As Fort Worth ISD looks for new principals, experts warn about academic disruptions

As the Fort Worth Independent School District searches for replacements of two recently-departed principals, experts say school officials must be mindful of the impact those campus leaders have, and what happens when they leave their posts.

In Fort Worth ISD and beyond, the turnover of these leaders has caught the attention of community members and experts. Education researchers say principals play a key role in driving student success on their campuses, establishing campus culture and serving as lead instructional coaches. Frequent changes in leadership can lead to workplace instability for teachers, which experts say can ultimately disrupt academic progress.

“Bad conditions for teachers usually translate to bad outcomes for students,” said Constance Lindsay, a professor in the College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Attention on Diamond Hill-Jarvis and Eastern Hills high schools

The topic of principal turnover has come into focus in Fort Worth ISD in recent years with the latest discourse stemming from the proposed firings of principals from Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School and Eastern Hills High School. In September, the Board of Education voted to dismiss James Garcia and Katrina Smith from their positions after discussing the matter in a closed session and voting on it publicly but without discussion from board members. Multiple students, teachers and parents spoke in defense of the educators and their leadership, urging the district to reinstate them. But that didn’t happen.

Both Garcia and Smith initially appealed their proposed firings through the Texas Education Agency, and although they were never reinstated, they were able to retire and resign, respectively, from the district rather than be fired. It was revealed through public records that claims of fraud against both educators, in addition to racist treatment and sexual harassment allegations against Garcia, preceded the proposed firings.

Garcia had been principal at Diamond Hill-Jarvis for seven years while Smith led Eastern Hills for six years. Each of them had more than 20 years of education experience in the Fort Worth ISD, according to their personnel files obtained by the Star-Telegram. They did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Guadalupe Barreto currently serves as Diamond Hill-Jarvis’ interim principal while Lewis Washington temporarily oversees Eastern Hills. Fort Worth ISD officials predict new administrators to take over by next month, according to spokesperson Cesar Padilla.

“FWISD values strong campus leadership and appreciates the commitment and dedication of our campus administrators. Retention in every position in the district is a priority, however, every individual employee assesses their own career goals and makes personal decisions based on their own desires and aspirations. FWISD will continue to recruit, develop, and retain high-quality talent to lead our campuses as we know the critical role these leaders have that ultimately impacts every student in FWISD,” Padilla said in a statement.

Amid transitions, Fort Worth ISD sees 17% principal turnover

At the beginning of most school years since 2017-18, about two dozen campuses have had a new principal, according to district data released in response to a records request by the Star-Telegram, a principal turnover rate of about 17%. Aside from the reasons behind a principal’s departure, ranging from alleged wrongdoing to a simple reassignment to a different campus, the impacts on students, staff and families are far reaching.

An Eastern Hills teacher, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by district officials, told the Star-Telegram that the school needs a leader who can keep students in line in terms of discipline. Teachers there are strained with the ongoing task of managing disruptive student behavior.

“It’s almost impossible to learn inside that building. There’s very few classrooms where the teachers have the management styles to keep the kids focused, engaged and disciplined enough to be able to learn in that classroom,” the teacher said.

When Smith left the school, the students initially behaved well during the transition period but are now taking advantage of the fact that the interim principal will be replaced. The teacher, who has also taught at multiple schools across the country, believes a Black male principal would be the best option for the Eastern Hills community, which has a Black population of almost 42%.

“Once it got out that he wasn’t going to be staying, and somebody else was going to be coming in, it’s like, ‘We can do what we want. He can’t really do anything to us anyway,’” the teacher said in reference to students learning that the interim principal is there temporarily.

“It’s already a very tough situation discipline-wise at the school, getting the kids to stay on task and stay in the classroom and not be out in the hallways,” the teacher added.

Roxanne Rodriguez, a Diamond Hill-Jarvis High parent and president of the school’s Athletics Booster Club, also pointed to the importance of representation from a new school principal. She would prefer the person to be Hispanic and speak Spanish fluently, as they would be a leader in a community that’s almost 80% Hispanic or Latino.

