Staff News

Dallas ISD is offering teachers summer learning opportunities that will celebrate the successes of this year and provide ways for teachers to work together to shape future learning experiences.

Training sessions will be available in person at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center and some will be available virtually. Sessions are open for registration. And teachers can sign up to attend a several sessions or just one.

Courses include dozens to help teachers hone their skills in the classroom, such as Advanced Placement strategies to help students succeed, exploration of authentic Spanish-language literature and resources to help emergent bilingual students, brain-based strategies to ensure learning takes root, Dallas Arboretum courses, strategies to boost learning with technology and many more.

Other session will offer teachers an opportunity to reflect on themselves. Reading Language Arts will host acclaimed author Kelly Yang, who will share her writing process and tips for helping cultivate a passion for writing in students and strategies to apply to their own writing.

Another session will create a culture of celebration and critical reflection to help participants reflect on and celebrate their professional progress with a digital portfolio.

And a self-care lounge session will help participants understand the importance of self-care, explore potential causes of stress and take an assessment that will help them develop coping strategies.

Teachers can sign up for these and dozens of other in-person sessions taking place June 6-9 and July 11 and 12, and virtual (live, synchronous) sessions taking place June 13-16 and July 13 and 14. The Summer Learning Catalog can be found here.

Reading can help students avoid the dreaded summer slump, and in Dallas reading can also get them prizes and free books thanks to the annual Read for Me.

Families are invited to join Dallas ISD’s Language, Literacy, and Social Studies Department for the annual Read for Me event in collaboration with Mayor Eric Johnson’s SMART Summer Reading Kickoff Celebration on Saturday, June 4, 2022. Kickoff parties will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 25 Dallas Public Library branches. 

District staff will be present to help promote the summer reading initiative, help families sign up for library cards, participate in kickoff activities, and hand out thousands of free books to Dallas ISD students in prekindergarten through fifth grade. 

Find the party nearest you!

Activities include:

• Lifesize Candy Land – Central Library
• Community Carnival – Vickery Park Branch
• All About Dinosaurs – Hampton-Illinois Branch
• Kites! – Fretz Park Branch
• Live animals – Prairie Creek Branch
• Science Party – Kleberg-Rylie Branch
• All About Flight – Bachman Lake Branch
• Game On – Highland Hills Branch
• Crafts & Games – Lochwood Branch

Visit bit.ly/SMARTSummer22 for more info on the summer reading imitative at the Dallas Public Library.

Receiving and disposal of CPUs, laptops, monitors, small printers, furniture and other capital or controllable assets must follow district policy.

Departments and schools acquiring or receiving donations of capital or controllable assets must indicate the “SHIP TO ADDRESS” as Dallas ISD Central Receiving, 2517 S. Ervay, Dallas Texas 75215. This facilitates the proper tagging of equipment before distribution to the designated location.  

The exception is equipment requiring installation or testing by the vendor. In that case, it is the responsibility of the department or school to inform Capital Asset Management immediately upon receipt of the equipment for proper tagging.

Best practices for the use of appropriate object codes when acquiring capital assets in Oracle can be found at https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/52690.

When storing obsolete or broken equipment awaiting removal, departments and schools should avoid using closets, rooms, portables buildings or open areas to avoid safety issues, potential theft, and fire hazards .

Disposing of obsolete or non-working controllable assets (CPUs, laptops, monitors, small printers, notebooks, etc.) that need to be transferred between schools and departments or designated as salvage and surplus requires an Equipment Transfer and Disposal form that can be found in the Employee Self Service, DISD Fixed Asset Self Service in Oracle. Instructions regarding the ERR FORM can be found at http://inet.dallasisd.org/depts/fixedassets/docs/ERR.pdf. For questions about the Asset Management System, contact Lyn Wilkerson at (972) 581-4109.

For additional information about the transfer and disposal of capital equipment, please visit the Capital Assets Management page.

For ERR FORM questions, contact David Kessebeh at (972) 925-3842.

For Special Revenue and CATE (capital equipment), contact Phiebie Hutchins at (972)-925-3857.

For donations of capital equipment, contact Josephine Flores at (972) 925-3853.

