Staff News

For Eric Benson, transforming student lives has had different meanings over his 38 years as a physical education teacher at Bishop Arts Steam Academy. Several of his former students are now leading life-changing careers of their own, including Diana Nunez, a proud Dallas ISD graduate who has spent over two decades working as a teacher, principal and executive director in the district.

“We knew early on that Diana was going to be something special, just like everyone else in her family,” Benson said. “I’m so happy for her and all of her siblings, the direction that they’ve gone and all the things they have accomplished.”

Benson and Nunez first met when Nunez was in sixth grade, but their connection did not stop when she transitioned into seventh grade. Nunez was followed in school by her younger brother and sisters, so Benson spent another eight years getting to know her family through the students in his class. As the siblings grew older, they began inviting their old coach to their graduations and some even to their weddings.

“I always enjoyed going to see their graduations,” Benson said. ”Afterward, their parents would invite me over to celebrate, eat dinner and enjoy all the other festivities. I never left hungry and was always in a good mood. I still appreciate that to this day.” 

After working as a teacher herself, Nunez has a new appreciation for everything Benson did for her family and still does for so many students. He always went above and beyond to ensure his students could participate in different sports and stepped up to lead after-school leagues, she said. 

“All these years later, he is still making sure there are great opportunities for his students,” Nunez said. “Teachers go through hundreds of students, so the fact that teachers like Coach Benson still try to make those connections and show up and go to events, it’s so special.” 

The two of them have stayed in touch by running into each other over the years at district events, but they have also maintained a positive personal connection. For example, Benson drives by Nunez’s parents’ house every day on his way home from work and makes sure to stop and say hello.

“I’m just so proud and touched to be a small part of this family’s lives,” Benson said. “That’s what we’re all about in Dallas ISD—making these positive connections with our students and seeing them grow and become successful adults like her entire family.” 

“This Is Home has a different meaning for those of us who have been with the district for a long time,” Nunez agreed. “Throughout the years, Coach Benson has always been very supportive of my family. When we invited him, he would show up every time. I’m really thankful for that.” 

The Human Capital Management Central Staff Leadership Development team is inviting staff across the district to grow their leadership skills this fall by attending any or all of the upcoming learning sessions. 

Click on the link to sign up for the following sessions in Cornerstone:

Dallas ISD administrators, teachers, faculty and staff are invited to apply for the two TEXAS YES grants available to support students across all grade levels this school year. 

TEXAS YES is an educational nonprofit committed to closing the gap for educational equality by providing schools in San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Corpus Christi and Austin with resources and supplies. 

Applicants must apply for a grant by Sept. 30. The new TEXAS STEAM Grant—presented by Thomas J. Henry—will focus on STEAM education, while the 2022-2023 YES Grant will focus on updating school equipment such as library books, computer labs and physical education equipment. 

Once the application window closes, TEXAS YES will review the applications and announce the grant recipients the week of Oct. 11. Please note that applicants may only receive one grant per year. 

Apply for the Texas STEAM Grant or the 2022-2023 YES Grant today. For more information about the grants and what to expect during the application process, visit https://www.texasyesproject.org/yes-grant/. 

From the curb to the classroom, the Dr. Billy Earl Dade Middle School reminds every passerby and guest, and every student, parent and educator that Dade is Home.

Friendly greetings from the front office and enthusiastic voices of educators and students echo in Dade’s luminous hallways. The white overhead lights that reflect on the waxed floors contrast with the black and bright-orange decorations displayed in every hallway that cause the 600 Dade Vikings and 41 staffers to beam with pride.

Only seven years ago, this South Dallas campus was home to abysmal staff turnover and deep behavioral issues, and was deemed low-performing by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for three years in a row. Now, Dade has earned a “B-83” rating on the state’s 2022 Accountability Rating System, and Dallas ISD’s Local Accountability System calls it a “Breakthrough Campus” with one of the highest-rated climates and school cultures districtwide.

Rockell Williams Stewart, a South Dallas native and Dallas ISD homegrown educator, has led Billy Earl Dade Middle School as principal for the last four years. She graduated from Lincoln High School, earned her teacher certification, and returned to Dallas ISD to teach Reading Language Arts at her former middle school, Pearl C. Anderson Middle School. After 12 years of teaching, she left South Dallas to work as an academic facilitator with Dallas ISD’s central staff.

“The district closed Anderson in 2013 and sent all the students to Dade, which became the home of two rival middle schools that served two different zip codes and fed into two different high schools,” Stewart said. “The work, to turn around and transform a school where kids might have been allowed to behave a certain type of way and were getting in trouble often was challenging, to say the least.”

