Texas’s next governor says she will fire the man who took over Black schools. His term ends in January.

Gina Hinojosa told reporters what she will do first, and the first item is a firing. The governor-elect of Texas has said she will remove Education Commissioner Mike Morath, the official who took over the school boards of Houston and Fort Worth, and put an educator in his place.

Those two districts enroll tens of thousands of Black children. About 22% of Houston’s 200,000 students are Black, and about 20% of Fort Worth’s 70,000. The Texas Education Agency, which Morath runs, replaced both elected boards with appointed managers: Houston in March 2023, Fort Worth in October 2025. Houston stays under state control until at least 2027. Morath has also announced takeovers in Beaumont, Connally and Lake Worth.

“I’m going to fire Mike Morath on day one and hire an educator,” Hinojosa said during the campaign. Morath’s four-year term expires in January, so she will not have to fight for the seat. She can name his successor as soon as she takes office.

Her agenda reaches beyond schools. She plans a moratorium on data center permits until the Legislature writes rules for them, and she wants to undo Republican policy on health care, grocery costs, energy prices and public lands. She has also pledged to end private school vouchers, raise teacher pay and stop state takeovers.

She is promising a gentler tone. “People are tired of the divisions, of the fighting, of the culture wars,” she said. “This governor’s office does not belong to me; it does not belong to my party.” Her transition team includes Ernest Bailes, a Republican former state representative. She will need that bridge: Republicans still control the Legislature, and the Senate must confirm many appointments.

That limits what she can do. Republican laws on DEI bans, curriculum restrictions and Christianity in schools stay on the books unless lawmakers repeal them. Pauline Strong, a University of Texas at Austin professor, called the change “a new dawn” after “very dark times on campus,” but the governor cannot rewrite those statutes alone.

What she can do on day one is change who runs the agency. For Black parents in Houston and Fort Worth, who voted for school boards and watched the state remove them, the firing matters more than any bill. A commissioner who takes boards from majority Black and Latino districts answers to the governor who appoints him. The next one should give those boards back, and she should say when.