Honoring athletic leaders

Dallas ISD coaches are leaders on the field and in the lives of the student athletes they interact with. Recently, several of the district’s coaches were recognized for their work at the Department of Athletics’ end-of-year gathering. 

Juan Rivas, athletic coordinator at Bryan Adams High School, was named High School Athletic Coordinator of the Year. Rivas is the school’s boys’ basketball coach and is in his third year as the school’s athletic coordinator. He had served as the assistant athletic coordinator since 2018.

Now in his 17th year in Dallas ISD, Rivas has improved the boys’ basketball team’s win total each of his first five seasons and guided it to the playoffs in the 2017-2018 for the first time in six years. The team’s 20 wins in 2018-2019 were the most at Bryan Adams since the 1990s. The 2019-2020 team also qualified for the playoffs.

Prior to coming to Bryan Adams, Rivas was an assistant boys’ basketball coach for six years at Woodrow Wilson High School, his alma mater. Rivas played basketball and was a member of the track and field team at Woodrow Wilson and played basketball at Dallas Christian College, where he earned a Bachelor of Science.

Rivas is a member of the Texas High School Coaches Association, the Dallas Coaches Association, and the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches. He has been a board member of the DCA since 2021.

Also at the event Lakita Dockery, assistant athletic coordinator at W.T. White High School, was named High School Assistant Athletic Coordinator of the Year; Paul Boyd, athletic coordinator at J.L. Long Middle School, was named Middle School Athletic Coordinator of the Year; and Nellasha Davis, athletic trainer at Bryan Adams High School was honored with the Phil Francis Making a Difference Award, which recognizes the athletic trainer of the year.

The event also honored athletic coordinators, coaches, and trainers retiring this year: Cherry DeLeon, assistant athletic coordinator, W.W. Samuell High School; James Mays, athletic coordinator and boys’ basketball coach, South Oak Cliff High School; and Dennis Landes, athletic trainer, Sunset High School. Also honored were Lyndon Love, head coach of boys’ basketball at David W. Carter High School, for 400 career victories; Nicke Smith, head coach of boys’ basketball at Justin F. Kimball High School, for 400 career victories; Pat Washington, head coach boys’ basketball at W.T. White High School, for 500 career victories.

 

Others who were recognized during the event were the regional coaches of the year for 2024-2025:

Region I

Derek Lewis, Dr. L.G. Pinkston Sr. High School
Etta Edwards, W.E. Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy

Region II

Cordell Hunter, Seagoville High School
Danese Baker, Young Men’s Leadership Academy At Fred F. Florence Middle School

Region III

Desireé Allen, North Dallas High School
Crystal Rexius, Thomas C. Marsh Preparatory Academy

Region IV

Ashley Greer, Lincoln High School (Co-Coach of the Year; state championship)
Nicholas Smith, Justin F. Kimball High School (Co-Coach of the Year; state championship)
Benny Dorrough, Dr. Frederick Douglass Todd Sr. Middle School

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher inspires creativity at summer art intensive

Summer is off to a creative start in Dallas ISD thanks to camp instructors like art teacher Jesse Jones. During last week’s Summer Art Intensive, held at Sunset High School, Jones taught drawing and introduced students to printmaking, a new art form for many of them. 

Students learned the centuries-old technique of printmaking, which involves carving designs into wood and transferring the images onto fabric or paper. 

“Printmaking is an older art form and one of the oldest technologies, so I don’t think many students are familiar with it,” Jones said. “I was able to get the drawing students to try printmaking, and I was humbly surprised that by the end of the week, the students did not want to stop.” 

Jones, who has taught art at W.H. Adamson High School for the past four years, brought his expertise to the camp to help create an in-depth, hands-on experience. 

Throughout the week, students explored digital art, drawing, painting, printmaking, jewelry and sculpture from four teachers in addition to Jones. The program concluded with a Student Art Show on Saturday, May 31, featuring original work from each participant.  

“The goal was for students to have one art piece to present in the art show at the end of the week. By the time Saturday came around, students had two or three pieces each,” Jones said. “They didn’t want the camp to end. They wanted to keep drawing until 3 p.m., the very last hour.” 

On the first day of the intensive, Jones hung up portraits of three different people. The faces varied in expression and emotion, giving students the opportunity to expand their technique as they interpreted and recreated what they saw.  

Students used tools such as charcoal, oil pastels, chalk pastels, colored pencils and water markers to create their work.  

“I had students that were very meticulous about their drawings, which is amazing. For me, it’s all about spontaneity in the moment and capturing playfulness,” Jones said, reflecting on the balance of teaching students with different personalities and drawing styles.  

For Jones, the most meaningful part of the week was interacting with a wide variety of students and teachers from across the district.  

“I was in the art studio space with four other art teachers from around the district. They each specialize in different things, and you learn from them whether it’s classroom management, project ideas, or ways to interact with the students,” Jones said. “It was great to walk through each other’s rooms to see what the students were doing.” 