In 2015, the district recruited Stewart – along with a team of elite, like-minded educators – to support a pilot program designed to fix low-performing schools as an assistant principal at Dade.

ACE, which stands for Accelerating Campus Excellence, has become Dallas ISD’s most successful initiative to boost student achievement in the highest-need campuses. Dade was part of the first ACE cohort seven years ago and is one of the schools that helped build the foundation of this exemplary program.

Under ACE, the district incentivizes top teachers and principals to voluntarily work at the district’s highest-need schools. The program combines strategic staffing, effective instruction, positive culture, extended learning and collaborative partnerships implemented in a culture of high expectations. Most ACE schools turn around within one year and stay in the program for three years before they bridge back to their geographic feeder pattern.

Tracie Washington, who currently serves Dallas ISD as executive director of middle school strategy & innovation, was the Seagoville Middle School principal at the time Dallas ISD wanted to address the issues at Dade. When the opportunity arose, she met with then-superintendent Mike Miles, who asked her to build a team and recruit teachers who could support the mission of transforming the school.

“ACE works because it is an intentional effort to recruit and incentivize like-minded people,” Washington said. “We had a true opportunity to be honest with the scope of the work: that this was going to be the most challenging and the most rewarding work of anyone’s career. I had the very best teachers, not measured by metrics, but because of their belief system and their grit, and because collectively, we would honor commitments and give the kids the experience of their life.”

Seventh-grade Texas Studies educator and Dade’s Teacher of the Year Marquis Barnes-Wheeler is among the former Seagoville Middle School teachers who joined Washington at Dade. Like Stewart, Barnes-Wheeler is a product of South Dallas who attended Pearl C. Anderson and later graduated from “The Great” James Madison High. He’s been part of the Dade family since the transition, and for the last 10 years has volunteered to coach at his high school alma mater.

“I wrestled with the decision, just because I knew the kind of environment I was going to be thrown into,” Barnes-Wheeler said. “I gave it a lot of thought and a lot of prayer, thinking about what I could contribute to this change. I knew I had to come, because if I don’t do it, being from this community, who else is going to do it? I had to come and give back to these kids, because they deserve everything that anybody from other environments has. These kids deserve that, too.

“From the curb to the classroom”

Like Barnes-Wheeler, Dade’s PLC Facilitator and Culture Coordinator Vonda Pipkin is a former Seagoville Middle School staffer who followed Washington onto the Dade frontlines. Ever since, she’s worked alongside Stewart at Dade and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (another South Dallas ACE success). Under Principal Stewart’s leadership, MLK’s earned the highest-rated positive climate and culture in the district and went from a “D-61” to a “B-81” during the 2018-2019 school year.

For the last seven years, Stewart and Pipkin have placed a heavy emphasis on climate and culture because they’ve found it to be a key factor in turning struggling schools around. The aligned belief and strategy that Stewart and Pipkin implemented, both at Dade and MLK, emphasizes that when teachers and staff feel appreciated, the kids feel it, too.

Dade implemented a house system where every student, teacher and staff member belongs to one of three teams and scores points based on attendance, achievement, behavior and character. Every other Wednesday, administrators check on their teachers and encourage other teachers to check on each other as part of Wellness Wednesdays. Every staff birthday is celebrated and every appreciation day is honored. The leadership team often visits classrooms to cheer on the teachers while coaching in the moment and building inspiring relationships. The success of these strategies are reflected in the 2022 Local Accountability Rating, where Dade earned a 96.1% positive response on its Campus Climate Survey and a 93.4% positive response on its Parent/Guardian Satisfaction Survey.

“When we saw that the heat was being turned up for expectations, there was a need to turn up the love even more,” Pipkin said. “Climate and culture is not just one thing, it’s everything, from the curb to the classroom. When you pull up in the parking lot, is the grass cut? Does the school look warm, welcoming, inviting? When you enter through the doors, are you greeted? It starts with showing love and appreciation and valuing others. It is not one thing, it is everything that we do daily.”

Good nutrition and a balanced diet can improve physical and mental well-being. For the month of September, the Benefits Department, in collaboration with Food and Child Nutrition Services, will launch Healthy Eating Month to share a variety of resources and information to help staff make healthier eating choices.

Throughout the month, we will focus on nutritional tips, recipes, and cooking demonstrations that help you continue or jump-start a healthy eating lifestyle. Whether you want to lose a few pounds before a trip or wedding day, or you want to feel good inside and out, Dallas ISD health and nutrition experts are there to help. 

