Is It Just Me? Can Austin ISD Get the Wichita Falls Deal?

I keep hearing about Austin ISD and a state takeover. We’ve all been hearing this for years. Mike Morath is coming for the Board. Houston happened. Fort Worth happened. Now Austin is next. It feels a lot like The Three Little Pigs. The State is cast as the Big Bad Wolf and Austin is the innocent little home builders yelling about how bad the wolf is. I’m not going to get into how those children’s fables are based on real life lessons, although I could and would love to but I’m going to avoid all that and stick to my story. But I’m gonna continue to throw in some allegory. Because I can.

You see my problem is two things; 1. In the classic three little pigs fable, no one ever warned them about the wolf. It was a surprise when he started terrorizing the pigs. Austin ISD knew, or should have known at least, about the law regarding failing school ratings and, 2. Austin ISD’s house isn’t built of brick. My POV is that public education is a sacred trust. We all pay taxes to create and support public education, we drop our kids off every school day to spend at least eight hours a day there, and we trust they are being given the best education possible. None of us would drop them at a straw or stick hut.

But here we are. Burnet and Webb Middle Schools have now received preliminary fifth consecutive unacceptable ratings. Austin ISD knew exactly what that meant. TEA Commissioner Morath told the district, in writing, last September that if Burnet, Webb or Dobie received another F in 2026 he would be required by law to order either closure of the campus or appointment of a Board of Managers. Dobie got itself to a D. Burnet and Webb did not. Austin ISD should have known the law. And to make it even worse, they had forewarning from the TEA last year.

I’m not here to discuss or debate the State of Texas. It is what it is. And I don’t agree with a lot. But I do what I can. I vote. I lobby, I talk to my representatives. We are governed by laws. I work to change them as hard as I can. But the law is the law. I cannot ignore the law. Austin ISD cannot ignore the law. Austin ISD ran afoul of the laws with Special Education not too long ago and found that the state was serious about enforcement. I don’t think this makes the state bad. In fact, what happened with the state oversight of Special Education at Austin ISD was a good thing. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students not getting evaluations. Which translates into they were likely not receiving services they needed to succeed in school. I know. I saw it. My child experienced it. I fought it. And while I was doing so one of my arguments always was that there was no way for Austin ISD to go back and give my child the time to do her education over. Austin ISD delayed, stalled and ignored me and my child. Third grade was gone. Fourth grade was gone. Fifth grade was gone. There was no way to make up for that. My child lost. Many other kids did too. And that made me angry. Hell, I’m still angry. When the state finally stepped in, I was glad. I was just sorry it took them so long.

To be crystal clear: I DO NOT WANT THE STATE RUNNING AUSTIN ISD. I have said that before and I mean it. The people of Austin should elect the people who govern Austin's schools. But local control cannot mean we just ignore the laws. It can’t mean demanding the State stay out after we let a five-year statutory clock run all the way to zero. If we want local control then local control has to work. Complaining about the State is not a strategy, especially when the law we are complaining about has been sitting there the whole time. We paid for a brick house. We need to demand Austin ISD provide one.

Sadly, the takeover of Austin ISD is a real possibility. But are there other options? What have the  TEA and Morath actually done in other situations? I went looking for answers.

Wichita Falls hit the same statutory trigger and kept its elected Board. Fort Worth hit it and lost its Board. Houston lost its Board too. Once you get beyond the headlines and emotion the differences between those cases are pretty significant and they give Austin a much better idea of what we need to be doing right now.

Five F’s Force a Decision. They Do Not Explain the Decision.

Under Texas Education Code §39A.111, if a campus receives unacceptable ratings for five consecutive school years the Commissioner has to act. Subject to the parent-petition provision in §39A.112 he must order either closure of the campus or appointment of a Board of Managers for the district. Morath spelled that out pretty clearly in his September letter to Austin.

What gets much less attention is how Morath decides which sanction to use. TEA's own rules say he considers the seriousness, number, extent and duration of the deficiencies. He can look at academic performance, financial accountability, special-program performance, investigations, recurring deficiencies, whether a district has shown an inability to implement effective change and whether it responded to previous State interventions. The rules also say that when he makes a campus-level determination he has to consider district-level academic, fiscal and compliance performance.

