Staff News

It is time to take charge of your benefits and have them work for you. Annual Enrollment runs through Aug. 14. This represents each team members’ opportunity to review, update, and make the best choices for themselves and their family for the 2026–2027 school year.

Enrollment is passive, meaning if you do not make changes, most of your current benefits will roll over automatically. However, there are important exceptions of which you need to be aware. If you want to continue participating in any of the following plans, you must re-enroll because these plans do not roll over and require a new election each year:

• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Limited Purpose FSA (LPFSA)
• Dependent Care FSA (DCFSA)

We strongly encourage you to enroll in the Sick Leave Bank by donating one local day. Once enrolled, eligible participants may receive up to 20 days, if they meet program requirements.

To view the Benefits Overview Guide to review benefit options that best meet the needs of you and your family click on the following link: Guide. 

Benefits will offer virtual webinars to help team members navigate the benefits process and options. These online sessions will provide a more detailed overview of available benefits. To register for the Benefits Annual Enrollment Seminar of your choice, visit the sign up page by clicking on the link.

For those who prefer personalized assistance, one-on-one appointments with an expert in the Benefits Department can be scheduled. You may schedule a face-to-face, virtual or a phone appointment. This is a great option if you have specific questions or would like help selecting your coverage. Click here to schedule a one-on-one appointment.

When you are ready to enroll, you can:

• Visit the Dallas ISD Benefits Portal
• Call 972-925-4000 option 1 for enrollment 
• Log in through the MyDallasISD App

Have Questions? We’re Here to Help!

• Internal Dallas ISD Benefits: 972-925-4300 
• Email: benefits@dallasisd.org

The countdown is on! Dallas ISD is less than two weeks away from the 2026 Legacy Launch Party, and we can’t wait to celebrate the start of another incredible school year with Team Dallas ISD.

On Thursday, Aug. 6, campuses and departments across the district will gather to watch a one-hour virtual celebration featuring a special message from Superintendent Stephanie S. Elizalde, student performances, prize giveaways, and more.

The Legacy Launch Party video will be available for download beginning at 8 a.m. on Aug. 6 at www.DallasISD.org/LegacyLaunchParty. Principals or supervisors should share details about each campus or department’s watch party. 

Event details and ways to win exciting prizes, such as Texas Rangers tickets, Dallas Arboretum passes, gift cards, and more also can be found at www.DallasISD.org/LegacyLaunchParty.

During the 2025-2026 school year, Health Services celebrated 100 years of serving students across Dallas ISD, caring for them, supporting their well-being, and helping them succeed in the classroom. 

During the department’s end-of-the-year celebration, campus and central staff nurses were recognized for their dedication and impact throughout the school year.  

This year, Sheryl Edwards, nurse at Robert T. Hill Middle School, was named the 2025-2026 Nurse of the Year. 

Ashley Escamilla-Rorie, nurse at Louise Wolff Kahn Elementary School, received the Rookie of the Year award, while Alisha Warren-Simmons of North Dallas High School was recognized as Nurse Assistant of the Year. Warren-Simmons also celebrated 25 years of service with Dallas ISD. 

Behind every campus and school nurse is a dedicated team of central office nurses who support each school. This year, several of those team members were also recognized for reaching service milestones: 

• 5 years: Samantha Dickinson, Cindy Fairfield 

• 10 years: Rosa Guerrero 

• 15 years: Lacy Amelunke, Vemita Scales 

• 25 years: Jennifer Finley, Yolanda Everett 

As Health Services, founded in 1925, begins its next century of service, the department continues its legacy and commitment to advancing student wellness and academic success.

From the outside, the Resource Center South could be easily mistaken for another school building. But the inside tells a different story. 

Instead of classrooms, Dallas ISD parents find the resources they need for their families and a place where it feels safe to ask for help. 

“This is my purpose every day—to literally make sure that a family has what they need,” said Tiphanie Sanders-Wright, manager of Resource Center South.

Down the hall, past the front desk and a small waiting area, is a scaled-down grocery store with shopping carts and humming reach-in refrigerators. Shelves of canned goods and household staples line walls and stretch across the room, forming aisles. Inside the commercial coolers, parents find milk, eggs, and meat. Produce fills bins and crates: greens, onions, potatoes—whatever Brother Bill’s Helping Hand, a nonprofit organization in North Dallas, was able to donate that week.