In addition to online resources, experts will be available during two webinars in September to answer questions about the benefits of healthy eating, how to make easy changes to your diet can reduce the risk of hypertension, diabetes, and what constitutes healthy eating to improve your overall health. To register for the webinars, click on your preferred date:

5 p.m. • Tuesday, Sept. 13

5 p.m. • Tuesday, Sept. 27

You can visit www.dallasisd.org/benefits for the complete list of tips, recipes, and cooking demonstrations. The month will include:

• Weekly communication featuring nutritional tips, how to eat healthy, nutritional recipes and much more.
• Recorded cooking demonstrations by FCNS chefs to prepare easy, healthy meals.
• Recorded interviews covering nutritional health topics such as managing or mitigating risk of hypertension, diabetes, and other health conditions that can be improved with a healthy diet.
• Recipes 

This healthy eating campaign is one of the many ways—such as the PINK OUT for breast cancer awareness, GO RED for heart health, flu clinics, and Mental Health Month in May campaigns—sponsored by the Benefits Department to support Dallas ISD employees’ total health and wellness program.

Dallas ISD schools are invited to transform education by applying for the Innovation Engine, an annual opportunity for campus funding. The program will provide up to 20 Dallas ISD neighborhood schools with $50,000 each to support them in exploring and implementing an innovative program or initiative.

Applications are due Friday, Sept. 16, by 11:59 p.m. The Innovation Engine recipients will be announced later in the fall, and the supported programs and initiatives will be implemented in the spring. 

Eligible applicants include principals of neighborhood schools that have not previously received funding through the Office of Transformation and Innovation. Innovation schools, transformation schools and wall-to-wall magnet schools are not eligible for funding. However, neighborhood schools with magnet or other application-based programs may apply for an initiative that will support their general student body.

Learn more about this opportunity by visiting https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/59096 or by attending one of two information sessions on Sept. 6 or Sept. 13 at noon. Register for the virtual sessions by clicking here.

If you have further questions about your school’s eligibility, contact Angie Gaylord, deputy chief of Transformation and Innovation, at agaylord@dallasisd.org. 

Over the last six months, people have found alternate paths to make a difference for children by becoming Dallas ISD teachers through the district’s Alternative Certification program. The program has experienced increases in the number of applicants, candidates admitted, candidates transitioning into an internship, and interns recommended for standard certification.

 During the program’s most recent recruitment season, the number of applications accepted increased more than 30 percent, which can be attributed to more strategic recruitment efforts to support the students of Dallas ISD, said Chele Andreason, executive director in HCM.

 “There are a lot of people who are passionate about education and who want to teach, but they have degrees in other fields,” Andreason said. “Our Alternative Certification Program provides them the opportunity to fulfill their dream of becoming teachers while supporting them through the process. It’s a great program.”

In January 2022, the program was redesigned to attract more applicants who want to make Dallas ISD home. The redesign included free tuition for candidates seeking certifications in critical need areas. In addition, the program has held weekly information sessions, which average an attendance rate of 90 people per session, as well as updates to social media sites, advertising on hiring platforms, such as LinkedIn, and paid advertisements in local news publications, and the placement of billboards throughout the metroplex. 

 The Dallas ISD Alternative Certification Program offers much more than just an alternative route to become a teacher. It also provides intentional content test preparation and a standards-driven training program, where future educators can:

• engage with others
• explore and practice innovative approaches to teaching
• develop a deeper understanding of their impact on student achievement

 For any questions on the redesign of the program or if you know someone who is interested and needs information on admission requirements, please review our website at https://www.dallasisd.org/altcert or reach out to Andreason at candreason@dallasisd.org. 

Volunteer attorneys with the Dallas Bar Association will answer legal questions at no cost from 4 to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays during September through a LegalLine E-Clinic.

To participate, complete the online form found here https://tinyurl.com/DBALegalLine. A volunteer attorney will call the registered participant to provide up to 15 minutes of free legal advice for a legal issue. Space is limited, and registration closes at noon the Tuesday prior to the clinic. 

Please note that the volunteer attorney will remain anonymous. Participants should watch for a call from an unknown number that should be labeled “No Caller ID” or something similar. No attorney-client relationship will be established. We cannot guarantee that the attorney will speak any language other than English. Individuals may also receive referrals to local, legal, or social service agencies.

For legal assistance any time, contact the DBA’s Lawyer Referral Service at www.dallasbar.org/index.cfm?pg=LawyerReferralService.

