The Fort Worth school board’s decision to accept Superintendent Angélica Ramsey’s resignation reaffirms its commitment to the success of the district, Mayor Mattie Parker said in a statement to the Star-Telegram Wednesday.
“I applaud the Board for the seriousness with which they have taken their roles as the elected governing body of Fort Worth ISD,” she said.
Ramsey resigned Tuesday , four weeks after Parker and 40 other business, civic and nonprofit leaders penned a letter to the school board demanding improvements in student achievement . The 8-1 vote to accept the resignation followed a four-hour closed session. Board member Camille Rodriguez voted against the motion.
Parker praised school board president Roxanne Martinez for her commitment to move the district forward and find “the transformative leader our district deserves.”
She called on the community to come together to ensure Fort Worth’s schools thrive to build a brighter future for its students. The 72,783-student district is the largest in Tarrant County.
“Together, we have the potential to make FWISD the premier public school district in the country,” she said.
In the wake of Ramsey’s resignation, several of those signatories argued the board shouldn’t escape scrutiny for the district’s failures. They said lackluster reading scores and declining student achievement won’t be solved by hiring a new superintendent.
“Members of the school board should look in the mirror, learn lessons from the last 10 years, hold themselves accountable, adopt a no excuses attitude, and chart a course that provides our kids the education they deserve,” said Pete Geren, president of the nonprofit Sid W. Richardson Foundation, which awards grants to support education and cultural institutions in Fort Worth.
Ramsey never really understood Fort Worth’s culture, said former Mayor Betsy Price.
“The community has always been involved with their schools from business leaders, neighborhood leaders to parents, and she wasn’t in the community a lot, and wasn’t out connecting with people,” Price said.
Ramsey did organize several advisory councils to get feedback from teachers, parents, students and business leaders on ways to improve the district. She also serves on the North Texas Leaders and Executives Advocating Diversity Committee, the North Texas Commission, the Council of Great City Schools, the Fort Worth Rotary and the Optimist Club of Fort Worth. She is on several boards of directors, including the Longhorn Council, Junior Achievement, United Way of Tarrant County and Girl Scouts of Fort Worth.
Price was one of several people who participated in an Aug. 8 private meeting with Ramsey organized by Parker. She said some of those present were dissatisfied with what they saw as a lack of a plan for moving the district forward.
Price acknowledged Ramsey took over the district at a difficult time with falling enrollment, fights over curriculum, and debates about school closures on top of the issues with poor test scores.
Any improvement in leadership would be welcome, said Texas A&M law school dean Robert Ahdieh — another signatory to the Aug. 27 letter.
Ahdieh, who in addition to running the law school is involved in business attraction, said having a high-quality public education system is key to Fort Worth’s success.
“We should acknowledge that none of this is flip a switch. None of this is changes in a seat and miraculously miracles happen,” he said.
The whole community needs to come together to signal that high-quality education is a priority, Ahdieh said.
It’s a tough situation, because superintendents usually get five years to turn things around and Ramsey has had only two, said Bob Ray Sanders, spokesperson for the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce.
“But I’ve seen us go through many five-year plans and never succeed with the plan,” Sanders said.
He noted that Parker’s message at the Aug. 27 school board meeting was not meant as an indictment of Ramsey, but rather a call for the board to work with the superintendent to improve the school district.
“The board needs to be stronger and have real responsibility for this district, and not get tied up in politics,” he said.
Sanders, who was also present at an Aug. 8 meeting, described it as tense and frank with a lot of participants expressing frustration about the school district’s low test scores.
There was also sympathy from some in the meeting because Ramsey had tried to put forward a strategic plan that was rejected by the school board in July, Sanders said.
However, Sanders acknowledged Ramsey’s experience coming from the much smaller 26,000-student Midland school district may not have adequately prepared her to take on the rigors of the job in Fort Worth.
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