Rodriguez, though, is unconvinced that the input from her and other parents will be taken into account during the selection process, as Diamond Hill-Jarvis High families have felt that their concerns have been overlooked consistently by district officials, she said. Although the Athletics Booster Club advertised in December a feedback meeting for community members to discuss the transition and hiring of a new principal, Rodriguez did not attend herself because she felt her efforts would be wasted.

Rodriguez pointed to a recent example of the district’s decision to move Diamond Hill-Jarvis High’s 2024 graduation, among other schools such as Benbrook Middle-High School and Dunbar High, to Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center instead of Texas Christian University’s Schollmaier Arena, where the majority of graduations will be held. District officials cited enrollment and logistics factors and a “pivot to a more student-centered commencement service.”

“Finding a principal is important because my daughter will be there next year. I had a senior last year, then I have a senior this year… but speaking to anybody just doesn’t ever work for Diamond Hill, anyway. It doesn’t matter what you say,” Rodriguez said. “At this point, I’m just frustrated.”

Expert weighs in on value of principals

Lindsay, the UNC professor, said principals fulfill at least two roles on their campuses: They manage the buildings themselves and the people who work there. They generally serve as the key driver of instruction on their campuses, she said. Curriculum decisions may be made at the state or district level, but it falls to principals to implement those decisions, she said.

Principals also serve as lead instructional coaches, Lindsay said, carving out time for teachers to get together for conversations about instruction. Some larger schools have instructional coaches whose entire job is to work with teachers to hone their craft, she said, but it’s still the principals who drive those conversations.

Lindsay said it’s rare for principals to leave their jobs early in the school year. When they do, it can be difficult for districts to find permanent candidates to replace them, she said — much like teachers, the best qualified administrators tend to find jobs early in the hiring season. So anyone looking to hire a principal on a permanent basis in September most likely only has lower-quality candidates to choose from.

When principals do leave their jobs, it often has a negative effect not only on academic outcomes, but also on other factors like school climate and teacher retention, according to a survey of research published in 2021 by Lindsay and two other researchers. That isn’t universally true, researchers wrote — if a school district replaces an ineffective principal with an effective one, the campus can end up better off. But in general, research suggests that high rates of principal turnover can disrupt academic progress.

Researchers also found that principal turnover rates are highest in schools with large concentrations of students of color and students from low-income families. They also learned that principals at those campuses tend to have fewer years of experience than their colleagues at whiter, more affluent schools.

The fact that principal turnover is highest in high-need schools compounds the other problems that those campuses already have, Lindsay said. Teachers on high-need campuses routinely report in surveys that working conditions there are difficult. Effective, stable leadership can help mitigate some of the challenges that teachers report, Lindsay said. But if principals on those campuses are inexperienced, or if they come and go at the beginning of every school year, they won’t be as well equipped to create better working conditions, she said, which can ultimately affect schools academically.

Principal turnover at district forefront previously

The issue of principal turnover was at the center of conversations about the future of J. Martin Jacquet Middle School in 2022. The school had changes in leadership in three consecutive school years, district records show. At the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, district officials hired Kristin Foreman to serve as the campus’ principal. The following year, Foreman moved to Morningside Middle School and the district hired Lakeisha Sasser to take her place. Sasser came to the campus as a part of a short-lived partnership with the Indianapolis-based charter network Phalen Leadership Academies to operate the school.

But Sasser didn’t last a full school year at the campus: At Phalen’s request, the district’s school board voted that April not to renew her contract for the following school year, and placed her on administrative leave for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year. Sasser later told the Star-Telegram that teacher vacancies, a lack of resources and miscommunications between Phalen and the district created an impossible situation. The district later ended the partnership with Phalen and hired Channa Barrett to serve as principal.

During the April 2022 meeting at which the board voted to fire Sasser, several Jacquet teachers asked the board to reconsider. Math teacher James Stuer said the constant leadership changes prevented the struggling school from making progress academically. He compared the school’s academic challenges to a faulty engine: If one mechanic identifies the problem but is swapped out for another technician before he has the chance to fix it, the problem will never get fixed, he said. If the district keeps swapping out principals at the beginning of every year, the campus can’t hope to gain ground on state tests, he said.

“You will never — never — get the adequate numbers that you want,” he told the board.