That is a much broader test than whether one school got five Fs. The fifth unacceptable rating forces the decision. What is happening throughout the rest of the district appears to have a lot to do with which decision Morath makes.

And that brings us to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth Is Probably the Most Important Warning for Austin

Fort Worth's triggering campus was the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak 6th Grade. Forest Oak earned its fifth consecutive unacceptable rating for the 2022-23 school year. Fort Worth closed and merged the campus afterward but Morath said that did not eliminate his legal obligation to act because the fifth rating had already been earned.

Then he looked beyond Forest Oak and this is where Fort Worth's case went bad. In 2022-23, 60% of Fort Worth's rated campuses were D or F. Forty-five campuses were F and another 32 were D. Eight campuses had two or more consecutive years of unacceptable performance. By 2024-25 the overall D/F count had improved but the number of campuses with multiple consecutive unacceptable ratings had grown from eight to 20. Two of those campuses had reached four consecutive years.

Morath also looked at districtwide student performance. Only 34% of Fort Worth students were meeting grade level across subjects and grades. The State average was 50%. Fort Worth had been at 35% before COVID so there was not much of a pandemic-recovery argument available either.

His conclusion is the part Austin should pay very close attention to. Morath said closing Forest Oak did not address Fort Worth's "underlying systemic deficiencies." His letter to Fort Worth specifically pointed to the increase in chronically unacceptable campuses and districtwide student performance that remained well behind comparable districts. The issue had become much bigger than Forest Oak. He had concluded that Fort Worth ISD itself was not correcting the problem.

I think that is one of the biggest clues we have about the decision Austin is facing. If Morath sees Burnet and Webb as two very serious campus problems inside a district that is demonstrably fixing its larger academic system then there is an argument for something closer to Wichita Falls. If he decides Burnet and Webb are simply the two schools that happened to reach five first in a district that still cannot fix itself then we have a much bigger problem.

Houston Was a Completely Different Mess

Houston gets thrown into the Austin conversation constantly but the actual Houston record was much more complicated. Wheatley High School was absolutely part of the takeover case and by the time Morath issued his 2023 order Wheatley had accumulated seven unacceptable ratings over the relevant period. Houston also had a conservator assigned for more than two consecutive school years which gave Morath a separate legal basis for a Board of Managers.

Then there was the governance record. TEA's Special Accreditation Investigation found that a majority of the Houston Board had violated the Texas Open Meetings Act and that Board members had violated procurement law. During the litigation over the takeover a former Board president, Houston's chief operating officer and four district administrators either pleaded guilty or were indicted in connection with a bribery scheme. TEA also had a separate special-education investigation and had appointed a management team of multiple conservators.

So Houston was not simply a campus-performance case. By the time Morath finally installed a Board of Managers it was an academic case, a governance case, a compliance case and a long-running State-intervention case. TEA's own summary of the 2019 decision lists three separate factors: the special investigation finding violations of law, two consecutive years under a conservator and Wheatley's consecutive unacceptable ratings.

That is a pretty different picture from Austin today. We absolutely have our own ugly history and I will get to that in a minute. But I have not found anything in the current public TEA record that makes Austin look like Houston's governance situation when that takeover was ordered.

Wichita Falls Gave Morath Something Different to Look At

Wichita Falls was not doing wonderfully either. Kirby Middle School had accumulated the ratings that eventually triggered §39A.111 and the district had a lot more than one struggling school. What is different is what Wichita Falls had already done by the time Morath had to decide what came next.

Superintendent Donny Lee says the district moved curriculum specialists out of central administration and into Kirby classrooms, increased compensation, completely reworked K-8 math and reading curriculum, changed how it monitored performance and partnered with Third Future Schools to operate Hirschi Middle School after Kirby students were moved into the former Hirschi High School building. The district also built, renovated or closed a dozen schools and Lee says its fund balance nearly tripled to around $60 million.

The academic direction changed too. Lee says Wichita Falls went from 12 failing campuses to seven and then five. The Texas Tribune reported a similar decline from 11 academically unacceptable campuses in 2022-23 to five in 2024-25. I am less interested in whether the starting number was 11 or 12 than I am in what happened to it. The number was going down. A lot.