“When a family checks in to shop, they don’t get a pre-packed box,” Sanders-Wright said. “We want parents to get exactly what they need for themselves and their families.”

Parents walk the aisles like any shopper would. Small signs taped to the shelves offer instructions: “Choose one” on some items, “Choose two” on others. By the time their cart is full, they’ve usually reached around 100 pounds of food. Volunteers help them bag groceries and walk them out to the car.

Sanders-Wright said that in the beginning that freedom startled some parents, especially those accustomed to pre-packed grocery boxes. 

“When we first opened, they were like, ‘I do it myself?’” Sanders-Wright said. “And we said, yes, this is a self-service process. You get a cart. You choose. We’re just here to help.”

The grocery store is only one part of what the center offers, but it captures its spirit—restoring a sense of control to parents who may have gone a long time without feeling any.

Resource Center South opened its doors to families in 2022, after voters approved the 2020 Bond Program that included funding to “plant resources” across the district. Before anything was built, the Office of School Improvement held surveys, focus groups, and interviews in the community. Families asked for food support, health care, safer neighborhoods, help with work and schooling.

Now, a parent can walk in needing groceries and leave with far more. On Wednesdays, Children’s Health staff set up in an office and sit side by side with families, helping them complete applications for CHIP, TANF, Medicaid, or Medicare. Parkland Health nurses come to give immunizations and flu shots. In the evenings, parents trickle into ESL or GED classes while their children attend reading sessions, art, or piano lessons just a few doors away.

There are even dedicated quiet spaces for parents who need to “dock in and work” and a computer lab. Through the center, parents are given their own Dallas ISD login. Other spaces include a mental health suite and a small library where “the vision is for families to essentially build their own home libraries,” Sanders-Wright said.

While Resource Center South is not the only resource center in operation, it was the first of four centers to open and served as a template for the others. Located near Dr. Elba and Domingo Garcia West Dallas STEM School the West Dallas, the Resource Center West is housed in a renovated space where Dallas ISD families can access free groceries, mental health and wellness support, and other wraparound services. It offers a service not available in the first center—a laundry facility that any parent in the district can use. 

“It doesn’t matter that one resource center is south and another is west. Parents from all over the district can access services at either location,” Sanders-Wright said.

Resource Centers South and West will eventually be joined by two other centers, one opening in January 2027 at the old John Lewis Social Justice Academy, and another planned next to the renovated H. Grady Spruce High School around 2027–2028. Both are designed to address the same core priorities like access to healthy food and mental health support.

During July, the center shifts into summer camp mode with its Summer Enrichment Program. Elementary students come for cooking, dance, music, and art, rotating through rooms that feel more like studios than classrooms. Older students can choose from among life coaching, podcasting, and even musical theater. Sanders-Wright said seeing former students return each summer, taller and more confident, is one of the quiet joys of the job.

Despite its mission to be inclusive, Dallas ISD can still feel huge and confusing from the outside. Sanders-Wright hears that all the time.

“Sometimes parents just need someone to slow it down,” she said. “We have the time to sit and say, ‘No, you need to go here,’ or, ‘Call this person.’ And then they come back and tell us, ‘You helped me, and now my child is doing better.’ That’s the part that stays with us.”

The center runs with only three full-time staff members. Everyone else—partner organizations, volunteers, even high school students who come in for service hours—keeps the place moving. By the end of the day, the stories can be heavy. Food insecurity. Rent overdue. A teenager asking for hygiene products because there’s nothing at home.

As closing time nears, the staff gather to check on each other, to trade the day’s hardest and best moments. They hug in the hallway. They plan what to cook next in the demonstration kitchen—or gush about the mothers who used the kitchen to make lunch for them. They talk about the parent who walked in with hesitation and left with groceries, a class schedule, and a little more air in their lungs.

On her way home, Sanders-Wright thinks of those faces.

“Sometimes parents just fall into our arms crying,” she said. “They say, ‘Thank you so much. I was so proud and embarrassed before coming in here.’ Those are the stories I hold on to. That’s when I know we really did something that day.”

Financial Services has released its 2026-2027 activity calendar with requisition approval deadlines so team members can effectively manage their purchases before the fiscal year ends. Purchases are to benefit the current school year students and programs. 