Jones earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Texas at Austin, where he specialized in printmaking and learned about other traditional art forms.  

He shares his commitment to art education with his wife Monica Barrera, an elementary art teacher in Dallas ISD and a former district student. Together they are creating a Dallas ISD legacy as art educators, dedicated to inspiring the next generation of artists. 

From discovering the joy of printmaking in college to now sharing that passion with his students, Jones encourages them to push boundaries with their art and develop their own creative processes.  

“For me printmaking is cathartic. It’s something I can get lost in because the art form requires repetitive motion,” Jones said. “I was able to share that feeling with my students and demonstrate the process. They had the opportunity to try something they normally wouldn’t do in their regular studio art classes.” 



Giving back by nurturing potential 

Patricia Cortez, recently named Choice/Magnet Teacher of the Year, knew from a young age she wanted to teach. She even has childhood mementos to prove it—including the drawing of a teacher and a photo of herself pretending to teach her kindergarten class.   

As Cortez made her way through Dallas ISD’s Casa View Elementary, Henry W. Longfellow Career Exploration Academy, and Skyline High School her desire to teach was nurtured by teachers who saw her potential.   

“I was a very shy child, and a lot of my teachers believed in me so much that they continuously pushed me to do better things,” Cortez said. “First, they pushed me to join the math club, and then, they pushed me to join the University Interscholastic League. It just gave me the feeling to want to go back and be a teacher myself and be that person for my students.” 

At The University of Texas at Arlington, Cortez majored in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on bilingual education and later pursued a master’s in curriculum and instruction from Texas Tech University. After graduate school, Cortez returned to Casa View to teach, coming full circle in her journey.   

“What really kept me wanting to pursue education was all the teachers that influenced me, all the teachers that were there for me,” she said.  

Cortez began doing her part in guiding students so they can also reach their full potential through robotics. Her robotics journey started when a colleague asked if she wanted to take part in a new Dallas ISD initiative, she said. 

“No way. I don’t want to do that,” she said to him. “I have no clue how to build a robot or anything like that. I have no engineering background.” 

Despite her initial reluctance, Cortez began comentoring the EagleBots in 2017, the school’s first coed robotics team, and three years later, at the request of two third-grade students, started mentoring an all-girls robotics team, the LadyBots.  

“A lot of the time in STEM, girls are pushed off to the side to do smaller tasks,” Cortez said. “All tasks are meaningful in robotics, but the girls are not working on the nitty gritty of robotics, like building and driving and programming.” 

 Though Cortez felt out of her depth mentoring an all-girls team, her students and coworkers believed she could do it and succeed. 

“The girls said, ‘It’s okay, we can all learn together. You always told us that we can learn anything, so let’s all learn together,’” Cortez said.  

Cortez and the four members of the LadyBots have made a name for themselves at the state and national level. Not only did they receive the Excellence Award and Teamwork Champion Award at the VEX IQ State Tournament, but they also competed in the 2023 Vex Robotics World Championships and took home the Girl Powered Award and the Build Award.  

“The LadyBots were honored for being so empowering to each other and for showing that girls do belong in STEM,” Cortez said.  

Cortez founded a new chapter of the LadyBots at the School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove, where she now teaches sixth-grade world cultures and seventh-grade Texas history. This robotics team, which includes two of the original members from her previous school, is also leaving its mark, getting recognition at regional championships and ranking among the nation’s top robotics teams for its members’ exceptional skills.  

Even in the classroom Cortez brings history to life through STEM-inspired, hands-on activities. Not so long ago, she challenged her class to create artifacts from various eras in Texas history. One student used robotic pieces to build a diorama of Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Another built a railroad system and a cattle network to represent the era of cotton, cattle, and railroads. A third student designed an oil rig equipped with movable parts to simulate Spindletop gushing oil.  

“These kinds of activities are what they love most,” Cortez said. “They are thinking critically on how to solve this challenge.” 

This hands-on approach reflects Cortez’ teaching philosophy, and its emphasis on STEM integration in the curriculum, which fosters trust, and even embraces failure.

“We must create a culture that accepts that not everything is going to work. There is no right or wrong answer. Students need to embrace failure,” she said.  

Of her recognition as Dallas ISD’s Magnet Teacher of the Year she said: 

“It’s an absolute honor to be named Teacher of the Year for this amazing district that gave me so many opportunities and opened so many doors for me. It’s still surreal for me.” 

Cortez praises Dallas ISD for its commitment to extracurricular activities, which lay the groundwork for her career.  

“As an alumna and now a teacher, Dallas ISD has taught me to value extracurriculars and exposure to things that students aren’t normally exposed to,” she said. “That is what makes our students think out of the box. It helps us develop relationships with our students outside of the classroom to where they can have that trust in us, and once we have their trust, they work even harder in the classroom.”