Morath then visited Wichita Falls. I cannot tell you that the visit caused the eventual agreement because I have not found evidence proving that. What I can tell you is what happened after the visit. Kirby was formally closed. Third Future continued operating Hirschi. TEA appointed a conservator to monitor the district's progress and advise the superintendent and elected Board. The elected Board stayed in place.

TEA did not declare Wichita Falls cured. The agency said it would tightly monitor the district and warned that continued improvement would be necessary to avoid future closure or a Board of Managers. So Wichita Falls did not get a pass. It got continued local governance with some pretty serious State oversight attached to it.

When I put that next to Fort Worth the difference gets much clearer. Fort Worth closed its triggering campus but Morath looked at the rest of the district and found chronic failure getting worse. Wichita Falls formally closed its triggering campus but Morath looked at the rest of that district and saw the number of failing schools dropping while the district was making major changes in curriculum, staffing, facilities, finances and campus management.

That is much more useful to Austin than simply knowing one district got a conservator and another got a Board of Managers.

So Where Does Austin Actually Sit?

A year ago the answer would have made me pretty uncomfortable. In September 2025 Morath wrote to Austin ISD that roughly one-third of the district's 123 campuses had a D or F. There were 23 F-rated campuses. Twenty-six campuses had consecutive unacceptable ratings with Burnet, Webb and Dobie at four and another 12 campuses at three. Morath wrote that Austin's "current approach is not working" and that "urgent transformational change" was necessary.

That sounds a lot closer to Fort Worth than Wichita Falls.

Then 2026 happened.

Austin earned a B this but I don't think the B is the most important number. Since 2024 the number of A and B campuses increased from 43 to 61 while the number of D and F campuses fell from 48 to 31. Thirty-five campuses improved at least one letter grade. Eight schools broke a chain of consecutive unacceptable ratings.

Remember those 12 schools sitting at three consecutive unacceptable counts when Morath wrote to Austin last year? This year only Linder and Pecan Springs moved to a fourth unacceptable count after a combination of academic improvement and school consolidations.

Now compare the direction with Fort Worth. Fort Worth went from eight campuses with multiple consecutive unacceptable ratings to 20. Austin had 12 campuses sitting at three last year and only two moved to four. Those are not exactly the same statistic and I am not going to turn them into one just because it would make a prettier comparison. But they are telling us something about the same thing Morath cared about in Fort Worth: whether chronic failure is spreading through the district or being reduced.

In Fort Worth it was spreading. In Austin it has been reduced pretty dramatically.

I think that is Austin's strongest factual argument for keeping the elected Board. It is not the B. Houston had a B and still lost its Board. The better argument is that Morath warned Austin about a large pipeline of chronically failing schools and a year later that pipeline is considerably smaller. More schools are breaking the chain than moving toward five.

That is evidence that the district can change course.

Unfortunately, it is not the only evidence Morath is going to see.

Burnet and Webb Still Got to Five

Districtwide improvement does not erase what happened at the two campuses that triggered the law. Burnet and Webb still received fifth consecutive F’s. Dobie got to a D and broke its immediate path to five but 20 Austin ISD campuses still received F’s this year. But, and I don’t’ know if it matters, if I’m reading the reports correctly Burnet missed a D by one point and Webb missed a D by 2. That’s close. I just don’t know if that matters. What’s that phrase? “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades?”

Linder and Pecan Springs are now sitting at four unacceptable counts. That bothers me because Fort Worth tells us Morath is going to look behind Burnet and Webb to see what is coming next. If Austin shows up arguing that Burnet and Webb represent the tail end of a shrinking problem then Linder and Pecan Springs need to prove that argument next year.

Austin also lost one part of the Wichita Falls model when TEA failed to approve a partnership with TCIS. Wichita Falls already had Third Future running Hirschi when Morath made his decision. Austin ISD and TCIS mutually ended their proposed management partnership in July, after TEA didn’t approve it, so the current plan is for Austin ISD to operate Burnet, Webb and Dobie itself this year.

I am not going down the charter-operator rabbit hole here because it is not the main issue. It is relevant for one reason. Wichita Falls could point to a successful outside operator already in place as one piece of its solution. Austin cannot. That means we need a very strong answer somewhere else.

Special Education Is Part of Austin's Record Too

Austin's special-education history is something else Morath remembers. TEA put Austin under an Agreed Order after serious failures in special education and the district spent nearly three years under State oversight fixing systems that should have worked in the first place.