Employees should adhere to the deadlines listed below to help ensure departmental requests are successfully processed. 

Approval deadlines

Take note:

• Purchases should be made as early as possible during the current school year.
• Failure to meet the approval deadlines may result in requisition cancellation.
• The cross-functional budget transfer deadline is April 30, 2027.
• At the end of each fiscal year, open encumbrances are carried forward to the same line codes in the next fiscal year. Additional budget for those encumbrances is not guaranteed, particularly in the general fund.
• Purchase requisitions and check requisitions must be in Procurement’s approval queue by the deadline date.
• Internal requisitions must be in an approved status by the deadline date. 
• Exceptions to the approval deadlines must be obtained via emailed request to Deputy Superintendent Eduardo Ramos.
• Exceptions may be made to the established deadlines for specific departments (i.e. School Nutrition, Maintenance & Facility Services, Information Technology, and Bond) with ongoing projects that started prior to May 1 and are needed for the upcoming school year preparations.
• Purchase Requisitions must be submitted timely and in accordance with this calendar to ensure that:
  • Procurement can submit purchase orders in time for suppliers to deliver goods/services by June 30, 2027.
  • By July 8, 2027, the campus/department can appropriately enter an Oracle receiver confirming the June 30, 2027, receipt. The campus/department must be sure to backdate those Oracle receipts to the June 2027 period.

In-process and/or incomplete requisitions will be mass cancelled by quarter according to the schedule below. 

Finance DivisionContacts

• Executive Director Procurement: Candace Yarbough at cyarbough@dallasisd.org
• E-Commerce Supervisor: Victor Hendrix at vihendrix@dallasisd.org   
• Executive Director Budget: Sherry Dodson at sdodson@dallasisd.org  
• Special Revenue Exceptions: Sequetta Marks at smarks@dallasisd.org   
• General Operating Exceptions: Eduardo Ramos at eduarramos@dallasisd.org 
• Activity Fund Exceptions: Kim Merkson at umerkson@dallasisd.org  
• Gifts/Donations Exceptions: Corby Harbin at charbin@dallasisd.org  
• Software Purchase Exceptions (GO): Sherry Dodson at sdodson@dallasisd.org 
• Software Purchase Exceptions (SRF): Sequetta Marks at smarks@dallasisd.org 
• Software Purchase Exceptions (Bond): Devyn Mountain at dmountain@dallasisd.org 

For some schools, the school year will start a bit earlier this year, and teachers and other team members at these schools will be back from summer on July 20 to follow the board approved Additional Days School Year calendar. 

Dallas ISD has made great strides in student achievement, and in its January meeting, the Board of Trustees gave the district another tool to make sure that students are getting all the support they need to succeed. Early Start ADSY adds extra learning days for 13 elementary schools and for sixth graders in seven middle schools before the start of the regular school year and on select Saturdays during the school year to support academic growth, build confidence, and ensure students are prepared for success. 

The additional days will also help students regain any skills they may have forgotten during the summer and get the support they need to be their best selves. 

The elementary schools are:

John Q Adams, Lee McShan Jr., John Neely Bryan, J.N. Ervin, José “Joe” May, Julian T. Saldivar, Harrell Budd, Birdie Alexander, Frank Guzick, and Ronald E. McNair elementary schools; H.S. Thompson STEAM Academy; and Marcus Leadership Academy will report to work on July 20. Lida Hooe is Saturday School only.

Sixth-grade teachers as well as CILT and elective teachers at T.W. Browne, Hector P. Garcia, Sam Tasby, Harold Wendell Lang Sr., and Boude Storey middle schools; Royce West Leadership Academy; and Young Men’s Leadership Academy at Fred F. Florence will also start the school year on July 20. 

Staffing is structured to ensure strong instructional coverage at each level and allow campuses to start the year with collaboration, consistency, and a shared focus on meeting student needs early. Although participation is not contractual, teachers are strongly encouraged to attend. All support staff will be at the schools to ensure the school year starts as planned. 

For more information on ADSY, download the calendar found in the district’s calendars page. 

Everyone has heard about band camp, but all the other students who support the band during games have a separate summer camp that allows them to hone their skills and make their schools shine. 

