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More than 1,000 teachers in Fort Worth ISD announced their plans to resign during the 2025-26 school year, with most of those following the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of the district in March.
In total, 1,026 teachers resigned by June 26, which was the district’s deadline for teacher resignations. That number is up almost 58% from last year’s deadline. Nearly 800 of this year’s resignations came after TEA took over Fort Worth ISD in the spring, naming Peter Licata as the district’s new superintendent and appointing a Board of Managers to temporarily replace the elected school board because of poor academic performance. By last year’s June deadline, just 648 teachers had announced their resignation.
In an interview Wednesday with the Star-Telegram, Fort Worth ISD Human Resources Chief Denisha Presley said the district expected a large amount of turnover following the leadership changes made by TEA and has made better progress at filling vacancies than they have in years prior.
“Any kind of organizational change or major shift will cause turnover,” Presley said. “Fort Worth ISD has historically had 600-700 teachers resign per year, and while the shift is greater this year, we’ve started every school year in the past with more than 200 vacancies.”
Fort Worth ISD leaders are saying they currently have less than 20 teacher vacancies, as of July 22. But they also said there are vacancies for 11 bilingual support teachers, 25 speech language pathologists, 11 school psychologists, five dyslexia specialists, four inclusion teachers and two bilingual support specialists. Those openings are not counted toward the 20 classroom teacher vacancies reported by the district.
On Fort Worth ISD’s job board, there were a total of 47 teaching openings, including CTE, arts, health, physical education and bilingual teachers.
“In the past, no one has really asked what the turnover rate is at Fort Worth ISD,” Presley said. “Yes, we did see more turnover. But was it an astronomical number compared to what we have typically seen? I would not say that.”
How did Fort Worth ISD fill teaching vacancies this summer?
District leaders held hiring fairs several times a week throughout June and July to aggressively address the larger-than-usual number of open positions. They also offered a virtual information session for potential teachers outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The district worked with partners across the state and the nation to identify teachers who may be a good fit. They also sent emails to a number of education departments at universities across the United States promoting teaching opportunities in Fort Worth.
“At our virtual information sessions we had teachers who were from all over,” Presley said. “There were teachers there who were in the Philippines. There were teachers who were logging on from Georgia, California, just all over the country. And certainly there were teachers here in Texas as well.”
Presley mentioned Licata’s decision to give all classroom teachers in the district a 5% raise as a big reason why so many teachers were eager to hear about opportunities in Fort Worth.
Teachers hired by the district would ideally have full teaching certifications in Texas, but the district has dipped into a pool of uncertified applicants in order to aggressively fill its hundreds of vacancies.
“We will always want certified teachers in the classroom,” Presley said. “But we are approved by the school board and by TEA to hire uncertified teachers in our Career Technical Education courses.”
Fort Worth ISD this year also applied for an expansion to be able to hire more uncertified teachers in foundational curriculum classes, Presley said. Texas law allows public districts to cap its number of uncertified teachers at 20%. If approved by TEA, Fort Worth ISD could have significantly more uncertified teachers in classrooms during the 2027-28 school year.
District leaders braced for large turnover numbers this spring
In his first few weeks, Licata already began to prepare for how the district would attack filling a large number of vacancies in a short amount of time. The district held job fairs for teachers interested in joining Fort Worth ISD from other districts, increased classroom teaching salaries by 5% and met with current teachers to explain why they should stay in the district, Licata said.
“We try to convince some of the teachers that are really, really good, that are thinking about leaving to please stay,” Licata said. “Please, please, please, stay.”
Licata also told the Star-Telegram in April that he was promised by his team, including Chief of Staff Louis Kushner, that the district will have zero teaching vacancies by the first day of school, which is Monday, Aug. 10.
“Whenever a big change happens, there is always some transition that follows,” Licata said in April. “But I have someone very important in my staff who has guaranteed me that there will be no vacancies on the first day of school, and we are going to push to make sure that happens.
“We can do it. If we set our sights to have just 100 vacancies, there will be 100. If we set our sights on zero, then there will be zero. Because every kid who walks in the door deserves to have a real teacher in front of the classroom.”