All transfers and disposal of office or classroom furniture (chairs, tables, file cabinets, wall units, drawers, credenzas, etc.) should be accompanied by P1B forms, which can be found at  https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/57474.

During the pandemic, cafeteria staff from throughout the district stepped up to distribute meals to students and even helped to distribute devices and supplies. This school year, as the district returned to in-person learning, they were there to serve thousands of students. They are School Lunch Heroes!

Earlier this month, staff and students at 113 schools voted to recognize them as such. The schools with the top votes were:

• First Place: Harry Withers Elementary School
• Second Place: John Runyon Elementary School 
• Third Place: Hector P. Garcia Middle School 

Each of the winners received a banner and certificates. If you know of anyone who would want to be a School Lunch Hero in one of Dallas ISD’s cafeterias, tell them about a series of hiring events taking place in June. Information is available through the Food and Child Nutrition Services Hiring Events flyer.

In light of recent tragedies involving students and staff, Mental Health Services has shared resources to help facilitate conversations with students or other children during times of crisis. The tools are designed to provide guidance to help you know what to say and do before, during, and when tragic events occur.

Crisis Support Tools:

•   American Psychological Association – “Helping Your Children Manage Stress in the Aftermath of a Shooting”
•   American Counseling Association – “Gun Violence Trauma: Resources for Counselors and Consumers”
•   Crisis Response Toolkit

If you are concerned about the mental health and safety of a student, Mental Health Services clinicians are on-hand to assist. Reach out to the school counselor, using the Say Something anonymous reporting hotline or log on to our website at: www.dallasisd.org/mentalhealth to get help.

For questions, contact Dr. Tracey Brown, executive director of Mental Health Services, at trabrown@dallasisd.org or Jennifer Reed, director of Clinical Services, at jenreed@dallasisd.org.

Dallas ISD counselors play an important role in the well-being and success of students, and this year, several were recognized for their outstanding work. Counseling Services held the Counselor of the Year Celebration on May 19 at South Oak Cliff High School.

Elementary Counselor of the Year 

• Winner – Karen Zachary, Umphrey Lee Elementary School
• Finalist – Rhiannon Vejar, Preston Hollow Elementary School
• Finalist – Adrian Villegas, George W. Truett Elementary School

Secondary Counselor of the Year

• Winner – Sonya Gilb, Emmett J. Conrad High School
• Finalist – Yolanda Carter, Alex W. Spence Middle School
• Finalist – Erika Cervantes, Thomas Jefferson High School

Choice/Magnet Counselor of the Year

• Winner – Amanda McDonald, Alex Sanger Preparatory School
• Finalist – Sheri Hall, School of Science and Engineering

Counselors’ Choice 

• Winner- Tamanikia Hollins, Lagow Elementary
• Winner-  Francine Luckey Ann Richards/ Latasha Winners, Dealey Montessori 
• Winner- Gala Davis, South Oak Cliff High School

Trailblazer Awards

Elementary Campus of the Year

• Winner – Frank Guzick Elementary School
• Finalist – School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove

Middle School Campus of the Year

• Winner – Sarah S. Zumwalt Middle School
• Finalist – School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove

High School Campus of the Year

• Winner – IDEA
• Finalist – Thomas Jefferson High School

Elementary School Rookie of the Year 

• Winner – Kevin Culley, H.S. Thompson Elementary School
• Finalist – Michelle Atkins, Walnut Hill Elementary School

Middle School Rookie of the Year 

• Winner – Keiron Jingles, Greiner Middle School

High School Rookie of the Year 

• Winner – Rosa Puente, Bryan Adams High School Leadership Academy
• Finalist – Marsana Jackson, Woodrow Wilson High School

Starting on May 31 and through Sept. 2, the district will have its summer dress code so employees can be comfortable as they perform their normal work duties while still portraying a professional image to students, parents, and community members.

Standards for daily attire remain at the discretion of the supervisor; however, casual does not mean unkempt. The casual dress code does not allow for inappropriate apparel. [See DH(LOCAL) and DH (REGULATION)]

• Casual includes clothing that is comfortable and neatly put together while communicating professionalism.
• Casual may differ based on the various business needs of the department. Consult with your department supervisor to determine appropriate attire for your job.
• Certain events on the district’s calendar may require employees in a specific department or location to wear business attire instead of the casual look.
• Take your workday schedule into account when considering your attire for the day. If you have a meeting scheduled with the public or vendors, you may need to wear business    attire.
• Supervisors 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.
• Employees required to wear district-issued uniforms are expected to wear the assigned uniform.

