Updated at 2:35 p.m. Nov. 26: Revised to reflect that Fort Worth ISD plans to appeal the ruling.

A Fort Worth ISD teacher who was fired this year after she tweeted anti-immigrant sentiments to President Donald Trump should be allowed to have her job back, the state’s education commissioner ruled Monday.

Mike Morath, commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, said Georgia Clark should be reinstated, with back pay and benefits, or be paid one year of salary instead.

Morath wrote that Clark did not sign away her free-speech rights in her contract with the Fort Worth ISD and that the district failed to properly challenge the findings of an independent examiner who said Clark should not be fired.

The district said in a statement Tuesday that it will appeal the ruling, arguing that the school board did “adopt a finding that good cause exists” to fire Clark.

“It appears the commissioner ruled the way he did based on a technicality, and we are exploring all of our options,” said Clint Bond, a Fort Worth ISD spokesman, adding that the district had not yet been able to fully review and analyze the commissioner’s decision.

Superintendent Kent P. Scribner said in a statement that the district stood by its decision because “we firmly believe this is in the best interests of all students.”

The district’s board voted unanimously in June to fire Clark, an English language-arts teacher at Carter-Riverside High School, “for good cause” after learning about the tweets.

The since-deleted Twitter account sent a flurry of messages to Trump last spring.

One of the messages claimed that the Fort Worth district is “loaded” with students who are in the country illegally from Mexico and that “Carter-Riverside High School has been taken over by them.” About 62% of the Fort Worth district’s students were Hispanic in 2018, according to the TEA.

A follow-up tweet asked the president to help “remove the illegals from Fort Worth,” included two telephone numbers and said “Georgia Clark is my real name.”

Clark reportedly told an investigator that she thought the tweets were direct messages to Trump and not publicly visible.

She was placed on paid administrative leave May 29, and the board voted to terminate her contract six days later.

Scribner said in a written statement at the time that other allegations had come to light after the tweets were discovered and that “the totality of the behavior warranted the recommendation for termination.”

Clark had been the subject of multiple previous complaints, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported.

In 2013, she was suspended after she was accused of calling a group of students “Little Mexico” and another student “white bread." A more recent complaint alleged that after a student asked her permission to go to the restroom, she replied, “Show me your papers saying you are illegal.”

Clark appealed the firing, and a state-appointed examiner conducted a hearing in August.

In his recommendation, Robert C. Prather Sr. said the Fort Worth ISD board’s decision to fire Clark was not backed by the evidence. He wrote that the tweets did not violate district policy and that the district was violating her free-speech rights.

Prather recommended that the district decline to fire Clark and that she be reinstated.

The trustees, however, decided in September to uphold the termination, and Clark then appealed her case to the commissioner.

Students and residents who spoke at a Fort Worth ISD board meeting days before the decision to uphold Clark’s firing said the teacher’s comments were contrary to federal law that says all students, regardless of immigration status, have a right to a public education.

A 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler vs. Doe, ruled that a Texas law violated the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment by withholding state funds from school districts for the education of children not “legally admitted” to the U.S. and letting school districts deny enrollment to those children.

Miracle Slover, a senior at Carter-Riverside who previously had a class with Clark, said she had heard the teacher make derogatory comments toward her black and Hispanic classmates and felt bullied by her.

“Teachers are built to protect us and make us feel safe — not feel intimidated,” Slover said.

An attorney for Clark could not be reached for comment Monday evening.

Clark told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) in September that she had no regrets about her social-media posts.

"Frankly, God was saying, ‘It’s time, you need to do this now,’” she said.

She also told the station that Prather’s findings exonerated her and she was ready to get back to work.

“I need my job back and those kids need me, too,” Clark told the station. “I believe that there are earth angels, and I believe that I am one."

Staff writer Eva-Marie Ayala contributed to this report.