Staff News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Region I

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

Region II

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

Region III

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

Region IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jessica Morales, a Dallas ISD legacy, not only completed her 11th year of teaching this month. She and a group of 24 students also completed a unique educational experience that she says has changed the way she will approach teaching and relationships in the future.

Morales was teaching first grade at Preston Hollow Elementary School in a self-contained dual language two-way classroom when Dallas ISD and other districts across the nation were in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  She taught her group of 24 students—half predominantly spoke Spanish and the other half English—first virtually and then in person. This situation was common.

But when it came time for the students to move up to the second grade, Morales moved up with them in what is called looping. This was uncommon as was her moving up every year when Morales moved up grades with the same group of students until fifth grade.

“Looping is not an original idea,” she said. “But once I started, I quickly saw how powerful it could be. This year in fifth grade, I had a partner teacher, so we weren’t in a self-contained classroom. I had the same students and some others for reading and social studies. It’s been five years now, and only about two or three students have moved, and then only because they moved out of the district or out of the state.”

Morales, who attended Dallas ISD schools and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, is the Language Proficiency Assessment Chair at her school and this year was named Teacher of the Year. She had never tried looping before but now sees the benefits of the experience both for the students and for teachers.

“The continuity and being self-contained helped,” she said. “It established an emotional security and stable environment. They trust the process. It leads to confidence, risk taking and personal growth for them as well as academic growth.”

Since Morales knew each student’s strengths, challenges, and learning style, she could tailor her lessons to push them, she said. She also could start the year teaching because she did not have to spend the first few weeks getting to know her students and establishing the processes of her classroom.

“As my students grew, I watched them grow as learners and people,” Morales said. “Whenever we started first grade, they were shy first graders and then they became very confident speakers, leaders, and problem solvers. They grew not just academically but also emotionally.”

The results of the kind of support that the continuity looping provides can be seen in achievement gains—some of her students in fifth grade tested three grade levels above that in the recent iReady test, she said.  

Principal Ginette Peralta Suarez has been impressed with Morales’ strength as a teacher as well as with the results of looping, and believes that while it remains and uncommon practice, it has merit.

“She is such a great teacher,” Peralta Suarez said. “It makes me think of the possibility that it could go further because of the relationship with the parents and students. It’s hard to get students to mastery. It’s harder to get them past that mastery, but that is the trend we have seen with Ms. Morales’s students. Her bilingual class’s average growth right now is over 300%. She has a student who went from mid-fifth to seventh grade placement.”

Another positive result for the learning experience is the relationships that she was able to build not only with the students but with their families, whose support of the classroom at home makes a tremendous difference in how students feel and learn, Morales said.

Looping also had a positive effect on her as a professional because over the years her learning style expanded as she had to adapt constantly to new grade level content, she said. She had to rely more on collaborative learning, lean on her colleagues, and even on student feedback to become more reflective.

“And that’s a good thing,” she said. “The looping environment taught me to be flexible and to be willing to grow just like I ask my students to grow.”

While Morales will not be following her students to middle school, nor will she be looping again next year at Preston Hollow Elementary, she is taking all she learned the past five years and applying it to teaching fifth grade. She is also a resource for other teachers who are interested in the experience and the benefits it can have for students.

Teaching, after all, is in her blood. Her mother, Yolanda Morales, is a 25-year veteran teacher at Lorenzo de Zavala Elementary School, and her sister is also an educator.

“Even though my looping journey comes to an end, teaching does not, and the lessons will stay with me,” Morales said. “I will give the same heart and connect with students at the same level even if it’s just for one year.”

At Wilmer-Hutchins Elementary School, fathers are valued for the impact they can have as positive role models, and campus security officer Joseph Thomas, with his son by his side, is showing them how to be more engaged. 

Thomas knows the importance of having a present father figure, which is why he started the chapter of All Pro Dad, a national organization, at the school. The goal is to get more fathers involved and strengthen family ties. 

Launched in 1997 by an NFL head coach, the national program is based on a sports draft model that encourages fathers to be engaged in their children’s lives.

“I was inspired by my college classmate, a former NFL player who also started an All Pro Dad chapter,” Thomas said. “I felt like this was the platform we needed in Dallas ISD.” 

Thomas’ vision has since spread to other schools, leading to districtwide collaboration with Partnership and Volunteer Engagement Services, as well as Dallas ISD Security Services. 