Acceptable Attire

•   Clothing should be clean, pressed and wrinkle-free, without holes or frayed areas.
•   All attire should fit appropriately (not excessively tight or loose).
•   Footwear—Loafers, boots, flats, sandals, and leather deck shoes are acceptable.
•   Slacks—Nice pants or cotton slacks.
•   Shirts—Blouses, casual shirts, and golf shirts are acceptable.
•   Dresses or skirts–Casual dresses and skirts appropriate for an office environment are acceptable.

Unacceptable Attire

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

Looking at life from different perspectives on life can help you get through the hardest days. This bit of wisdom can benefit everyone as we learn to live with the COVID-19 pandemic. The 10 quotes below serve as powerful reminders to keep moving forward no matter how many times you may stumble. After all, no one is perfect, and we are all better together. 

• “One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.” —Linda Poindexter
• “If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
• “Mental health… is not a destination but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.” —Noam Shpancer
• “We can’t create more time, but we can do less, delegate or ask for help.” ―Nedra Glover Tawwab
• “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting and less scary.” —Fred Rogers
• “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.” —Anonymous proverb
• “You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly OK to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared and anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person. It makes you human.” —Lori Deschene
• “Self-care is how you take your power back.” —Lalah Delia
• “Take your time healing, as long as you want. Nobody else knows what you’ve been through. How could they know how long it will take to heal you?” —Abertoli
• “Just like our body requires vitamins, we also need mind-vitamins like courage, faith, inspiration and hope. Find these mind-vitamins.” —Lalit Kumar

You matter and so does your mental health! Take some time today to assess how you are feeling and ask for help if you need it. No one has to go through their struggles alone, and Dallas ISD is here to support you. The district’s confidential, secure Employee Assistance Program by LifeWorks has countless resources available online and requires no contributions. From on-call counselors to practical tips on subjects like anxiety, coping with loss and work-life balance, employees can find what they need, when they need it. 

Reach out to LifeWorks at (972) 925-4000 or visit www.dallasisd.org/benefits and click on Benefits Resources to access online EAP information.

Learning acceleration has become Dallas ISD’s top priority to help students recover from any learning loss due to disruptions during the pandemic. Thanks to federal stimulus dollars provided by the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund, the Office of Tutoring Services is working hard to ensure that all students who did not pass or did not take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, get the additional support they need to succeed.

So far, Dallas ISD has hired tutors who have provided almost 138,000 hours of federally-compliant, grade-specific supplemental accelerated instruction in reading and math to help students recover and accelerate their learning. While the district’s tutoring efforts are still ramping up, each hour makes a difference. 

“Some of that unfinished learning is big,” said Jason Wallace, director of Tutoring Services. “So it’s bridging that gap of where students need to be in response to the barriers and obstacles that we’ve had over the past two years.”

The district plans to invest $95 million of the available ESSER funds into high-quality tutoring over the three stages of ESSER program implementation. The Office of Tutoring Services has $35 million encumbered for the current school year, which is being used to purchase software, secure curriculum, hire tutors, provide assessments and otherwise help the outside vendors meet their instructional goals. 

In a presentation to the Board of Trustees, Chief Academic Officer Shannon Trejo explained some of the challenges that have kept the district from fully implementing tutoring, including time-intensive fingerprinting and background checks, low student attendance for after-school tutoring, hiring shortages and federal purchasing compliance requirements for the use of ESSER funds. 

These challenges don’t mean that tutoring has not been happening for students who need it. Dallas ISD teachers have been working hard to tutor students since the beginning of the year to help them catch up; however, those hours may not always count toward compliance with House Bill 4545, which went into effect on June 16, 2021. The bill states that all students in grades three through 12  who did not pass or did not take their assigned STAAR have to complete 30 hours of supplemental instruction in that subject. To comply with HB 4545 and ESSER funds, tutors who must be trained and provided with specific instructional materials from the state, and their tutoring hours must be tracked. 

