Staff News

Whether teaching summer school or going on learning trips themselves or traveling with family, Dallas ISD team members are planning for a great summer. Some are undergoing procedures for their health or holding summer jobs different from their regular work. Here are a few team members’ plans:

This summer, I am planning to take a trip to New York and Destin, Flo., with my family. City lights and beach days ahead! 

Briana Garraway
Ed Tech Enterprise Support Services

June and July, I shall be in Kärnten, Austria, the homeland of my heart, as I am every summer. 

Catherine Knight Duncan
Charmaine and Robert Price Career Institute 

Most excited about visiting Washington, D.C., for the museums and historical landmarks. Attending The Caring For Every Mind conference and enjoying the long summer days with friends and family. 

Shakirae Ajaga
George W. Truett Elementary School

This summer, we plan to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with a romantic cruise through Fiji and Tahiti. 

John Fore and Julie Fore
Young Women’s STEAM Academy

I’ll be attending a workshop event at the University of Iowa called Frogamans Printmaking for a week. I am very excited about building on my experience and hope to learn a new trick or two. 

Jessica Raff
Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

Traveling to see Harry Styles in Europe, going to see the World Cup in Dallas and Kansas City, and taking the Sue Rose Summer Institute course at Southern Methodist University. 

Marian Porras
Hogg New Tech

I will be traveling quite a lot this summer with my husband and friends. The first trip is Spain and Scotland with my husband. Next, it’s Los Angeles to visit my childhood best friend. Last is Tulum, Mexico, with a few friends. I will also periodically be going to Houston to visit my family.

Nataly Rodriguez
David G. Burnet Elementary School

I am among fifteen U.S. high school teachers who have been selected to participate in the 2026 GenEd Teacher Fellowship Program. The Fellows receive intensive, specialized GenEd training in Armenia this summer. 

Mirshish Boyd
W.H. Adamson High School

I’m looking forward to a summer filled with sisterhood, travel, and quality time with family. My mom and I—both proud Dallas ISD employees—are planning a girls’ trip to Las Vegas to attend the 72nd Boule for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® We’re excited for a week of connection, service, leadership development, and all things pink and green! Between conference events, inspirational sessions, and a little Vegas fun, we’re making the most of our summer break while celebrating the impact of education, sisterhood, and service. It’s the perfect way to recharge before another amazing school year begins. 

Natalie Richards
School Leadership-LEAD

I’m guiding a wilderness therapy retreat at Lake Tahoe. The retreat title is “Digital Detox.” 

Tami Gilmore
Mental Health Services

I was awarded a $5,000 Fund for Teachers fellowship. I will travel through Indonesia to study volcanic succession, island biogeography, and biodiversity across the Wallace Line. By documenting forests and land use from Krakatoa to Maluku, I will create place-based AP Environmental Science case studies that deepen students’ understanding of evolution, succession, and conservation. 

David McLoda
School of Science and Engineering

I will be offering a workshop to Dallas ISD art teachers and one to adults in the community in June. Then, my husband and I will go to Italy for the month of July. I will take long walks to the port, drink Americano, eat the greatest pizza, and visit with friends and family.

Stacy Cianciulli
L.O. Donald Elementary School

I won a grant from the National Education Association to travel to Spain to participate in professional learning while preparing bilingual literacy and STEM resources.

Katharine Joss
Gabe P. Allen New Tech Academy

Long ago, in a remote village, a dragon forgot how to fly. Normally, a grounded dragon wouldn’t be a problem for the villagers—but this one was the creator of the world’s winds. After a fierce battle with a rival, the amnesiac dragon must rely on a wizard mind keeper and a memory box—a wind‑up model showing the dragon in its former glory—to remember how air once glided through his wings. This is the kind of plot you’d expect from a fantasy novel, but at Julius Dorsey Leadership Academy, it’s part of a competitive, project‑based learning program.

Under the guidance of gifted and talented teacher Zugey Morin, the cohort in Destination Imagination dreamed up the story to investigate the physics of flight, resilience, and memory.

To explore a deceptively simple question—how can a heavy creature propel itself upward and remain suspended in the air—students had to think like engineers.They built mechanical wings and a gear box that could move the dragon in stages. When the dragon finally takes off across the stage, purple lights flip on, a neon backdrop glows, and the clouds roll away as wind returns to the village. 

For Morin, this challenge illustrates what happens when students are trusted to think, build, and imagine for themselves. 

“I don’t teach them like a sage on stage,” Morin said. “It’s more of guiding on the side.” 