While at the University of Notre Dame, Thomas was a student-athlete and earned a bachelor’s degree. Though his dreams of playing professional football did not materialize, he decided early on that he would use his career to support others. His college’s culture also prepared him for a lifelong commitment to community impact.

His son, Jayvon Thomas, a Class of 2023 cornerback and graduate from South Oak Cliff High School, is following in his footsteps. 

“We decided to collaborate. My son understands that I grew up without a father,” said Thomas, who said he knew he was destined to be a great father himself. “Jayvon gives back by using portions of his NIL money to fund breakfast for the program, and I do all of the groundwork.” 

After winning back-to-back state championships with the Golden Bear Football Team in 2021 and 2022, Thomas’ son obtained a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal with Texas A&M University where he has continued to be successful both on and off the field.

On April 19, at a Texas A&M home game, the All Pro Dad and Family First national organization honored Thomas and his son with certificates and public recognition, for their outstanding impact in the Dallas community. 

“I am preparing my son to take on the mantle and continue the work that I have already started,” Thomas said. 

The All Pro Dad Chapter at Wilmer-Hutchins supports fathers through daily one-minute emails, and holds monthly meetings an hour before school that equip them with parenting tools. The meetings include serving breakfast and a special moment to celebrate their contributions as parents. 

In October, Thomas and fellow All-Pro Dad Chapter members gathered for an interactive day of fun at the Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium. Modeled after an NFL combine, the event gave fathers a chance to bond with their children in a familiar setting.

Continuing to lead by example, Thomas is also bringing attention to men’s health and the silent symptoms of heart-related issues through a wellness clinic led by the school nurse.

“I realized that I can’t be an all-pro dad if I am not healthy,” he said, acknowledging that being a great father means not just being present, but living a long, active life.

For the past 23 years in Dallas ISD, Thomas has been a mentor to students at each of the schools he has served, inspiring the fathers and teachers around him to do the same.

“I hope that the students learn the skills they need in life,” Thomas said. “I want to give them a good foundation so when they are faced with hard times, they know that they will be okay—and that they are equipped to continue their education and make the world a better place.”

As a child growing up in South Dallas, Thomas credits his success in school and adulthood to Ricky Lewis, his high school athletic director. While Thomas was a student at Lincoln High School, Lewis took him under his wing—changing his life for the better and setting him on a path to success.

“None of this in my life would be possible if Coach Ricky didn’t invest in me. My life is a win,” Thomas said. “I know he had high hopes for me to go to the NFL and pursue that dream, but besides going all-pro in football, I wanted to go all-pro with my family. That matters way more to me than the downs I played on the field, and that cycle will continue now.”

Starting in June, the district will be closed on Fridays as central team members begin to work the summer schedule four-day week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Monthly employees

Employees paid monthly will work the four-day work week from June 2 through July 25, 2025. Monthly employees will resume their regular work hours on July 28. 

Biweekly employees

Employees paid biweekly will work a four-day workweek from June 6 through July 24. Biweekly employees will not work on June 6 if they participate in the four-day workweek. Biweekly employees who participate in the four-day workweek will resume their regular hours on July 25.

Employees are responsible for consulting with their supervisor to determine the start, end, and lunch times of their daily work schedule during the summer. Employees approved to take a working lunch will only be required to stay at the worksite or be available remotely for 10 hours. Employees will be compensated for the working lunch time, and it will be considered part of the regular work hours.

Supervisors may allow employees to work a schedule other than the four-day workweek so long as the change does not negatively affect the department functions. Some departments may choose to return to the regular work schedule sooner. Decisions regarding the work schedule are at the discretion of the department supervisor. In addition, departmental leadership may modify the employees’ work schedule to meet campus, departmental, or district needs at any time. Any event such as New Teacher Academy or a back-to-school program may require a change to the work schedule in order to provide support. Campus principals will make the determination of implementing a four-day workweek based on the needs of their campus and with executive director approval.

Juneteenth and summer break

The district will be closed on June 19 for the Juneteenth holiday. Pay for the holiday will be 10 hours of paid time for 260-day staff paid biweekly rather than the normal eight hours.

The district will be closed for summer break from June 30 through July 4. Employees will not be permitted to work for pay while the district is closed unless the employee has received prior written approval from their department chief. All central employees will return to work on July 7.

The Dallas ISD Board of Trustees approved the district’s 2025-2026 budget, which included a 2% raise for exempt campus and central team members, differentiated increases for team members in excellence initiatives, and an increase to $17 an hour in the district’s minimum wage. 

