30-01-2025
Keller ISD trustees consider superintendent separation amid controversial proposed district split
KELLER — The Keller ISD Board of Trustees could soon be looking for a new superintendent amid the controversy surrounding a proposal to split the district in two.
On the agenda for its Thursday night board meeting is possible action on a "voluntary separation agreement" with the superintendent. It's followed by another item about naming an interim superintendent.
"It's just going to send us into more chaos," said Stephanie Walsh, whose four sons attend Keller ISD schools.
She is one of several parents in north Fort Worth who are joining forces to advocate for their children. Many of them chose their current homes because of the school district and felt blindsided when a proposal to divide Keller ISD leaked a few weeks ago.
"There's a lot of animosity, a lot of anger and I think they're destroying our community doing this the way that they're doing it," Walsh said. "I don't know if a split would be good or not because I don't have any information. But I do know that the board itself has done things that have put us in this situation and they're not doing anything to fix it."
The last board meeting on Jan. 16 lasted nearly seven hours, with contentious arguments breaking out between trustees and parents, who spoke overwhelmingly in opposition to the plan.
Superintendent Tracey Johnson even told the board she was prepared to resign from her role because she didn't believe a split is in the best interest of students, so many parents feel she's being pushed out for expressing her disapproval.
At the January 30 meeting, the board also plans to discuss the 2025-2026 budget and a report created by Moak Casey, an Austin-based school finance consulting firm that studied the realignment proposition.
District leaders have cited financial challenges, along with increased local control, as the main reasons for the possible split on a website the district posted last week.
"The message from the board has been trust us, but the board in the past three years has basically driven us into a pretty terrible financial state, which has kind of precipitated the idea of the split," said Keller ISD parent Andrew Walsh. "And unfortunately now they're just asking you to trust us and trust them again with no data, no analysis, no rigor behind it."
There is no agenda item specifically dedicated to discussing the potential realignment, but parents are hopeful the financial reports will at least shed some light on the methodology and research behind the idea.