She does this by asking questions: What do you want the audience to see? How could you show flight without just acting it out? How do you turn a theme—forgetting and remembering—into mechanisms and motion?

That belief in student agency has roots in her own story. A Moisés E. Molina High School graduate, Morin studied economics with a minor in business administration and worked in the corporate world before switching careers. 

“I realized I could be doing something a little bit more meaningful,” Morin said. 

As a child, she would even persuade her brother and sister to “play students,” printing out pages on Egyptian culture and mythology so she could “teach” them. Teaching, she said, always felt inevitable.

Through Dallas ISD’s alternative certification program, Morin started at Eladio R. Martinez Learning Center then went to John F. Peeler Elementary School, where she also served as an instructional coach and demo teacher. Eventually, she was recruited to Julius Dorsey, where she has now been for three years. There, she teaches gifted and talented students and science and leads the Destination Imagination team. 

Her classroom, the Imaginarium, funded through a makeover grant from United to Learn and Stemscapes, looks less like a traditional room and more like a compact workshop. Pegboards display tools; drawers and benches hold materials; a hot glue station, “chomp saw” station, and 3D printers line the walls. Everything is out in the open on purpose.

“It’s hard to be inventive when you don’t know your tools or how to use them,” Morin said. “Visible materials—foam balls, cardboard rolls, pipe cleaners—start spinning the wheel for the students.” 

Letting students roam that space means ceding some control. Morin acknowledges that “a lot of adults have a hard time letting go of control,” but her approach is to teach procedures and then trust students.

“If you teach students how to do things properly, they can be self‑sufficient,” Morin said. “My students get on the stepping stool and grab things on their own. By the end of the year, there’s no corrections needed. I’m just supervising and making sure we’re all safe.”

Her third graders, she said, have even used Tinkercad to design 3D‑printed pet shelters. Last year, they collaborated on elaborate utopian cities with residential, commercial, and green zones after reading the graphic novel adaptation of The City of Ember.

This is what makes Destination Imagination unique: it’s where the fantasy of flightless dragons meets the discipline of competition. 

“It’s sort of like the Olympics of creativity,” Morin said, “where teams of kids get together to solve challenges using their imagination, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.” 

Teams work on a central challenge for months and then face a surprise “instant challenge” on tournament day. This year, Morin’s team placed third at regionals. Only the top two teams advanced, but her students were already looking ahead. 

“Okay, we lost, but that’s all right because we are going to do better next year,” Morin said. That impulse to adjust and try again is exactly the kind of resilience she hopes to cultivate.

Above all, Morin wants her students to leave with a sense that learning can feel magical without losing its rigor.

“I want my students to feel empowered to use their imagination and creativity to problem-solve and simply be,” Morin said. “I want them to feel that learning was fun, and that they had a great time because it didn’t feel like work.”

It’s been a great year for Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy at A. Maceo Smith. Not only did the Class of 2026, which has 54 “brothers,” achieved a 100% college acceptance rate with $15.4 million in scholarships, but the school’s debate team also earned second place at the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues championship.

The multimillion-dollar scholarship total marks the second-highest scholarship amount awarded, paving the way for graduates, including several first-generation students, to attend elite universities like Princeton and Columbia to major in fields ranging from theater and finance to mechanical engineering and nursing.

Javier V. and Caleb J.carried the school’s legacy of debate excellence onto the national stage, recently earning second place at the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues championship. The championship brought debate teams from urban districts around the country, under one roof. 

“It was beautiful. It was my first time in the Northeast, and it was great to see Harvard in person.” Caleb said. “It was a very new experience, coming from Texas.” 

More than giving students the opportunity to visit a new city, the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues gives them an outlet to explore their passion and talent in ways they may not usually be able to.

For Javier, that opportunity also highlights a bigger issue.

“There are so many debaters with much drive who want to succeed. But they are crowded out because they don’t have resources or can’t afford to go,” he said.

Still, Javier and Caleb have found ways to compete at a high level. They regularly face larger, and oftentimes, private schools. Both say that having different life experiences than many of their competitors allows them to bring a unique perspective when they step up to the podium.

Now, Javier and Caleb are working together to ensure the debate legacy stays strong at BOMLA. 

“I want BOMLA to keep going to prestigious debate tournaments,” Caleb said. “I want to continue getting accolades and foster more growth as people become attracted to it and we get more experience.”

There are still openings for students at BOMLA for the 2026-2027 school year. To apply to attend the school, visit https://www.dallasisd.org/about-our-schools/discover-dallas-isd. 

