December 2020

While the district may be closed, if you need assistance with your benefits, a number of resources are available.

District schools and administrative offices will be closed for Winter break from Monday, Dec. 21, through Friday, Jan. 1, 2021, but the benefits call center will be open regular hours during that time to provide assistance, with the following exceptions:

• Christmas Eve, Dec. 24 – Closed Half Day
• Christmas Day, Dec. 25 – Closed
• Day After Christmas, Dec. 28 – Closed
• New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31 – Closed Half Day
• New Year’s Day, Jan. 1 – Closed

For those non-emergency health concerns such as cold and flu, TRS ActiveCare participants can utilize Teladoc at a reduced cost.  Call 1-855-Teladoc (835-2362) or visit their main page.

If you have questions regarding your FSA, you can contact Connect Your Care at 877-528-9876 or visit www.connectyourcare.com.  Connect Your Care is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

You may reach the benefits call center at 972-925-4000 or email benefits@dallasisd.org.  For questions regarding leaves of absence, email benefitsleaves@dallasisd.org.  During the periods in which the district is closed, the email boxes will be monitored periodically to ensure any critical issues are resolved in a timely manner.

Pets are constant companions and often family. This has been especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic when social distancing and other safety guidelines meant staff had to work from home. Send photos of your pets to staffnews@dallasisd.org with information about how they came into your life, or some of the cute things they do, or what they mean to you and the rest of your family.

Through the Theory of Action Standards of Service, the Parent Advocacy and Support Services Department in the School Leadership Division provides support for all campuses. The department performs three primary functions: resolves customer concerns, enhances family engagement, and improves attendance while reducing truancy.

The following services are provided to all campuses:

• Receiving, processing and facilitating resolution for parent concerns and complaints
• Conducting fair and equitable student discipline appeals
• Developing districtwide family and community engagement strategies, event planning, and supporting campus participation
• Providing scaffolded support to develop the capacity of campus community liaisons and parent instructors
• Ensuring and reporting district compliance with state mandates to provide truancy prevention measures and enforcement of compulsory school attendance violations
• Managing the Uniform Assistance Program
• Supporting PowerSchool Parent Portal access for parents

For additional information, contact Liliana Valadez, Executive Director at Lvaladez@dallasisd.org.

The Aspiring Leaders Program—a unique opportunity offered through Southern Methodist University—is looking for teachers and instructional coaches who have strong leadership potential.  

This long-standing, valuable partnership between Dallas ISD and the Aspiring Leaders Program is designed for teachers or instructional coaches, who are interested in earning a Master’s in Urban Educational Leadership and desire a campus administrator or other Dallas ISD leadership role.

The LEAD department and SMU will be hosting an information session about this program at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 6, via Zoom.  Those who are interested in attending can RSVP at https://tiny.cc/infosessionrsvp.

Highlights of the program:

Rigorous and competency based. The two-year program features a second-year residency, including coaching support, and culminates in a master’s degree in urban educational leadership from SMU.
Ascending Leaders. In Dallas ISD, over 100 ALP alumni and participants serve in leadership roles, including 25 current principals and 52 assistant principals.
Tuition Reimbursement. The district will potentially provide partial tuition reimbursement for participants in this program.

The Aspiring Leaders Program is designed for individuals who do not currently have their master’s degree; however, if their degree is in something other than educational leadership and they are seeking an additional one, they are still eligible to apply. This cohort of participants may potentially be eligible to hire as assistant principals as early as Spring 2022.

Should you have any questions or need additional information, please contact LEAD@dallasisd.org or visit www.smu.edu/urbanleader.

Holidays can be a stressful time of year, and this year, the COVOD-19 pandemic has added another layer of stress and anxiety. Can you recognize the signs of stress and do you know how to manage it? Lifeworks, the district’s employee assistance program can help.

The first step in managing stress is to become aware of the early warning signs that you may experience. There are steps you can take to manage stress, both by addressing sources of stress in your life, and by treating stress with proven stress management techniques. Once you learn to recognize your own reactions to stress, you can begin to treat it effectively. Some signs and symptoms you might notice include:

• difficulty sleeping
• headaches
• working to exhaustion
• being irritable
• loss of appetite for food, fun or sex
• stomach pain or upset stomach
• neck or back pain
• fatigue
• tearfulness
• smoking or drinking more
• loss of sense of humor
• forgetfulness
• trembling, nervous tics
• chest pain
• heart palpitations or shortness of breath
• excessive perspiration
• eating too much or too little
• over-exercise
• dry mouth
• feeling tired/lack of energy
• obsessive behavior
• loss of interest in other people
• a feeling that everything is pointless
• inability to focus and concentrate
• high levels of anxiety and worry

If you are experiencing five or more from the above list, you may be suffering from stress and should consider ways to manage it more effectively. Each of us responds to stress differently. Chronic stress contributes to heart disease and heart attacks. It also suppresses our immune system leaving us more vulnerable to disease.

