Latest news with #Molinar
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fort Worth ISD reveals new lesson structures to help improve academic performance
As students in the Fort Worth Independent School District wrap up their last week of school, Superintendent Karen Molinar revealed details about how classroom lessons will be structured upon their return to school in the fall. Molinar gave a presentation to the school board on Tuesday, May 20, of Fort Worth ISD's new instructional framework that will go into effect in the 2025-26 school year for literacy and math. The framework is one of the components of the district's effort to turn around its stagnant academic performance. The goal is to promote consistency in the classroom and reduce planning time for teachers while keeping their autonomy intact. Beyond literacy and math, the framework will apply to all subjects for kindergarten through eighth grade, Molinar said. A framework for high school lessons is in the works. Molinar explained in-depth the three parts of the instructional framework: first teach; demonstration of learning; and reteach and challenge. First teach, the initial layer of instruction known as tier one instruction, includes addressing gaps students have in prerequisite skills, adjusting what students are learning or how they're learning it, and using techniques that allow students to participate and share their thinking during a lesson. 'Regardless of where they come in at, that first teach always has to be at grade level. If they're reading on a second-grade level, but they're in the third grade, they're always going to receive that third-grade instruction,' Molinar said. The second part, demonstration of learning, consists of no more than five questions that are aligned with the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, exam to gauge what students took away from the lesson. The final reteach and challenge block involves grouping students based on how they performed with their demonstration of learning to receive additional support if needed. Students who 'meet' or 'master' the material do enrichment activities to further their learning. District officials will provide teachers with lesson slide decks and questions for the demonstrations of learning to be used as guides during class time. The slide decks and lesson materials will be linked together in one place through an online portal. 'The lesson planning is done for the teachers. The delivery is the autonomy of the teacher,' Molinar said. 'Teachers are now going to be able to plan weeks in advance and really be able to adjust.' Molinar also presented a funding overview for various options of reading and math curriculum approved by the State Board of Education, which included the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum. Bluebonnet's literacy curriculum has sparked controversy for its Bible-infused reading materials. Molinar focused on the math portion of the Bluebonnet curriculum, including a presentation slide with bullet points explaining why it was 'a better choice for Fort Worth ISD.' Among the examples she mentioned were its instructional support for teachers, emergent bilingual students and students who previously have struggled with math. It also replicates the district's current curriculum, Eureka Math and Carnegie Learning, so teachers won't have to learn an entirely new curriculum. 🚨 More top stories from our newsroom: → Fort Worth ISD board approves plan to close 18 schools → TCU student murder case moves toward trial → Mansfield ISD board approves superintendent's contract [Get our breaking news alerts.] The school board approved the adoption and roughly $2 million purchase of the Bluebonnet Learning math curriculum later on in the meeting, in an 8-0 vote without discussion. School board member Wallace Bridges was absent. 'If there's a better resource for our students, and we're getting funding from the state, it's our obligation to put that in front of them and to make sure our teachers have the best curriculum and the best resources for our students,' Molinar said. Molinar also shared the district's update for dyslexia screening, which includes adding another screening for seventh-grade students. When students are taking their beginning-of-the-year MAP test, middle schools will do screening for seventh-graders identified by the district. By the end of the first six weeks of school, or Sept. 19, families will be given a data analysis of their child's screening with a literacy support plan. Students suspected of having dyslexia, or other disabilities under the umbrella of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, will be evaluated by district staff within 45 school days of staff receiving parental consent to do the evaluation.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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. 🚨 More top stories from our newsroom: → Sheriff blames clerical error for failure to report jail death to AG → Suspect accused of killing roommate arrested after police chase → Grief lasts for mom who lost daughter to domestic violence [Get our breaking news alerts.] 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.'
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fort Worth ISD mid-year academic performance shows promise in reading, gaps in math scores
The Fort Worth Independent School District's middle-of-the-year test scores for reading and math have yielded a mixed bag of results, but district officials say the scores show a limited reflection of the extra tutoring support recently implemented by the district. Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar gave a presentation on Tuesday, Feb. 18, updating the school board on the latest MAP scores, or Measures of Academic Progress test, and whether the current performance of students are on track to meet the district's state performance goals for the next five years. The test is administered by the district at the beginning, middle and end of each school year and serves as a gauge for how students could perform on STAAR, or State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. While third-grade students are on track to meet their spring 2025 reading goal set by the district — 33% meeting or above grade level for state testing standards — the same third-graders are currently off track to meet their spring 2025 math goal, which is 32% meeting or above grade level. Looking at grades 6-8, students are on track to meet these same performance measures in reading — at 32% — while just missing the mark for math performance, even though the percentage of students meeting proficiency standards on the MAP test is identical to the district's spring 2025 STAAR goal, which is 22%. 'This is an area of concern for our grade 3 math. But what this tells us is that this time of the year, we need to put more intensive and strategic and explicit interventions in place around the area of math,' Molinar said. 'When we have looked at our middle-of-the-year data before, we didn't do any systemic interventions and targets to make a change in the data. However, we have already committed that our (middle of the year) data will change where we're deploying some of our interventions and supports out to our campuses.' Molinar noted the ongoing tutoring support from about 150 central administration staff who are mainly focused on reading and math intervention, and how the initiative only has been active for about five weeks. Students take the middle-of-the-year MAP test when returning to school from winter break. When looking at STAAR reading projections for grades 3-8, the difference from beginning-of-the-year data to middle-of-the-year data shows minimal improvement. The projections show just 1 percentage point increase in students mastering grade level, 2 percentage point decrease in students meeting grade level and 1 percentage point increase in students not meeting grade level. The projections for math for grades 3-8 only show an increase in the percentage of students not meeting grade level. Molinar acknowledged the district is not where it needs to be but highlighted and commemorated specific teachers whose students are excelling in these subjects. In Graciela Blanco-Davis' first-grade class at Natha Howell Elementary School, 100% of students are meeting or exceeding their growth targets for reading by the middle of the year. 'We are not where we need to be as a district. However, we need to celebrate our teachers that are showing tremendous gains,' Molinar said. A bright spot in the MAP testing data shows a 12-percentage-point gain from a year ago to now with 36% of students performing at grade level or above in Algebra 1. When looking at STAAR projections for this subject, there's a 4-percentage-point increase in students mastering grade level. Molinar also shared an update on the tutoring initiative of central administration staff, all of whom are certified teachers, who are providing small-group tutoring two to three times a week throughout the district. As of Feb. 10, there were more than 10,600 support hours logged; more than 17,100 support sessions recorded; and more than 2,600 students served. The students receiving tutoring are surpassing their peers and the district overall in meeting their MAP growth targets, Molinar said. School board Trustee Anne Darr said she was excited to see some of the gains in reading and asked Molinar what the plan was to boost math performance. 'We need to go back and look at what resources we're asking our intervention support teams to utilize, especially in (those) areas of math, the alignment with those resources, and to see if they need additional training as well,' Molinar said. 'Everyone's always stronger in one content or another. I was a teacher; I was a lot stronger in literacy than I would have been if I was a math teacher. So we need to make sure we also are providing support to the teachers that they also have the knowledge base to be able to intervene with our math students.' At the Tuesday meeting, Molinar was also named as the sole finalist for the permanent superintendent position just moments before her presentation. She has served in the interim position for about four months after the resignation of former superintendent Angélica Ramsey. The school board had received about a dozen applications from superintendent candidates over 10 days, starting on Jan. 23, before selecting Molinar. The board is expected to take final action on her hiring at a special meeting on March 11.