In the courtyard of Richard Lagow Elementary School, what was once a slab of concrete used only for the occasional festival has become a vibrant garden, pollinator habitat, and community hub. 

The transformation began in 2017, when a fifth‑grade teacher, Jeanette Newland, secured a grant from the National Wildlife Federation to convert the unused space into a school garden. When she left the school, Luz Rivera Acevedo, a bilingual first-grade teacher, took over.

“At the beginning, it was completely cement and concrete, and that’s it,” Rivera recalled. “I think we only had one bench.” 

What followed was a years‑long effort involving students, parents, teachers, district staff, and community partners to turn that barren corner into a flourishing ecosystem. It now grows vegetables, i tomatoes, zucchini, and radishes among them; herbs, such as rosemary and basil; and fruits, including melons and pumpkins, all while supporting monarch butterflies, bees, and birds. 

“The kids harvest, clean, and prepare the produce together, using trays or small bags,” Rivera said. “At dismissal, the parents receive what we’ve grown, but the kids must be the ones to harvest it.”

The Environmental Education Center donated monarch butterflies for students to release, and students planted flowers to attract pollinators. Parent volunteers also installed birdhouses and birdbaths.   

“The first pathway we worked on was the schoolyard, preparing the garden beds with flowers to help increase the monarch butterfly population,” Rivera said.

Rivera, a Puerto Rican native who has been with the district for a decade, emphasizes that student leadership has been central from the start. As part of the National Wildlife Federation requirements, students had to conduct an environmental audit of the space. 

“They had a checklist, and they had to measure the space we were going to use,” Rivera explained. “Since the kids’ participation has to be at least 95%, we made sure to hit that mark.”

Students assessed water access, sunlight, and soil conditions, and used those findings to plan the layout of the garden beds.

From there, parents helped build raised beds alongside their children; volunteers, including Rivera’s husband, George Rey, brought tools and supplies; and the school community rallied behind the goal of creating a certified pollinator habitat. Over time, the garden earned Eco-Schools USA Bronze and Silver Awards before achieving a National Wildlife Federation  Green Flag School designation.

The Green Flag journey, however, demanded meticulous documentation—audits, interviews, surveys, and lesson plans. Rivera describes the process as both demanding and deeply rewarding. 

“We have binders with everything documented,” she said. “It was a lot, but very comprehensive and organized.

Students helped conduct surveys on favorite fruits and vegetables, interviewed cafeteria staff about menus and food preparation, and worked with Food and Child Nutrition Services to connect garden produce with lessons on healthy eating.

Rivera and her colleagues also made sure the garden was not just an aesthetic add‑on, but a true extension of the curriculum. Through professional development workshops with groups like Grow Garden Grow, she learned how to integrate math, science, social studies, and language arts into garden activities. She then created bilingual resources and shared them with the  faculty.

“Teachers now use alphabet rocks to build early literacy skills, measure garden beds for geometry, and link ecology concepts to real pollinators and plants just outside the classroom door,” she said.

The garden has also become a powerful tool for social‑emotional growth and behavior support. Rivera has seen firsthand how students who struggle inside traditional classrooms often thrive outdoors.

She tells the story of one student known for behavioral challenges who brought in sunflower seeds from home.Together they planted the seeds, and soon the sunflowers towered above the building. 

“He used to come back with his sister and his parents to help us,” Rivera said. “For me, it was amazing because the student’s sense of ownership and pride in the garden translated into more positive behavior and deeper engagement in school.”

That sense of ownership extends to all students, who see their work every day as they walk to the cafeteria. 

“They can see the garden every day,” Rivera noted. “They say, ‘Oh, this was my flower because I planted it.’ And they’ve told me they are doing the same at home.”

Families have even started small gardens, grown pumpkins, and experimented with composting, inspired by what their children learn at school.

Yet the garden still faces practical challenges: the National Wildlife Federation requires untreated wood for beds, which deteriorates faster. There is no automatic irrigation system, and the harsh Texas summers and winter freezes mean constant replanting and repair. Rivera, volunteers, and students are exploring solutions.

“Every time something dies, we see it as a lesson, not a failure,” she said. “We’re planning brick beds that retain water, a greenhouse to protect the crops in extreme weather, and even a gazebo with animals in the courtyard. The kids deserve to see that with patience and creativity, you can always find a way for life to grow again.”

Underlying all of this work is Rivera’s vision of what she hopes to leave behind: a sense of responsible stewardship for all of creation.

