Student Support Redesign

Fort Worth ISD is redesigning how we support students to ensure stronger instruction, better services, and improved outcomes for all learners, especially students with disabilities and emergent bilingual students.

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International Newcomer Academy

Fort Worth ISD will transition students from the International Newcomers Academy (INA) to their neighborhood schools beginning this fall. At these campuses, students will continue to receive the support they need - delivered directly within their daily classes in reading, math, science, and social studies - so they can learn both academic content and English at the same time, while also having full access to electives, enrichment opportunities, and postsecondary readiness pathways available at their home campus.

What Students Will Experience in the Classroom

In classrooms, students will engage in grade-level lessons with support built directly into instruction to ensure they can access and succeed in the content. This includes:

Structured student conversations to build understanding and language
Clear language objectives aligned to each lesson
Visual supports and models to clarify complex ideas
Sentence frames and guided discussion
Collaborative learning with peers

Teachers will have strong support, including high-quality lessons created by bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) certified experts, along with materials in multiple languages. They will also receive ongoing coaching to help them deliver these lessons effectively. This means your child will learn grade-level content while building language skills, with strong support and high expectations.

A Welcoming and Supportive Environment for Every Student

Fort Worth ISD understands our families may have questions about how students, especially those new to the country, will be supported socially and emotionally in their new school community. We are taking intentional steps to make sure every child feels supported and connected:

Identifying campuses with higher numbers of newcomer students
Providing additional staffing and targeted support where needed
Strengthening multilingual communication with families
Creating opportunities for student connection, belonging, and engagement

We also know that social belonging is a powerful predictor of academic success. Research on newcomer students shows that integration into school communities with strong peer relationships and access to extracurricular life produces better social-emotional and academic outcomes. In Fort Worth ISD, the majority of our newcomer students are already enrolled in comprehensive middle and high schools across the district - and they are succeeding in these settings.

The district is strengthening this work by:

Ensuring all secondary literacy teachers are working toward ESL certification
Building a consistent foundation of skills to support language development within academic instruction.

At these campuses, students will continue to receive the support they need—delivered directly within their daily classes in reading, math, science, and social studies—so they can learn both academic content and English at the same time, while also having full access to electives, enrichment opportunities, and postsecondary readiness pathways available at their home campus.

What Research and Data Show Is Most Effective for Students

Empirical research and our district data point in the same direction: students achieve at higher levels when they learn in grade-level classrooms alongside their peers, with strong support built into instruction.

Historically, data from FWISD and state assessments show that newcomer students in traditional middle and high schools achieve better than those in more separate programs.
This pattern continues at higher levels of performance, where students demonstrate grade-level understanding.

Why This Matters…
Students develop language most effectively when they are:

Engaged in rigorous, grade-level learning
Using language in meaningful ways during instruction
Learning alongside peers who model academic language and thinking

This approach helps emergent bilingual students, including newcomers, build language skills more naturally while learning alongside others. It also gives them full access to the resources and opportunities available at their home campus.

Specialized Learning Services

What FWISD Will Do Differently:

Fully Staffed, Fully Credentialed Teams

FWISD is growing its staffing and moving to a fully staffed, fully credentialed model for evaluation and related service providers; transitioning from part-time to full-time roles to ensure greater stability, stronger accountability, and more consistent services for students. This shift also positions the district to continue expanding capacity in this area. This is an increase in staffing and services, not a reduction.

Our staffing includes:

86 full-time Diagnosticians
100 full-time Speech-Language Pathologists
43 full-time Psychologists
8 full-time Physical Therapists
19 full-time Occupational Therapists

Stronger Recruitment and Hiring Practices

The district is strengthening its Talent Management approach to attract and retain high-quality professionals. This includes earlier hiring timelines, more competitive recruitment strategies, and a focused effort to ensure campuses are staffed with qualified professionals before the school year begins.

The goal is simple: start the year fully staffed and ready to serve students without delays.

Clearer Roles and Stronger Accountability

The redesign creates clearer alignment between instructional support and service delivery by separating:

Instructional inclusion leadership focused on student learning and access to grade-level instruction
Evaluation and related services supervision focused on timely evaluations and consistent service delivery
With this change, families can expect more consistent, timely services through better supervision and coordination so evaluations, therapies, and support are delivered without delays.

Stronger Connection to Classroom Learning

Improved Systems, Communication and Reliability

FWISD is further modernizing its special education systems to improve accuracy, transparency, and responsiveness. This includes stronger records management, clearer communication with families, and more reliable systems to ensure services are delivered consistently and on time. With better management, FWISD will improve communication with families, and build trust through reliable, timely service delivery.

Our Commitment

We are not removing support; we are delivering it directly where students are receiving content instruction. This work reflects a clear commitment: to build a stronger, more reliable system that delivers the level of service our students deserve.

Our responsibility is to ensure every student:

Has access to rigorous, grade-level learning each and everyday
Receives the support needed to succeed
Is part of a school community where they feel connected and valued

We are focused on ensuring that every student:

Receives services consistently and without interruption
Has access to high-quality support delivered by qualified professionals
Is supported in making meaningful academic and developmental progress

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