12-03-2025
Fort Worth ISD school board hires Karen Molinar for superintendent position
The Fort Worth Independent School District's board voted Tuesday to hire longtime district administrator Karen Molinar to do the job she's been doing on an interim basis for five months — superintendent of schools.
Molinar, a 26-year veteran of Fort Worth ISD, was appointed interim superintendent on Oct. 8, about a week after Superintendent Angélica Ramsey's resignation. Tuesday's 8-0 vote came nearly a month after the board voted to name Molinar the lone finalist for the job.
At a news conference after Tuesday's vote, Molinar said improving academic performance, particularly in reading, would be her top priority. Literacy will remain the district's top priority until it closes the achievement gaps for Black students and students who are learning English, and until the district doesn't lag behind the rest of the state on state tests.
Molinar acknowledged that the district has a long way to go to reach those goals. For the past several years, Fort Worth ISD has consistently been the lowest-performing big urban district in Texas. But in the district and elsewhere, there are examples of schools that have helped Black students and those who are learning English make progress, she said. She pointed to Alice Contreras and De Zavala elementary schools in Fort Worth ISD as bright spots in the district. By looking at what those campuses and successful schools in other districts are doing right, district leaders can replicate those ideas elsewhere, she said.
As district leaders and board members work on a budget for the next school year, they'll also be reallocating money to give more support to the district's reading programs, Molinar said. District leaders are already looking at summer training programs for principals and assistant principals in how to handle reading instruction, she said.
'We have a long way to go — a very long way to go,' she said.
Molinar has made reading a priority since taking over as interim superintendent. At the first board meeting after she took the interim job, she spoke frankly about the district's shortcomings, saying the district was at risk of another year of lackluster academic progress if teachers and district leaders didn't act immediately. Among other steps, she announced a plan to send central office staff out into the district to work with students who need extra support.
At a meeting in January, the board adopted a resolution naming literacy as its top priority and directing the superintendent to put together a plan to get students up to grade level in reading. During a news conference before the meeting, Molinar said literacy rates represent a crisis in Fort Worth and Tarrant County. She outlined the early details of a plan to get students on track, including developing a district-wide framework for how schools handle literacy instruction, aligning budgets and school resources behind literacy priorities and monitoring students' progress.
Fort Worth ISD's reading scores have been stagnant for more than a decade. The percentage of students scoring on grade level in reading on the state test has generally hovered between 28-33% since 2014. More than half the district's fourth- and eighth-graders scored below basic proficiency in reading on last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation's Report Card. That designation means those students haven't even partially mastered the skills they need to be proficient readers.
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During the public comment section of Tuesday's meeting, Steven Poole, executive director of United Educators Association, said Molinar's hiring represented 'the first time in a very long time' that he felt hopeful for the district. Poole said the Fort Worth ISD teachers in his organization represents support her hiring, as well.
Poole pointed to the board meeting in late August when Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker spoke to the board, calling for a city-wide effort to boost academic performance in the district. Without steady board leadership, the district could easily have spun out of control, he said. But instead, the board found an effective leader in Molinar, he said. Molinar's experience as a teacher and administrator in Fort Worth ISD gives her credibility with teachers and staff in the district, he said.
'She doesn't need to go on a listening tour,' he said. 'They know her and she knows them.'