What matters for this particular decision is what happened afterward. In February 2026 TEA formally released Austin from that oversight after the district completed all required actions under the Agreed Order. Austin says it completed more than 10,000 evaluations and meetings, added more than 250 specialized providers and evaluators and created new districtwide systems around evaluation and service delivery.

I would absolutely put that in Austin's case to Morath because his own rules tell him to look at how a district responded to previous intervention. We have an ugly history here but we also have a completed intervention. TEA came in. It required changes. Austin made enough of the required changes that TEA ended the Order.

That does not make the original failures okay and it does not mean special education is suddenly perfect. It means Austin can show Morath a very recent example where State intervention produced required changes without replacing the elected Board.

And Then There Is the $105 Million Problem

This is the part of Austin's case that concerns me most because it gives Morath a completely separate reason to question district management at exactly the wrong time.

Austin ended the 2025-26 school year with a preliminary estimated deficit of about $105 million. That number is not yet audited but the district originally projected a $19 million deficit. By the end of the year the estimate was more than five times larger.

That is not a rounding error or a slightly bad guess. If I am sitting in Morath's office trying to convince him that Austin's elected governance is capable of fixing one of the most serious academic problems a district can have under State law I would really rather not have to explain how a projected $19 million budget deficit became approximately $105 million at the same meeting.

AISD has made enormous reductions. The district cut $205 million in operating expenses for 2026-27 and more than 500 positions were affected. The new operating budget is $887 million. It includes $1.48 billion in local tax revenue and about $630 million going back to the State through recapture. The budget also expects about $60 million from one-time real-estate transactions and AISD says another $60 million in reductions will be needed for 2027-28 to replace that one-time money. All of that doesn’t exactly show a financially sound district.

Morath's rules specifically allow him to consider financial accountability when determining sanctions. I have no way to know how much weight he will give this particular financial problem but pretending it has nothing to do with his assessment of district governance would be foolish.

The academic numbers give Austin an argument that the district is moving in the right direction. The financial numbers muddy it up considerably.

Could TEA Even Take Over Something This Big?

I wondered about this because Austin is huge compared with Wichita Falls and TEA itself is not some giant operating company with thousands of spare school administrators sitting in a warehouse waiting for Mike Morath to press a button.

TEA's FY2026 budget authorizes 1,450 full-time-equivalent positions. Its overall budget is enormous because the agency administers billions in education funding but that number tells us almost nothing about how many people TEA itself has available to handle district interventions. The more relevant fact is that TEA says it is currently trying to expand its pool of qualified monitors and conservators.

But there is another part of the system that makes the capacity question less comforting for Austin. A takeover does not require TEA to replace the Austin ISD workforce. A Board of Managers replaces the elected governing Board. Conservators and monitors are appointees and the school system itself pays the cost of those services. TEA's current compensation schedule is $125 an hour for a monitor or conservator with the district picking up the bill.

TEA has also demonstrated this spring that it can execute several Board of Managers interventions in a short period. Fort Worth's Board was appointed March 24. Lake Worth followed April 23. Beaumont followed April 29 and Connally followed May 6.

So after looking at it I would not build Austin's strategy around the hope that TEA does not have enough people or money to take us over. Austin's size makes the undertaking more complicated and I am sure it makes the stakes higher. I just have not found evidence that TEA's staffing or budget makes a takeover impractical if Morath decides he wants one.

Then There Is Recapture

Austin taxpayers are expected to generate $1.48 billion for the district this year and approximately $630 million is expected to go back to the State through recapture. Austin ISD says it is the largest recapture payer in Texas.

That creates an extraordinary situation if the State appoints Austin's governing Board. The State sets the school-finance structure. Austin taxpayers generate the money. Roughly $630 million leaves the district through recapture and the State would then appoint the people exercising the authority normally held by Austin voters' elected trustees.

I wrote separately about the constitutional questions that raises and I still think those questions deserve serious legal analysis. What I have not found is anything saying Morath has to give Austin's recapture payment special weight when he chooses between closure and a Board of Managers. Recapture is not some force field around Austin ISD.

It does make the scale of this decision different. A State takeover here would involve a district of nearly 70,000 students, an $887 million operating budget and the largest recapture payment in Texas. That seems like something everybody involved should be thinking very carefully about before turning the governance of the whole district upside down.