The Auxiliary Skills Camp at Sunset High School this summer brought together majorettes and color guard performers from across Dallas ISD. These are the students who keep a marching band moving visually: the ones tossing batons into the air, spinning flags, and pulling the audience’s eyes across the field. They are also, as many of them admit, the ones who may go unnoticed when the focus turns to instruments and scores.

“Sometimes the majorettes and the color guard get overlooked because they are a section in the band, but typically, from a band director’s perspective, the focus is on the musicians,” said Kathryn Scott, director of bands at Sunset High School. “This camp gives them the ability to interact with great counselors who teach them to use their batons or their flags.”

Scott helped launch the camp a few years ago after Sunset opened a new music and athletics wing that could finally accommodate the vision. The first summer drew around 30 students. This year, there are 68 participants representing roughly nine campuses.

According to Scott, a typical day has students working on performance skills, dance, and movement, then they split into smaller groups. Some focus on skills. Others learn how to turn those skills into routines to music with different tempos and styles. They also spend time on team-building so that, by the final showcase, they perform as a unit rather than as a set of strangers in the same outfits.

Scott compares what they do to learning an instrument.

“The way that they actually twirl the flag and perform is all fundamental. It’s just like playing an instrument,” Scott said. “At the end of the day you have to be good. You have to have good fundamentals. This camp just gives the students the ability to build their skills, no matter what style their band marches.”

If Scott is the architect, though, Anniya Willard is proof of concept. Willard graduated from Wilmer-Hutchins High School in 2025 and has returned as an instructor after a season as a Platinum Girl at Texas Southern University.

“It’s honestly a blessing,” Willard said. “When I was in high school, I went to camps like this, and they really helped me improve my skills. Now, I can come back and help those who want to be in a position like me.”

Willard remembers the pressure younger students put on themselves.

“They feel like they have to be perfect as soon as they learn something new,” Willard said. “I try to let them know that dropping your baton is okay. Not getting it on the first time is okay. It’s actually a good thing. It means you’re trying.”

Around the gym, the results are visible. Scott said that students who arrived stiff and quiet were tossing higher, smiling more, cheering for friends from other schools. Scott, who has taught for 15 years still lights up when she talks about what happens when former students like Willard return.

“I imagine future summers with more counselors, more specialized groups, and alumni who step in front of the class already knowing how it feels to stand in the back row of a football field,” she said. 

For Scott, the real legacy of Auxiliary Camp will not be this year’s showcase or even next year’s enrollment numbers. It will be the steady line of students who move from nervous beginners to confident leaders, then come back wearing instructor badges. 

“What makes Dallas ISD really special is the fact that students graduate from Dallas, go further their education, and then want to come back to coach,” she said.

The hope is that campuses that do not yet have majorette or color guard programs will see this model and build their own.

“It’s amazing to see it grow,” Scott said. “We want to continue to have more schools participate, just to build that camaraderie and those connections with the students.”

Ashley Marshall, manager of the Homeless Education Program, has worked for more than two decades in Dallas ISD, but she still sounds a little astonished when she describes the scale of the work in front of her. Last year alone, the team of four supported 4,534 students identified as homeless.

Unlike the adult homeless population, many of these children are not living in tents or on sidewalks. They are squeezed into spare bedrooms, couches, and floors.

“They are considered homeless because they’re doubled up, more than one family living together,” Marshall explained. “If I lost my home and moved in with my sister and brought my kids with me, those kids would be considered homeless, because you’d obviously live on your own if you could.”

For many families, low-cost hotels and motels have become the only option. It is not uncommon for some parents to work several jobs to afford housing deposits or utility bills, but even those efforts can feel precarious at times, she said. Marshall pointed out that a single crisis can erase years of slow progress, such as the recent apartment explosion in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas that left dozens of tenants suddenly with no home, no belongings, and no clear next step.

The federal law that guides her work focuses on getting students enrolled in school and maintaining retention rates. Since program funding does not cover basic living arrangements for students, the team has learned to stretch what it can do and to rely on the generosity of strangers.

“We can’t use our money for food or hygiene, but we’re lucky that we have donors,” Marshall said. One donor sent 3,000 pairs of new sneakers. Another shipped 30,000 pairs of children’s underwear. Shelves fill and empty constantly as students pick up what they need to get through the day with some dignity, Marshall said.