The increases in salaries for all team members amount to $35.9 million in the 2025-2026 budget and focus on the district’s compensation priorities: market competitive salaries, Dallas ISD’s commitment to a living wage, strategic compensation, and stipends for service at identified District Support Initiative campuses.  

Increases for excellence initiatives

The budget also sets the minimum teacher salary at $64,000 and has adjustments to the new hire schedule for teachers to match market rates. Returning teachers will receive a projected average teacher salary increase of approximately $2,235 or 3.6%, based on the greater of three increases:

• Change to effectiveness level
• Change to compensation level value
• Board approved differentiated salary increase  (2% of compensation level)

Proposed TEI compensation levels

The budget also includes increases for other employees who are evaluated through an excellence initiative—assistant principals, principals, school leadership executive directors. Increases for excellence initiative team members are paid in October 2025 retroactive to contract start date. 

Minimum wage and other central increases

The increase to $17 per hour in the minimum wage continues to place Dallas ISD as a regional leader in minimum wage among area school districts and primarily impacts support and operations team members.

Employees not on an excellence initiative will see the greater of two increases:

• Minimum wage adjustment to $17 per hour or
• 2% of the midpoint for support (non-exempt) employees and professional (exempt) employees

Campus and central team members who are not on an excellence initiative will see their increase reflected in their paychecks starting in September if they were hired before Dec. 31, 2024.

Even while schools are out for summer, help is always available. Whether team members have questions about benefits, need health support, or just someone to talk to, they are covered.

Summer district hours

From June 2 through Aug. 1, the district will be open Monday through Thursday and closed on Fridays. It will be closed entirely from June 30 through July 4 for the summer break.

Still here for you

Even when offices are closed, assistance is just a phone call away.

Benefits Call Center
Call 972-925-4000 and select the appropriate option:
• Option 1 – Benefits Administration
• Option 2 – Leaves Administration
• Option 3 – Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Non-emergency health support

TRS ActiveCare participants can access medical support anytime through Teladoc.

Important: You must set up your Teladoc account before using the service. To register, you’ll need:
• Your name
• Date of birth
• BCBS Member ID

Visit the Teladoc website or use the mobile app for access.

Need Emotional Support?

Those feeling overwhelmed or facing challenges, can access the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that is available 24/7 to provide confidential support.

Call 972-925-4000, Option 3 or access support through:
• Website: Telus Health
• App: Telus Health One

To log in, use your district email, username, and password.

Many spend a lot of our time rushing from one activity to the next with so many things to do that there is little time to just be or to savor all that each moment has to offer.

Meditation is a way of slowing down, feeling calm, and staying in the present moment. It may involve deep breathing, visualization, guided thought, progressive relaxation, or a combination of these things. Research has shown that meditation has many beneficial effects, such as feeling calm under pressure, increased emotional and physical stamina, and better decision-making. The benefits tend to be cumulative, increasing over time, and help the person meditating lead a happier, more balanced life.

What is meditation?

Meditation is a technique used to calm both the mind and the body by sitting quietly, taking deep breaths, and becoming aware of thoughts and bodily sensations. Meditation can also be practiced while walking or swimming. After meditating, people tend to feel calm, refreshed, and clear-headed either immediately or within an hour or two. The technique can be learned independently or by taking a course. In recent decades, scientists and researchers in Western countries have started to study and appreciate the value of meditation, finding that a regular practice can actually change the way the brain works.

Types of meditation

While all types of meditation aim to reduce anxiety or stress, there are two main types. The first involves working to empty your mind of thoughts by focusing on breathing or bodily sensations. The second involves using a mantra, repeating a word or phrase, giving the mind something on which to focus other than distracting day-to-day thoughts.

Mindfulness of breathing

To try out this practice, you simply count your breaths. It sounds simple, but it is not easy. Sit in a comfortable position and feel grounded in your body. Begin by taking a deep breath in, then out. After you breathe out, you count one. Practice this until you reach 10. If you lose your place, you can start back at one. Notice where your thoughts go and gently guide them back when they wander. You can also do this practice in stages, for example the first five minutes you count the out breaths, then you count the in breaths. The more experienced you become, you can drop the counting and become attuned to the sensation of the breath as it leaves your nose and mouth. Can you feel the sensations at the tip of your nose or mouth?