So What Are the Odds?

There is no formula that can turn Wichita Falls, Fort Worth and Houston into a scientifically precise probability for Austin. They are different districts with different histories and Morath does not publish the weight he assigns to each factor. Any number I give you is my assessment of the evidence rather than a TEA statistic.

If Morath had to make the decision today I would put Austin at about 60/40 in favor of keeping its elected Board through something closer to the Wichita Falls arrangement. It’s a total guess but that’s where I am right now. Not great odds in my mind but better than one might think.

I get there because Austin does not have Houston's public governance and compliance record. The chronic-campus trend that hurt Fort Worth is moving in the opposite direction here. Austin has reduced D/F campuses from 48 to 31 since 2024. Eight campuses broke consecutive-unacceptable chains this year and only two of the 12 campuses sitting at three unacceptable counts last year moved to four. Austin also completed a major TEA special-education intervention sufficiently for the State to release the district from that Order.

But I would not put the odds higher than 60/40 right now. Burnet and Webb both reached five. Twenty campuses are still F-rated. Linder and Pecan Springs are sitting at four. The TCIS partnership is gone and the financial picture gives Morath another legitimate area of district management to examine. Wichita Falls also had something Austin does not yet appear to have publicly: a complete operational answer already moving when Morath made his decision.

That is the difference I keep coming back to. I think Austin has enough evidence to make a strong case for the Wichita Falls solution. I don't think we have finished building the case.

So Build It. Now.

If I were sitting on the Austin ISD Board right now the first thing I would do is stop treating the takeover primarily as a communications problem. Morath already knows the law and he has all of our numbers. Telling everybody how disruptive or unpopular a takeover would be may be true but it does not answer the question he has to answer.

I would take his own Fort Worth letter and use it as the study guide.

Morath looked at the number of chronically failing schools so show him what happened to Austin's. He looked at whether the districtwide academic trajectory was improving so put all of that data in front of him. He looked at whether previous interventions worked so document exactly what happened with special education. He can consider finances so give him a serious financial recovery plan and monthly proof that it is working.

Present the real picture. Put Burnet and Webb in the same presentation as the 35 schools that improved. Put the 20 Fs next to the reduction from 48 D/F campuses to 31. Put the $105 million preliminary deficit right next to the $205 million in reductions.

Linder and Pecan Springs Need Attention Right Now

Fort Worth tells us why this is so important. Forest Oak triggered the statute but Morath looked behind Forest Oak and found the number of chronically unacceptable campuses had grown from eight to 20.

Austin cannot give him the same picture.

Linder and Pecan Springs are sitting at four unacceptable counts. Whatever the data says those schools need should already be happening. Strong leadership, strong teachers, instructional changes, tutoring, extended learning, outside expertise or something I have not thought of. I do not care what the answer is as long as it is based on what those students actually need and it works.

The district just proved that these chains can be broken. Eight schools did it this year. Do it again before we are having this same conversation next August with two more schools at five.

Go to Morath With an Answer Instead of Waiting for His

This may be the most important piece.

If the Burnet and Webb ratings become final Morath has to choose a statutory action. Austin should not wait for him to design the solution.

Wichita Falls did not preserve its Board by convincing TEA to ignore Kirby. Kirby was formally closed. Hirschi continued under Third Future. The district accepted a conservator and continued State oversight. Morath had a legally workable structure he could approve without replacing the elected Board.

Austin needs to determine what the equivalent could look like here. That means a real legal and operational analysis of every permissible way to satisfy the closure side of §39A.111 while preserving as much of the Burnet and Webb communities as possible. TEA rules allow campus facilities to be repurposed under specific conditions so closure does not necessarily mean bulldozing a school or leaving the building empty. It does mean the legal requirements have to be met.

I would also put a conservator on the table myself. Wichita Falls kept its elected Board with a conservator who has authority to monitor progress and advise the district. TEA describes conservators as having authority to direct, approve or disapprove certain actions by the Board, superintendent or campus principals. It is serious oversight but it is not the same thing as removing the elected Board.

If Austin can build an agreement with clear academic benchmarks, defined authority, public reporting and exit criteria that gives Morath confidence the changes will continue then give him that option before he decides he needs nine new people running the district.