At the high school level, the program’s presence is often felt in more subtle ways. Drop‑in centers on campuses offer hygiene items, emergency snacks, and a place to vent. Guest speakers explain how to manage money or navigate college applications. Mentors meet with students who might not even use the word “homeless” to describe their living situation, especially those “sofa surfing” with friends after parents have been deported or pushed out of housing.

Sometimes the help is as simple and specific as a bus pass.

Marshall remembers a student who called before summer break, proud of a new paid internship at a nonprofit but worried about getting there. The girl asked for two weeks of DART passes and promised to cover the rest once her paychecks started.

“It broke my heart,” Marshall said. “When I first started babysitting, I used my money for cassette tapes for my Walkman. She was going to use her money so she could keep going to work.”

Stories like that keep the team moving, even when the work spills into nights and weekends, or their personal time,  like when a call came in as Marshall was about to board a ship overseas.. It also shapes how she wants the public to see the students she serves.

“We have kids in International Baccalaureate programs, AP classes, and early college classes. Just because they’re homeless, that doesn’t mean that are not achieving. Being homeless wasn’t their choice,” she said.

For Marshall, the most powerful help often starts inside each campus. She wants schools to see their own families clearly and build support close to home.

“We would love for every school to have a food pantry,” she said. “Not every homeless student is hungry, and not every student who is hungry is homeless.”

When campuses call to offer a drive for her department, she often pushes back gently, asking them instead to look down their own hallways. Her team now shares “pack the pantry” starter kits and encourages staff to set up Amazon wishlists tailored to their students’ needs.

Awareness, she said, is as important as supplies. Marshall dreams of speaking at every faculty meeting in the district, especially because so many staff still have no idea the Homeless Education Program exists. Custodians, bus drivers, food service workers, office staff—all of them may be the first adults to notice a student quietly asking for extra food or mentioning they slept on a floor.

“The more people that know we’re here, the more eyes we have looking out for kids,” Marshall said. “If you don’t know, you don’t know how you can help.”

Marshall’s sense of responsibility spans beyond official boundaries. Her office has taken calls from grandparents who picked up a Homeless Education Program bookmark from the public library, from a student in Las Vegas planning a move back to Dallas, even from other districts. If they can help directly, they do. If not, they connect callers to colleagues in other systems.

Marshall is clear about how she wants to be remembered. She doesn’t talk about titles or awards, even though the superintendent recently recognized her as a “behind‑the‑scenes hero.” She talks about being useful.

“I think ‘helper’ is what I’d want to be described as,” she said. “Someone who was there for students, families, staff, anybody who needed us.”

Special contributor Alysson Arcila

This year’s Future Doctors Summer Camp cohort isn’t interested in breaking hearts—they’re interested in studying them. In one room, students steady their hands over surgical pads as they practice their first delicate stitches. In another, they lean in close over a pig’s heart, sliding gloved fingers inside to see how blood once moved through it. These teen prospective doctors gathered at Hillcrest High School and South Oak Cliff high schools this summer for a practical look into the medical field.

“I had no idea the students would have this much background knowledge. They came in eager, hands-on, and ready to learn,” said Tamara Ballard, a school librarian at Martin Weiss Elementary School. Ballard’s role at the Future Doctors Summer Camp is to keep things running. She takes attendance, makes sure supplies are where they need to be, and checks that the instructors, who also happen to be medical students, have what they asked for. 

Ballard has spent 20 years in education and talks about books with the same warmth she now uses for these hands-on labs. At her school, she curates sports and medical titles so children can see their interests reflected on the shelves. At the Future Doctors camp, she watches older students test those interests in real time.

This kind of work, she said, lets her stand at the edge of the action and watch students surprise themselves.

The camp, now in its third year under the direction of Lisa Whitaker, director of Electives and Enrichment, is free to Dallas ISD students interested in healthcare. This summer, 18 students spent long days moving between lecture, lab, and simulations. 

For Ballard, one memorable session centered on CPR. 

“When students did their CPR lesson, a lot of them said they already had experience, so that made things easier,” Ballard said. “The students partnered up, moved the tables, and laid down on the floor. They were able to do a little skit where one person would call for help, and the other person would perform CPR.”

Another session brought students face to face with a pig heart. Ballard heard students describe the strong smell and watched them slide their fingers into the chambers to open the heart. For many, it was the first time they had seen an organ up close, outside of a textbook or video.