Progressive relaxation

Herbert Benson, a Harvard University cardiologist, developed a technique called “progressive relaxation” in the 1970s. Since then, many other people have adopted the phrase, though not all of them use his techniques. Under this approach, you typically choose your own mantra (a word or phrase that fits in with your belief system, such as “peace” or “one”) and let go of other thoughts. This technique can be combined with others, including “progressive muscle relaxation,” in which the meditator focuses on and relaxes certain muscle groups, gradually scanning the body from head to toe. Benson found that this technique helped patients lower blood pressure. Other groups use Benson’s term “progressive muscle relaxation,” but may or may not use his techniques.

Mindfulness meditation

While the previous relaxation techniques encourage emptying the mind, mindfulness meditation aims to allow observation of all inner experience. Attention is paid to the moment, monitoring thoughts, bodily sensations, and feelings, without attaching emotions or judgments to them. It aims to help the meditator gain inner peace by developing greater self-awareness and compassion.

The process of meditation may seem simple, but it’s not always easy. Meditation takes practice, patience and consistency to reap the benefits. In all orientations, the process can ease tension and stress, promote overall well-being and enable healing of mind and body. Those who suffer from chronic illness may derive some relief. Practitioners report that, over time, they become more compassionate with themselves and others, more present-focused, more resilient, and better able to cope in virtually all areas of their lives.

Earlier this month, Dallas ISD named Bernardo Velez Rico, teacher of AP English and OnRamps rhetoric at North Dallas High School, Secondary Teacher of the Year for 2024-2025.

With emotion in his voice, Rico recalled the circumstances that culminated in this moment.  

For most newlyweds, a honeymoon is the start of their new life together, Rico said, but for his parents, it meant an arduous journey north. They immigrated from Guanajuato to California the day after their wedding. They settled in Los Angeles and later raised their three children in a one-bedroom apartment.  

“My parents’ honeymoon was coming here with the hope that they’d be able to build a better life and future for their kids,” Rico said. 

Rico’s father, a former garbage collector who only made it through elementary school, would constantly hammer home the importance of education. 

“He would say, ‘Mijo, when I was in school, I would always get tens,’ which for them is the equivalent of getting 100 in their grading system,” Rico said.  

Rico took this to heart. When he was 9, his family moved from California to Texas. He attended Grand Prairie ISD and later graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Art Practice and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies.  

At Stanford, Rico experienced culture shock. Having grown up in a Latino community, Rico said he struggled with impostor syndrome, often questioning his place in an institution where status and class mattered and where few people looked like him.  

“I grew up in a community that was a lot like me, surrounded by people like me,” he said. “At Stanford, it was a huge culture shock because I was surrounded by people with a lot more wealth and whose parents were alumni.” 

After college, Rico returned to Texas and oversaw the Go van Gogh school outreach program at the Dallas Museum of Art. Through this hour-long program for elementary school students, which combined art discussions and art-making activities, Rico stumbled into a love of teaching. 

“When I was teaching the programs in the museum, there were so many times when, at the end of that one hour, the kids would come up to me and hug me,” Rico said. “If the students can have this reaction from just one hour of me being there, I could only imagine what the impact would look like if I was with them the whole year.” 

It was around this time that Dallas ISD launched the Adjunct Teacher Dallas Residency Program. Rico said it was the perfect opportunity to start teaching. 

He completed his residency training at North Dallas High School, and at the end of it, he had the option to transfer or stay. He chose to remain. 

“For the past four years that I’ve been at North Dallas, our campus has been a high priority campus. I realized that I wanted to stay here even after my program ended, because it is important that students at a school like ours are supported and believed in,” Rico said.  

Rico said he recalls how people tend to underestimate his father’s intelligence due to his limited formal education, and now seeks to banish the misconception that only high-achievers can be smart in his classroom.  

“I have students who haven’t had the best test scores, or who have had something happen to them, and this makes other people think that they’re not as smart or as capable as others who have had more privilege,” Rico said. “But I try to make it my job to help them see, and to help other people see that they do have a lot of intelligence and knowledge.”  

Rico’s desire to make students see—and realize—their potential is the core of his “bar-raising” approach. With this strategic approach, Rico sets a high bar at the start of the school year but adjusts it according to each student’s abilities, he said. As the students meet the standards he sets for them, Rico gradually raises the bar, bringing it closer to its original position.  

“The first bar I set for them is right here,” he said, holding his hand, palm down, flat and steady before him. “And then they’re going to grow, and we’re going to celebrate that growth. But in my mind, I know that by the end of the year, I’m keeping them to this bar.” 