Once you have recognized that you are stressed, you can learn to manage it. Lifeworks offers tips and resources to help Dallas ISD employees to deal with stress in a productive and healthy way, whether it’s caused by the holidays or everyday factors. Visit dallasisd.lifeworks.com or www.dalllasisd.org/benefits for more information.

You can also download this guide to managing stress and this guide and resources to help you deal with thoughts of self-harm.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is sound advice, and it doesn’t only apply to physical health. Prevention also works to support mental health. And the LifeWorks Emotional Well-being assessment—part of the district’s employee benefits—can help.

Many of us feel sad or anxious at times. But depressive symptoms and/or anxiety that persists and are left untreated can affect your physical health, work, and well-being. The Emotional Well-being assessment question set, which leverages the Patient Health Questionnaire, will help reveal your risk of anxiety and depression.

This question set is not meant to treat, diagnose or replace medical advice. If you have any concerns regarding your emotional well-being or safety, please contact LifeWorks or your health care provider. Access the Emotional Well-being assessment by clicking on “Start an Assessment” on the NewFeed of the LifeWorks web platform or mobile app. You can also access assessments measuring your stress level, alcohol use, financial health and relationship health.

Food and Child Nutrition Services provides free meals daily for students who are attending school in person and makes sure that students who are learning virtually as well as children in the community also have access to free meals with a weekly curbside pickup.

The weekly package of meals for virtual students and children in the community include breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks and are equivalent to between $60 and $80 worth of groceries per child. All parents have to do is come to the distribution sites between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays to pick up the package of meals to take home. An additional time of 10 a.m. to noon is also available for high school specific distribution sites.

Teachers and other district employees whose children attend Dallas ISD can pick up the curbside meals for virtual students starting at 3 p.m. on Wednesdays. No identification is required, just the name and date of birth of the children.

Meals are available to all children in the community ages 1 to 18 and to students with disabilities regardless of age.

To make it easier for parents to pick up meals, they can preorder and bring the order number to the site to pick up the meal. For more information about the curbside meals, distribution sites and to preorder, visit https://www.dallasisd.org/childnutrition.

Winter break meals

Food and Child Nutrition Services will be distributing free meals curbside for children in the community during the winter break on Monday, Dec. 21 and 28, for children ages 1-18. The distribution will begin at 11 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. or until supplies last. For locations click here.

Since November, ambassadors from schools and central departments have been out spreading the word about Dallas ISD’s culture tenets: fast, friendly, focused and flexible.

Each tenet is at the “core” of everything we do and anchored in our district’s focus of racial equity and cultural responsiveness, comprehensive accountability, responsible use of resources, and collaboration.

These ambassadors are in charge of sharing the Core 4 tenets and new rubric with their departments and schools through the end of May to ensure that all Dallas ISD staff are meeting the customer service standards.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed being a Cultural Tenet Ambassador,” said Jennifer Uwe from Information Technology. “This role has granted me the opportunity to interact with ALL members within my department. As I conducted the training, I was able to engage and interact with my colleague from a space of honesty and transparency. We were all able to become reflective as an individual and reignite our passion in the work that we do and the growth we want to see in ourselves and the district as a whole. I was happy to connect with my fellow colleagues and also each session transformed my mindset on the standard that the district has and their expectations for me as an employee.”

For more information about the Core 4 tenets and the rubric, visit www.dallasisd.org/core4.

Tenets:

In Dallas ISD students thrive, and every child, family, and employee, is essential.

• Focused: We are solely concerned with what matters most – supporting students’ academic growth and overall well-being.
• Fast: We are responsive, accurate and accountable to each other. We seek timely solutions for
• Flexible: We will do whatever it takes to meet the needs of our students, families and employees. We eliminate barriers and embrace innovative problem-solving.
• Friendly: We build respectful relationships grounded in professional communication. We embrace the positive and expect the best of each other.