“I can tell you that what moves me most and the reason I expose my students to enriching experiences is their capacity for wonder, even at ‘small things,’ like a flower or the song of a bird,” she said. “We must help them preserve that beautiful capacity because that will lead them to develop a sense of responsibility toward nature, and this includes sustainability.”

Celebrating educators whose service and leadership leave a lasting impact on students and school communities is an important tradition in Dallas ISD, but this year’s celebration carried special meaning as the district honored a long-time counselor.

In addition to recognizing outstanding counselors and their dedication to supporting students across the district, the 2026 Counselor of the Year Ceremony honored Robert Muñoz, who is retiring after 59 years in Dallas ISD. Muñoz has served as a counselor for 28 of those years. He was also recognized during the 2026 Salute to Service Awards for his nearly six decades as an educator in Dallas ISD.  

Throughout his career as a teacher, assistant principal, principal and counselor, Muñoz impacted generations of students, families and educators across the district.  

“Every year, Dallas ISD Counseling Services creates a wonderful opportunity to celebrate those counselors who rise to the top through their stellar, comprehensive counseling programs,” said Stacy Owens. “The Counselor of the Year ceremonies serve as the opportunity to highlight their remarkable work.” 

The ceremony also named the 2026 Counselors of the Year:

• Elementary Counselor of the Year—Natasha McLaurin, Buckner Terrace Montessori
• Middle School/Multi-Level Counselor of the Year—Nsikak Otu, Royce West Leadership Academy
• High School Counselor of the Year—Angelica Gonzalez, Trinidad “Trini” Garza Early College High School  

These standout counselors help students succeed academically, prepare them for college and careers, and guide students through social-emotional challenges. Their leadership as counselors also plays an important role in campus culture and schoolwide collaboration. 

“It is during this special occasion that we recognize the lasting impact counselors have on students, families, and school communities and how counselors shape futures, inspire confidence, and create environments where every student feels supported, valued and empowered to succeed,” Owens said. “We are very excited about all of our 2026 Counselor of the Year nominees and winners!”

Every spring, test coordinator and asset manager Stefanie Vick transforms her office at Moisés E. Molina High School into a prom dress wonderland. Desks are pushed aside to make room for what is a sea of formal gowns and sparkling embellishments. 

“Some girls could go all out, and I did not want some students to think they could not go all out [too]. I want them to have that opportunity,” Vick said. 

Vick began her career with Dallas ISD 17 years ago, first serving as a history teacher at W.H. Adamson High School and later transitioning to testing coordinator at Molina High School. Driven by her passion for supporting students, she created the prom dress initiative at the school three years ago after recognizing how costly prom can be. 

Vick wanted to ensure every student could attend without financial stress. Starting with her own dresses, she set up a boutique of sorts in her office, allowing students to browse, try them on, and select a dress for their big night at no cost.

“I never ask the girls to return them,” Vick said. “The dresses are theirs to keep. I am just happy that they find something they love—that’s all I care about.”

Over the years, kindness has spread. Friends, family members, community members, and coworkers now donate dresses or help with minor alterations. Local dry cleaners have donated garment bags to protect the dresses during the off-season. 

“We kind of all help out and pitch in,” Vick continued. “If I can’t be here with the students, another teacher comes in and helps them. It’s not just me helping.”

The collection of donated dresses has grown to more than 100, ranging from short to long styles in a variety of colors, sizes, and designs—some still with tags attached.

Senior Karina S. had been searching for a prom dress. When she walked into Vick’s office, she had no idea she would leave with exactly what she had been looking for—a sparkly dress in her favorite color, purple. The moment Karina S. put it on, Vick said her face lit up with a smile. 

“I just tried it, and it was perfect,” she said. “I really loved it. I knew I didn’t need to find another one.”

Over the years, Vick has seen what a perfect dress can do to boost students’ confidence. She has given away about 30 dresses this year alone and around 150 dresses since she started. These dresses are not only for prom, but also for anyone who needs them for dinner or other school events.  

“As long as I help someone, that is all I care about,“ she said.

But the impact of this project extends far beyond the simple distribution of dresses. Vick hopes the experience shows students the power of giving back. 

“I want them to know that they can pass something down,” she said. “I want them to know they can help each other.”

This small act of kindness is already inspiring other teachers to come together to make the students’ night truly special. 

“I’ve had teachers from other schools reach out and say, ‘Hey, can I bring a girl over? She needs a new dress,” Vick said. “Of course I want to help my own students, but if I can help even more girls across the district, I want to keep this going.”