In the few years he has been teaching AP Literature and OnRamps rhetoric, Rico has seen his students improve significantly. His OnRamps students, for instance, are writing college-level essays while earning credit from The University of Texas at Austin. Interest in the class continues to grow. 

“Last year we had 100 percent of our OnRamps students earn college credit, and this year, we’re in the 90s, and we have even more students taking it,” Rico said.  

Other OnRamps mentors approach Rico to ask him about the high pass rates at North Dallas. 

“They ask how is it possible to get those numbers, and that’s the question where I’m like, ‘If you’re asking how something is possible, you’re already assuming that it’s not possible,’” he said.  

Rico said he thinks teachers need to remember the sense of possibility at the heart of their profession: just because a student has not excelled academically so far does not mean he or she never will. 

“If we’re setting ceilings for our students, then we’re already capping what they’re capable of,” Rico said. “Our focus needs to be on building those supports so that they can break the ceilings that other people have already put there.” 

Rico now strives to help his students break those ceilings so that they never have to question their place in the world. With his encouragement, some of his students attend universities like Harvard or the University of Chicago. One student in particular, who recently arrived in the country, wanted to go to Stanford, like him, he said. But with her limited mastery of English, few thought that she could pull it off.  

“But I believed in her, and she believed in herself, and she was accepted,” Rico said. “It was just incredible for her to be able to follow that path.”  

When students ask him why he teaches when he could have pursued another career, Rico likes to remind them:  

“I choose to be here because this work is important, and because you deserve teachers who want to do this, who choose this work, and, more importantly, who choose you,” he said. “I don’t want the students to feel like they were someone’s backup option or last resort. I want our students to feel like their teachers are here because they want to.”

At John J. Pershing Elementary School, two educators are using innovative approaches to strengthen bilingual literacy in their classrooms. This year, Maria Fernandez and Jessica Riedel used the funding from Read Conmigo Educator Grants to transform their students’ reading experience.   

Fernandez, who teaches fourth-grade bilingual reading, used her award given by the Kemper Foundation to launch Break a Leg, a drama-based literacy initiative that uses puppets and theater to help students improve reading comprehension, build vocabulary, and express their emotions. 

“I began to notice emotional learning gaps after the pandemic,” she said. “The plays helped my students find new vocabulary to express what they were feeling everyday. There were also academic benefits.” 

The grant allowed her fourth-grade bilingual reading students to perform literature and read plays, gaining exposure to elements of theater such as acting, lighting, and music. 

Fernandez’s dedication as an educator led her to being named 2023-2024 Teacher of the Year at her school. She has also received classroom grants from Donors Choose and the Junior League of Dallas. Originally from Spain, Fernandez began teaching in the United States through the Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain program, and eventually became a teacher in Dallas ISD 10 years ago.

Jessica Riedel joined Dallas ISD in 2021 and has spent the last two years as a bilingual reading teacher at Pershing Elementary. In her kindergarten classroom, she is rethinking the way students interact with reading.  

With her grant money, Riedel purchased technology and literacy materials, including 30 licenses for a bilingual reading program loaded on each student’s iPad.  

“Thanks to these resources, 90 percent of my students are reading,” she said.  

In addition to receiving the educator grant, Riedel was selected for a special recognition, in which one teacher from each state receives a campus celebration with the Kemper Foundation. In October, the president of the Kemper Foundation visited her classroom and Riedel received backpacks with bilingual books and school supplies, along with a lunch party and official recognition.   

Riedel’s passion for education goes beyond literacy. She has a background in engineering and project management—she previously worked with NASA while studying at Florida International University—and brings this STEM and entrepreneurial lens to her teaching at Pershing.  

The Foundation annually awards up to 100 Read Conmigo educator grants to dual-language teachers in Texas, Florida and California. Applications for the fall 2025 cycle close June 16. Teachers can apply at the Kemper Foundation website.

In addition to grants for educators, the foundation awarded Read Conmigo School Impact Grants to Annie Webb Blanton Elementary School, Alex Sanger Preparatory School, and Stephen C. Foster Elementary School, honoring their commitment to campuswide dual language education.

With the support of the Kemper Foundation, Fernandez and Riedel have turned their ideas into action, reinforcing the legacy of innovation at John J. Pershing Elementary, a 2024 Lighthouse Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. 

“I am grateful, inspired and motivated to continue helping our students and honored to have support from the Kemper Foundation and the state of Texas,” Riedel said.