I do not understand the silence from the district right now. This is a time to circle the wagons and get everyone in the community involved. And for the District to communicate clearly, frequently, concisely and

Get Him Here Too

Morath visited Wichita Falls before the agreement was reached. I do not know how much that affected his decision but it can’t have hurt.

Invite him.

Take him to Dobie and show him the school that broke its chain. Take him to Burnet and show him what improved as well as what did not. Take him to Webb because if we are asking him to trust Austin to fix Austin then he should see the hardest case too. Then take him to some of the campuses that broke their multi-year chains and let him talk directly to the people who did the work.

I would much rather have Morath standing in an Austin school looking at the evidence himself than sitting in his office reading somebody else's description of it.

And Fix the Financial Story

This has to happen at the same time because Austin cannot separate academic governance from financial governance and assume Morath will.

Explain how the deficit went from $19 million to approximately $105 million. Publish monthly budget-to-actual reports people can understand. Show where the $205 million in reductions are actually occurring. Get recurring expenses supported by recurring revenue instead of one-time property sales and show a credible path back to a healthy fund balance.

AISD has done some very hard work on the budget already. Cutting $205 million is not nothing. But if we are trying to convince the State that local governance is capable of correcting serious problems then the financial system has to start producing evidence for that argument too.

I Think Austin Can Get the Wichita Falls Deal

I started researching this because I wanted to know whether there was actually a path other than a District takeover. I think there is.

The law is real and the danger is real. Burnet and Webb are at five. Twenty Austin campuses still have Fs and two more schools are sitting at four. We have a preliminary $105 million budget deficit sitting in the middle of the conversation too.

But the other numbers are real as well. The district went from 48 D/F campuses to 31 in two years. A/B campuses increased from 43 to 61. Eight schools broke unacceptable-rating chains this year. Most of the schools that Morath warned were sitting at three consecutive unacceptable ratings did not advance to four. Austin completed a major TEA intervention in special education and was released from it.

Fort Worth tells us what happens when Morath looks past the triggering campus and sees chronic failure spreading. Houston tells us what happens when academic problems are combined with years of intervention, governance failures and compliance problems. Wichita Falls tells us something much more useful: Morath has already shown that he is willing to leave an elected Board in place when a district can demonstrate significant change and give TEA a credible structure for continuing it.

That is where I think Austin's energy should be going right now.

Not into another Big Bad Wolf campaign. We know the wolf is there. We knew he was there five years ago and unfortunately our house is still built of straw.

So let's work on building that brick house.

Austin has improved enough to make a legitimate case that the district itself is not failing in the way Morath said Fort Worth was failing. Now AISD needs to spend the next several months making that case much harder for him to reject. Fix Linder and Pecan Springs before they get to five. Get the finances under control. Build a legally workable Burnet and Webb plan. Put a conservator structure on the table. Get Morath here and show him what has actually changed.

To me this isn’t just about Morath losing confidence in Austin ISD. The bigger picture is the Austin community losing trust. The district needs to address that immediately and get in front of it if that’s possible. And I think it still is. Get the Austin Community activated. My experience in the Austin community is that we are capable of great things and we can move fast. Let’s prove that again right now. Create a comprehensive plan. Get Morath here. Walk him through the plan. And make our case for a conservator instead of a takeover. For turnarounds instead of school closures and disruption to all of those students, families, teachers and staff. Don’t just tell Morath what we WOULD do. Show him what we ARE doing. This is Austin after all. And really when you think about it, it’s like I’ve written before: Together. We Can.

Sources

• Texas Education Agency, 19 TAC Chapter 97, Subchapter EE and §97.1059 standards for sanction determinations.

• Commissioner Mike Morath, September 3, 2025 letter to Austin ISD.

• Commissioner Mike Morath, October 23, 2025 Fort Worth ISD decision materials.

• Texas Education Agency, Houston ISD Board of Managers and intervention records.

• Wichita Falls ISD, Superintendent Donny Lee response to TEA decision.

• The Texas Tribune, Wichita Falls ISD agreement with TEA.

• Austin ISD 2026 accountability results and KUT reporting on consecutive unacceptable counts.

• Austin ISD Special Education Agreed Order completion.

• Austin ISD 2026-27 budget and Austin Current year-end financial reporting.

• Texas Education Agency FY2026 operating budget and monitor/conservator information.