As the district approaches the end of another school year, the Office of Tutoring Services is putting new ideas and solutions into practice to provide additional tutoring opportunities. These solutions include completing the procurement process in the summer, bringing on additional vendors and receiving a ratio waiver to allow the tutoring groups to increase in size. Not only will these steps increase the number of available tutors, but they will also help the district’s efforts reach more students, Wallace said. 

Other solutions include training all relevant staff members so their hours are House Bill 4545 compliant, estimating costs to provide families with after-school transportation so attendance increases and refining the hiring and retention systems for district tutors. 

“What we’re learning through our state and national conversations is that these are challenges across the nation,” Trejo said. “We recognize that tutoring is our essential strategy for students, despite the challenges that we’ve experienced, and our gratitude goes to our campuses for continuing to maintain the tutoring that they’ve been able to provide.” 

The new and improved tutoring programs are scheduled to kick off in September. In the meantime, all students from prekindergarten to eighth grade will have the opportunity to participate in Dallas ISD’s summer school program—Summer Cool—that will take place in June. Students in Summer Cool will receive supplemental instruction four days a week, Monday through Thursday, which translates into 32 House Bill 4545-compliant tutoring hours in both reading and math. 

To learn more about Dallas ISD’s tutoring services and their current strategies, visit https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/77609. 

Stephanie Escobar was a student at Thomas C. Marsh Middle School when the campus’ military museum was founded by Cpl. David Bates, now an assistant superintendent in Dallas ISD. Fast forward 10 years, and Escobar can still be found at the museum but now as the school’s Leadership Cadet Corps instructor, leading the next generation of cadets.

“The military museum is an extension of our classroom,” Escobar said. “Our students consider it a second home, a place to learn about military background and terminology.”

Although the museum—celebrating its 10th anniversary this year—was not open as frequently as its leaders would have liked this school year due to Covid restrictions, it was open for a Veterans Day event where the community was able to visit.

“The museum really does bring everyone together through the Leadership Cadet Corp (LCC) program,” Escobar said. “The program is a legacy,” especially in her family.

Her older brother, William Benitez, was a part of it, as were relatives of some of her students and co-workers at the renamed Marsh Preparatory Academy. The mission of the cadet program is to help students improve their academic, social, communication, and leadership skills.

 “The military museum serves as a staple for the community,” she said. “It brings people together from all different realms. And our students take pride in knowing that we have such a great thing going on at Marsh. We also have students who serve as curators, making sure the museum is up to par.”

Housed at the museum are uniforms, photographs, medals and memorabilia representing the military experiences of veterans in the Dallas community.  The museum is 100% community-funded, and many of the items on exhibit have been donated by the community, including former Cpl. Miriam Gaytan, the former LCC instructor at Marsh, who donated her uniform.

Escobar joined the cadet program when she was in seventh grade and was inspired by some of the things Bates taught about becoming leaders and the importance of having discipline and integrity to become a leader and lead the cadets who won second place in a national competition. In the eighth grade, she was inducted as the first female commanding officer for the program since its founding in 1999. The cadets won the national championship that year, reclaiming a title they had held years before.

“We came back from the national competition in Kansas wanting to do something even bigger,” Escobar said, “and that’s when we began the military museum. We were able to do it because the community contributed not only their items but also their funds. In one year, we were able to raise about $99,000, enough to ensure that the museum was up and running. It all started with an idea that became a reality.”

Escobar went on to graduate from W.T. White High School and The University of Texas at Arlington, where she received a degree in public health. She is currently enrolled in a master’s program at UT Arlington, studying social work with an emphasis on mental health and substance use.

“Being a Leadership Cadet Corp instructor is amazing because I always wanted to give back to my community, and this is the best way I can do that,” Escobar said. “It only takes one person to believe in a student and make a difference in their life. Cpl. Bates and Cpl. Gaytan had that belief in me, and it is my hope that I can continue that legacy.”

The corps has 162 students enrolled in its program post-COVID, Escobar said, “Next year we plan to have 200+ students enrolled. The plan is to continue to build and do bigger things.”