Students also listened to a pediatrician discuss the years of study the career requires. For some, those moments reinforced an interest in medicine. For others, it was a sign to consider a different role within healthcare.

What strikes Ballard the most about the camp is how seriously the students take the opportunity. Some arrive already knowing anatomical and medical terms. Others ask questions after sessions about college, time management, and whether they could really do this. Ballard sees all of it as part of their education.

“This is a hands-on experience that they will remember going off to college,” Ballard said. “Even if the kids choose another field, they leave with a clearer sense of themselves and the knowledge that they were trusted with real work.”

Math facts may seem simple, but learning them early on makes a difference in how students approach math.

Last year, Dallas ISD launched Math Magic, an initiative focused on helping first through third graders gain automaticity with their basic facts. What began as a new idea quickly grew into a districtwide movement: 98 schools participated, reaching more than 18,000 students. By May, 12,250 students had earned their Math Magic T-shirt by reaching all six milestones.

“It’s always nice to see something come to fruition,” said Aaron Daffern, director of mathematics in Academic Services. “This is something new, it is something different, and it can be a challenge for a principal or assistant principal to take this and integrate it into their support.”

From the start, Math Magic was designed to be ambitious but realistic. The district provided structure, materials, and suggested timelines, but left room for campuses to adapt. That flexibility turned out to be a major factor in its early success.

“The schools that showed the most success,” Daffern explained, “were the ones that had someone who was taking charge and organizing things.”

In classrooms, the impact is beginning to show up not just in test data, but in how students think. Daffern heard stories from early learning specialists who watched third graders struggle through the first milestones only to suddenly hit a turning point.

“For some kids it was the fourth milestone,” he recalled. “It was like a light bulb was turned on, and they started to breeze through. They thought it got easier, and honestly, it was getting a little bit more difficult, but they were starting to understand and starting to use different strategies.”

For Daffern, that “light bulb” moment in math mirrors what happens when first graders crack the code of reading. Once they understand that letters represent sounds, their reading takes off. Math Magic, he argues, does the same for mathematics.

“Fact fluency is the phonics of mathematics,” Daffern said. “You can’t read unless you know how phonics work, and you can’t do math unless you have your basic math facts.”

That fluency matters well beyond simple computation. When a fourth grader has to add fractions with unlike denominators, it suddenly becomes easier if they already know that 4 and 3 connect to 12, the least common multiple. Instead of getting lost in the arithmetic, students can focus on the concept.

“We want them to notice the patterns,” Daffern said. “If you’re multiplying by five, the one digit is always going to end in a five or zero. If you multiply by two, it’s always going to be a 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8. Math is about recognizing patterns and having that automaticity.”

That emphasis on patterns is intentional. Without it, Daffern worries students are just “randomly memorizing things that have no context.” With it, they gain mental shortcuts that free their brains to handle richer problem-solving.

Just as important as the cognitive side is the atmosphere it creates in classrooms. Because timed tests can be intimidating, Math Magic was built around “high structure, low stress.” Campuses received a suggested testing window but no rigid reporting demands. Teachers could tuck Math Magic wherever it fit: into a daily math block, during lab time, or in those odd minutes between specials and dismissal. Elementary schools, Daffern noted, are especially good at this kind of creative scheduling. 

“There are no bells in elementary school,” he said. “They’ll rearrange their master schedule every year if they need to, to make it make sense.”

Parents were invited into the effort as well. At-home games with English and Spanish instructions went home in backpacks. On selected campuses, thanks to support from the Dallas Education Foundation and the Dallas Mavericks, students received custom-designed flashcards and sturdy one-minute sand timers.

Looking ahead, the district expects Math Magic to reach all 150 elementary schools and to grow alongside new state-supported math academies for teachers in kindergarten through third grade. Daffern believes the payoff will become even clearer as this year’s second graders enter third grade with solid addition and subtraction facts already in place, and as future cohorts move into upper grades ready for higher-level computations.

In Daffern’s mind, the goal is simple: make Math Magic part of what Dallas ISD is.

“I want it to be something that 30,000 kids look forward to every year,” he said. “We would never not teach a student phonics, and we need that same mindset for math facts, because if we get this right, we’re not just making math easier—we’re opening the door to everything that comes next.”