Even though it may still be warm and sunny outside, Dallas ISD has returned to regular dress code to promote a professional atmosphere and maintain the positive image that employees present as representatives of the district. This image is affected by the manner of dress within the workplace and in public.

The district’s dress code policy is designed to help employees provide a consistent professional appearance to colleagues, students, parents, and the community. Employees should exemplify the highest standards of professional appearance.

To help guide employees in determining appropriate attire for the workplace, below are the business dress code guidelines outlined in DH(LOCAL) and DH(REGULATION).

 Overview

• The dress code standards are meant to maintain an orderly educational environment and will not infringe on an individual’s culture, religious beliefs, or protected free speech.
• The dress and grooming of District employees shall be clean, neat, in a manner appropriate for their assignments, and in accordance with any additional standards established by their supervisors and approved by the Superintendent of Schools.
• Employees are expected to exemplify proper grooming standards and personal hygiene in a manner that projects a professional image for the employees and the district.
• Employees shall keep their hair and facial hair groomed neatly.
• Employees will not be allowed to display any jewelry, tattoos, brands, or similar artifacts that are either obscene, distracting or may cause disruptions to the educational environment.

 Acceptable Attire

• Clothing should be clean, pressed, and wrinkle-free.
• Attire should fit appropriately (not excessively tight or loose).
• Dress pants, dress shirts, and blouses are acceptable.
• Professional dresses and skirts are acceptable.
• Professional footwear is required at all times.
• Employees required to wear District-issued uniforms are expected to wear the assigned uniform.

 Unacceptable Attire

Unacceptable attire includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Form-fitting, snug, sagging, or transparent clothing.
• Excessively worn, faded, or tight clothing is not acceptable.
• Clothing with holes or frayed areas is not acceptable.
• Revealing or provocative attire is not acceptable.
• Necklines that expose cleavage are not acceptable.
• Dresses and skirts shorter than three inches above the bend of the knee are not acceptable.
• Jeans, sweatpants, shorts, bib overalls, leggings, spandex, and Lycra are not acceptable.
• Tank tops, t-shirts, and shirts with inappropriate messages/graphics are not acceptable.
• Athletic wear and beach wear are not acceptable.
• Slippers, flip-flops, house shoes, sneakers, and athletic shoes are not acceptable.
• Hats are not to be worn inside, unless used as protective wear appropriate for one’s job function.

Exception

• Administrators will have the discretion to make exceptions to appropriateness of attire as it relates to culture, religious beliefs, vocational courses, physical education, maintenance, medical necessities, events, and spirit days.
• The Superintendent of Schools may waive the dress code for District employees when school is not in session or based on seasonal weather conditions, special events, and the like.

 Reference: DH(LOCAL) and DH(REGULATION)

 For questions or comments, please contact Policy and Compliance at hcmcompliance@dallasisd.org.

Dallas ISD is celebrating Attendance Awareness Month during September to promote strong, consistent attendance habits that will set students up for success at all grade levels. 

The theme for the 2022-2023 school year is “Show up! Attendance Matters.” Parent Services has coordinated several exciting competitions and activities for students and staff to help build routines, increase engagement, provide access to resources and support learning. 

Weekly kickoffs 

Each Wednesday throughout the month, central and campus staff are encouraged to participate in weekly attendance awareness kickoffs. The four themes are “Shining the Light on Attendance” on Sept. 7, “Dallas ISD with a Western Twist” on Sept. 14, “Dress Up! Represent Your Culture” on Sept. 21 and “Character Celebrity Day” on Sept. 28. Pick out your best costume, and come ready to motivate students!

Districtwide champion school competition

Every school across the district will compete against campuses on their specific calendar—base, Intersession or SDR—to determine which school has the best overall attendance rate in the month of September. One campus from each calendar type will be declared the “Champion School.” 

Aim for perfect attendance

Students with a perfect attendance record throughout September will be entered into a raffle for a special prize. One student will be selected from each trustee district, so help us spread the word to get students involved. 

Social media challenge

Get creative to help our communities #ShowUpDallasISD.  Schools and departments are invited to create a 60-second video about the importance of school attendance and upload it on social media using the hashtag #ShowUpDallasISD. The video with the most likes, shares and tweets will receive a prize. Click here for a full list of rules and guidelines.

“Attendance has an impact on students’ academic performance and success in the long run, so from the minute that a student is actually enrolled in school, we want to help them create good attendance habits,” said Sally Salinas with Parent Services. “Our main goal is not only to focus on attendance during the month of September, but to continue the momentum throughout the school year.” 

To learn more about the district’s Attendance Awareness Month campaign or to find additional resources, visit Parent Services at https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/57331.