When students with dyslexia need help developing the independent literacy skills needed to overcome reading and writing challenges and achieve long-term academic success, the Dyslexia Services Department is there to support them. 

Dyslexia is characterized by difficulties with reading words in isolation, spelling, or phonological awareness. The department serves approximately 4,300 students across the district who have been identified as having dyslexia, ensuring they have the support they need to succeed in reading and writing.  

Around 130 dyslexia interventionists are placed on campuses throughout the district, to work with students daily. Interventionists provide targeted instruction in reading, writing and spelling through specialized small-group support.  

“As a department, we are able to grow and develop our own practitioners and therapists and provide them with the training they need so they can help us close reading gaps,” said Veronica Allen, director of Dyslexia Services. 

Most recently, the department has been developing an updated tool that gives principals easier access to the information needed to support and evaluate the progress of dyslexia interventionists on their campuses.  

“We have a really great team, and we share the same purpose,” said Melita Carlton, coordinator in the Dyslexia Services Department. “We manage a large task in providing specialized services to students, and we’ve built effective systems to ensure they receive 180 minutes of reading per week. We are a team of hardworking individuals and talented thinkers.” 

The department’s work is contributing to the district’s long-term student outcome goals.  

During the 2024-2025 school year, students with dyslexia in third through eighth grades and in English I, showed increased performance across all standards on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR.  

During the year, dyslexia interventionists guide students through structured literacy programs in both English and Spanish that are grounded in the science of reading.   

Last school year, the department piloted a one-year curriculum for secondary students called the Scottish Rite Jet Reading Program. The program supports dyslexia interventionists in any subject they may teach and helps ensure all components of the dyslexia program are covered.  

“It’s amazing to see the student growth,” said Allen. When you look at the results from the beginning of the year to the end, it’s incredible to see students who could not identify letters and sounds now reading words. When we isolate the standardized scores from beginning- and end-of-year assessments, the progress is remarkable. When implemented with fidelity, the program works.”

Bryan Adams High School High School Leadership Academy chemistry and geoscience teacher Jose Delgado has been using the district’s new two-way communications tool, Rooms, to communicate with his students’ guardians since it was launched last month. And he has found it helpful.

Among the features that he has liked best are:

• Having all the guardians listed in one place
• The ease of pulling in rosters
• Being able to message directly
• An app to download on his phone

As more Dallas ISD teachers start using this new feature in the district’s comprehensive communication system, parents will find they will need only one app to keep up with messages from their children’s teachers and will be able to do it in their preferred languages. 

Since he started working in Dallas ISD as a middle school teacher, Delgado has used Class Dojo and Remind to communicate with his students and their guardians. These apps have been replaced by the Apptegy app, which parents can download for Android and iOS devices. 

Rooms is already built right into the district’s app and the website from which the system is accessed, so it offers a secure messaging platform. Through the mobile app, students and families can access all of the information they need, including messages, events, lunch menus, and more in one place. Designated campus team members will continue to manage the calls, texts, and emails that go out to families as they have in the past. To learn more about the key features of Rooms, click here.

Rooms offers parents one place for messages instead of having to juggle between apps if they have children in different schools. They will be notified automatically of new messages even if they haven’t logged in or downloaded the app.

To get started, follow these steps:

1. Log into Rooms using this link or the Apptegy tile in the Dallas ISD Portal (Rooms is found on the list as Connect). It is tied to the district’s SSO.
2. Complete the guided orientation and introductory checklist.
3. Send your first message to your families to introduce them to the platform.

To access the orientation checklist, you must login via a computer and complete all steps listed. Once you have finished the set-up, you can download the Apptegy Staff Experience app for a mobile experience if preferred. This app is for Dallas ISD staff only and allows you to access the communication platform and send and receive messages from your  iOS or Android device. However, you can continue to access the system via the website.

If you need additional guidance, click on the question mark in the lower left corner of the site or the speech bubble icon at the lower right, which will connect you with Apptegy’s support team. If you have any questions about using the system, please contact the trainer at your school or Apptegy support at support@apptegy.com or (501) 613-0370.

When Christian “Kiki” Recino Gonzalez, current soccer coach and geography teacher at W.T. White High School, stood on a pitch facing the 2015 U.S. women’s soccer national team, it felt surreal. She had grown up in Arlington,Texas, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, watching stars like Alex Morgan and Marta Vieira da Silva on TV. Suddenly, she was lining up against them, wearing Guatemala’s blue and white.

