existing infrastructure to address intervention for low-performing students.
The allegation of inequitable distribution of funds states that Fort Worth ISD campuses with a predominantly African-American student population and with lower 2019 accountability ratings received disproportionately less money compared to other campuses with a lower percentage of Black students and higher ratings. The Texas Education Agency releases the A-F accountability ratings based on test scores from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, in addition to other factors such as graduation rates, academic growth and closing the gaps. The state grades of districts and schools are intended to be released annually but have not been released the past two years because of pending litigation from school districts.
The alleged lack of intentional interventions and removal of existing infrastructure points to a lack of literacy curricula and interventions specifically for African-American students, despite the district creating a School Performance Framework in August 2023 that included a goal of targeting low performances of Black students, according to the complaint.
“Even after creating the SPF in August 2023 that supposedly targeted African-American students’ low-level reading performance, the district administrators decided in April 2024 to remove full-time librarians from eight elementary campuses. Five of the eight campuses were predominantly African-American campuses. Studies have indicated that librarians are conducive to improving student literacy,” the complaint reads.
The complaint also mentions an earlier School Performance Framework from the 2019-2020 school year that included a racial equity lens meant to target low-performing campuses, but its implementation appeared to be thwarted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the complaint alleges.
Additionally, the removal of the ESSER-funded Saturday Learning Quest program from District 3 campuses , which is a predominantly African-American district, is noted. Six out of the nine elementary schools in District 3 are located in ZIP codes with predominantly Black populations, according to city demographic data .
The Saturday program provided extra instructional time in reading and math for about 14 weekends of the year, in addition to enrichment activities such as building with Legos and flying drones. District officials told the Star-Telegram in September 2023 that, at the time, the district scaled back the program to five campuses at Western Hills, Rufino Mendoza, Westcreek, Richard J. Wilson and Oaklawn elementary schools to serve students from the 15 highest-need elementary campuses. It had previously been offered at 24 Fort Worth ISD elementary schools and was open to students at all 81 elementary schools.
Moreover, the complaint cites African-American students regressing in reading fluency about two years after the district started receiving the last round of ESSER funding, specifically students in kindergarten through third grade. A June 2023 district presentation shows this demographic of students was the only group to regress at this time in this category. In addition, the district presentation shows the percentage of African-American pre-K students who were on track for phonological awareness regressed. Pre-K students and kindergarten through third-grade students both saw a 1% decrease.
“This regression underscores the discriminatory impact of the district’s funding decisions, violating the protections afforded under Title VI,” according to the complaint.
McKinney and supporting organizations and community members are calling on the district to take three different actions:
Conduct an audit of ESSER fund spending from June 2021 to now showing how each school campus acquired its respective funding and the ways equitable distribution was monitored.
Provide a comprehensive report on each campus’ funding allocation and how the funds were utilized when looking at racial demographics, accountability ratings and specifics of how learning loss and social-emotional learning were addressed.
Implement equitable practices that align Title VI compliance, including targeted support and equitable funding to address disparities impacting African-American students. Among the other specific interventions listed are: literacy curriculum tailored to kindergarten through third-grade students that addresses vocabulary deficits of African-American students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; placing tenured, quality teachers at low-performing campuses; and reducing disproportionate out-of-school suspensions and more.
The incoming demand letter will reiterate these three points, according to McKinney.
What happens next?
The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, still has to determine whether it will investigate the complaint based on factors such as its legal authority and whether the complaint was filed within 180 days of the alleged discrimination, according to the office’s website . It’s unclear when the office will notify the coalition and district officials of its decision on whether or not to investigate.
If the OCR investigation finds the district had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the office “will attempt to secure (Fort Worth ISD’s) willingness to negotiate a voluntary resolution agreement,” the office’s website states. If the district were to agree to this, Fort Worth ISD officials would negotiate an agreement outlining specific actions they would take to address the areas of noncompliance identified by the office.
When a school district does not agree “to correct its noncompliance with the civil rights law(s) by entering into a resolution agreement, OCR may initiate proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue Federal financial assistance to (the district), or may refer the case to the Department of Justice,” the website states.
It would also be a possibility for the district and coalition to reach a settlement facilitated by OCR staff before a potential investigation were to be finished, if both parties are willing to do that.
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