Students across Fort Worth returned to class Monday morning to start the 2023-2024 school year. Fort Worth has almost 75,000 students who are attending 140 schools.
"Our staff are ready to welcome families, to welcome our students. Bright, vibrant colors are here to make sure our students are ready for learning," says Andrea Harper, principal at TA Sims Elementary School in Southeast Fort Worth.
Harper and teachers greeted students as they walked up to the main entrance with their families. The school had a canopy of balloons set up at the front door, and Harper hugged students walking in.
"You get to bond and connect with their teachers," the mother of a fourth grader said as she dropped off her son. "It makes you feel good they're actually spending individual time with your child and getting to know them as a person."
Her son said he was excited to get back to school.
"You get to see your friends again. You get to, maybe, go to your teacher, give them a hug and stuff," he said.
He said he enjoys reading and writing, and his mom says teachers send her videos of him working in class.
"It makes you feel good they're spending individual time with your child and getting to know him as a person," she says.
This was the first new school year to start since Angelica Ramsey became superintendent in September 2022. She came to Fort Worth ISD from Midland.
"I woke up at 3 a.m. because I'm so excited about the first day," she says. "First day of school really is the best day of the year. There isn't another day to be able to make an impression on our students and parents to show them we care about them, and we love them."
Ramsey says Fort Worth ISD still has 95 open teaching positions, but she says that is a lower number than previous years. She says their greatest need now is bilingual and special needs teachers. Ramsey says new teachers are given a mentor and have gone through a week of orientation.
Ramsey says the district is auditing curriculum and providing additional training for principals and teachers to try to make up for lost time during the pandemic. She says Fort Worth ISD also has after-school programming and summer learning programs.
This year, the Texas legislature passed a law requiring armed officers on every school campus. Fort Worth ISD has school resource officers, campus advisors and monitors. Ramsey says most of the district's school resource officers come from Fort Worth Police.
"We're going to continue to have safety and security at all of our schools, but it is going to take time to implement full school resource officers at every single school," she says.
The law signed by Governor Greg Abbott provides school districts with $15,000 per campus and $10 per student.
"There's a difference between the 'ask' and what school districts can implement," Ramsey says. "There also is a gap in the funding. $15,000 does not pay for funding of a school resource officer."
Ramsey says the Fort Worth ISD school board will meet later this month to talk about how to plan for security on campuses. She says the city has been "amazing" by committing a percentage of police academy graduates to work as school resource officers, but Fort Worth Police are like many others in dealing with a shortage of officers.
"We have school districts across the state, very small rural to very large, doing our best to implement and get that timeline down as much as possible, but for a start date, it's very difficult for us to get that done," she says.
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