“I grew up in Arlington, but my parents were immigrants, so they came to this country with nothing,” Gonzalez said. 

Her mom worked as a school cafeteria worker and her dad was a truck driver. Soccer, though, was her father’s great love, and it soon became Gonzalez’, she said.

“I just followed my dad wherever he went,” Gonzalez recalled. “He would play in the Sunday leagues and eventually they signed me up. I didn’t realize there was a girls league, so I played with the boys. I was the only girl on a little Mexican boys team.”

People quickly noticed she was good at soccer, she said. But club soccer cost money her family didn’t have. That might have ended her journey, if not for a small act of generosity. 

“My parents could not afford club soccer, but a local family stepped in and was like, ‘No, she’ll have a scholarship,’” Gonzalez said. “So I received a scholarship for Sting Soccer Club.” 

In high school, another key person also stepped in: her soccer coach, Andrea Scott. Before then, Gonzalez admitted she had never really seen soccer as a pathway to success, but Scott helped to steer her perspective. 

“My high school coach was like, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about playing for college and the national team?’ And I was like, no, what is that?’” she said. “My coach opened the doors for me.”

At a showcase tournament, scouts from the Guatemala women’s national team saw Gonzalez play. At first, she thought she was trying out for the Under-20, but she would soon realize it was much bigger than that. 

“I tried out, and the scouts were like, ‘We want you to play for the senior national team.’ I was only 18 years old and a senior in high school,” Gonzalez said. 

For the next four years, she played center midfielder and defensive midfielder for Guatemala. She debuted with her team in the 2014 CONCACAF Women’s Championship qualifiers and went on to participate in the main tournament.

Being a member of a national team not only meant living abroad but also juggling academics with commitments to an elite sport. 

“I had to take classes online to keep my scholarship for soccer,” she explained. “I was living in the facility—training with my teammates, eating with them. It becomes your whole lifestyle, but it’s something that I love. I would do it all over again if I had the opportunity.”

The game took her to stadiums she had only seen on television and pitted her against her heroes when she got to play against the 2015 U.S. Women’s World Cup squad. Yet her favorite moment wasn’t a goal or a trophy; it was a song.

“Believe it or not, it was whenever I would sing the Guatemalan national anthem,” she said. “I would see my parents and see my crowd. For me, that will forever be my favorite moment.”

Over time, Gonzalez realized her team was doing more than just competing. “When I was there, I realized we were opening doors for a generation,” she said. “Now there are girls who have that opportunity because of us. If we hadn’t done it, they might never have had the chance.”

Following her soccer career, Gonzalez tried the corporate route. Having graduated with a business degree from Grand Canyon University, she took a job at a logistics company. It lasted only six weeks. 

“I did not like the corporate world,” she admitted. “I was like, ‘What am I doing here in a cubicle?’”

So Gonzalez pivoted. She got her teacher certification and headed back to the place where everything had started: high school. While Gonzalez has been teaching for six years, this is her first year with Dallas ISD.

“My high school coach made the biggest difference in my life,” she said. “I wanted to give back to the community, and I knew coaching was my passion.”

As a geography teacher and the girls’ soccer coach at White High School, she brings the world and the game into her classroom. “Geography is cool because you get to talk about the whole world and its people,” she said. 

Gonzalez used soccer to make geography more relevant when she taped the headshot of a different soccer player to the back of each desk chair. Each player features the national team on the jersey. 

“Why does Guatemala wear blue and white? It’s because we’re between the Caribbean and the Pacific. All these jerseys mean something.”

Her coaching philosophy combines toughness with deep care. Her days start at 4:15 a.m. so she can be ready for 6:30 a.m. check-ins with her team and 7 a.m. practice. She is strict but also intentional about building leaders. 

“I also don’t like to select captains,” she said. “I tell my girls, ‘We’re going to make mistakes; no one’s perfect.’ But on the field, you should be able to tell who the leaders are. So, every game I mix it up. That has built leadership within the team and taught the girls to trust each other.”

Most of all, she wants her students to leave as stronger people. “If they come to the soccer program, [I hope] that they become a better person than they were,” she said. “The world that we’re living in is pretty scary, right? But there are still good people in it, and I hope they continue to be that no matter what they do.”

Gonzalez’ message to her girls is ultimately about effort and finishing what they start. 

“Nothing’s given,” she likes to remind her students. “Getting there is one thing, but finishing is another thing. You can do whatever you want, you just have to work for it.”