Texas is betting on a comeback story — and the man they’ve chosen to write it has one of his own.
The Texas Education Agency has named Peter Licata as the new superintendent of Fort Worth Independent School District, tapping the veteran educator roughly five months after the state seized control of the district over chronic underperformance. The appointment brings in a figure with a track record of dramatic turnarounds — and a personal history that’s anything but straightforward.
A Career Built on Big Districts, Bigger Challenges
Licata isn’t exactly a stranger to high-stakes assignments. He spent nearly three decades in Palm Beach County School District, working his way up from classroom teacher to principal and eventually to Regional Superintendent — a role in which he oversaw 59 schools, more than 65,000 students, and upward of 5,000 teachers. That kind of institutional depth doesn’t come from reading a manual.
Then, in July 2023, he made a move that surprised a lot of people in Florida education circles. He left Palm Beach for Broward County Public Schools — the sixth-largest school district in the United States, with over 250,000 students and 32,000 staff. “This is a dream job,” he said at the time, according to a profile published when he took the role. “I’m coming home.”
A Stunning Year in Broward
What followed was, by most measures, a genuine success. Under Licata’s leadership, Broward earned its first A state rating in more than 14 years — and not a single campus in the district finished with a D or an F. For a district that size, that’s not a minor achievement. That’s a systemic shift, and it happened fast.
But it’s not that simple. Less than a year after arriving — and barely enough time to settle in — Licata announced he was stepping down. The reason: his health. “After conferring recently with my doctors, my wife and my four adult children, it is best that I retire from this incredible role,” he said in a statement that caught many in the district off guard.
Licata, who was 59 at the time, set his retirement effective December 31, giving the district time to plan for a transition. Still, the suddenness of it — a surprise announcement, a landmark year, a district left searching again — left a complicated legacy hanging in the air in South Florida.
So Why Fort Worth?
That’s the question worth asking. A man who cited medical reasons for stepping away from one of the country’s largest school districts is now walking into another high-pressure situation — a district under direct state control, with all the political and institutional friction that implies.
The TEA took over Fort Worth ISD after the district struggled to meet state academic standards, a move that’s never without controversy. State takeovers tend to generate as many critics as supporters, and whoever steps into the superintendent role does so knowing they’re walking a tightrope between state mandates and community trust. It’s a tough room, even on a good day.
Licata’s defenders would point to Broward as evidence that he can move the needle quickly — and that his experience managing massive, complex systems makes him precisely the kind of leader a district in crisis needs. His detractors, perhaps, would note that his tenure in Broward lasted less than a year before health concerns forced his hand. Whether Fort Worth represents a fresh chapter or a risky gamble depends largely on who you ask.
What Comes Next
Fort Worth ISD serves a large, diverse student population in one of Texas’s fastest-growing urban corridors. The stakes are real — for students, for teachers, and for a community that’s watched its school system become a cautionary tale in state education circles. The TEA’s decision to bring in Licata signals confidence. Whether that confidence is warranted will play out in classrooms, not press releases.
One thing is clear: Peter Licata has never taken the easy assignment. And if Broward taught him anything — about urgency, about limits, about what it actually costs to turn a district around — he’s bringing that knowledge with him to Texas, whether Fort Worth is ready for it or not.
