Staff News

Dallas ISD staff can hear from published authors about their experiences and their work through the Reading Language Arts #DallasWrites! Author Series. The series is designed to inspire and encourage those who want to rediscover their voice and talent as readers, writers and thinkers.

These sessions feature a published author who speaks about his or her inspiration, process, craft, obstacles, background, books, and usually “book talks” one particular title, said Melanie Sangalli, director of Reading Language Arts.

“We can use this inspiration to build our own reading and writing confidence and skill set to use with students in any content or grade level,” she said. The sessions are also open to central staff who are interested in reading and writing.

Each attendee will receive a copy of the author’s book and some lucky participants will also receive a class set. All sessions are scheduled in the afternoons from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m.

Upcoming Author Events:

Kelly Yang, author of Three Keys.  Wednesday, Feb. 23.  Some lucky attendees in grades third through seventh will win a class set!  Zoom Link 

Alyson Gerber, author of Taking Up Space, Braced, and Focused.  Monday, March 7. Some lucky attendees in grades third through seventh will win a class set!  Zoom Link

Aida Salazar, author of In the Spirit of a Dream and Land of the Cranes. Wednesday, March 23^.  Some lucky attendees in grades kindergarten through second will win a class set!  Zoom Link 

To see past authors and learn more about the project, please visit our Reading Language Arts site.

For more information, please reach out to RLA Director, Melanie Sangalli, at msangalli@dallasisd.org

As adults spend more time in front of their computers working and in meetings, sitting has become the newest threat to heart health. Fortunately, there is a way to counteract the sitting effects: regular physical activity and Dallas ISD is here to help with a series of exercise and meditation videos.

According to a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, adults who clock in at least 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours, of heart-pumping physical activity are well on their way to maintaining heart health. The study recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of both during the week.

Currently, only about one in five adults and teens get enough exercise to maintain good health, according to the American Heart Association. Increased activity not only helps the heart, it also improves sleep, mood, and general wellbeing.

Dallas ISD HCM Benefits has worked with a local fitness coach to create a series of quick exercises and meditation sets to help staff embrace heart health throughout the year. To explore these exercise tips, visit the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpyhyA1qUPMaZuWLIYnto0A5_UO9e5MYL and start showing your heart some love.

Did you celebrate Go Red for Heart Health Week by wearing red? Send us your photos to staffnews@dallasisd.org so we can share them later this month.

Other than sleeping, work is where most adults spend the significant part of their day.  While fulfilling and important—it’s a source of income and important relationships—work can also be a source of issues that affect mental health.

According to a national study conducted by Mental Health America, four in five employees feel emotionally drained from their work and nine in 10 report that workplace stress affects their mental health. Mental health doesn’t stay the same all the time, and it can fluctuate as people move through changes and stages in their lives.

Dallas ISD staff who are feeling overwhelmed or stressed can take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program to get help.

Dallas ISD’s Employee Assistance Program by LifeWorks is a confidential and secure service that offers help with personal and work-related issues. The EAP encourages employees and those close to them to seek help early before a minor problem becomes more serious. The EAP is designed to address short-term issues, identify resources and referrals for emergency and long-term problems. It can provide support, referrals and, resources related to many concerns like depression, conflict at work, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, grief and loss and many others.

With EAP, there is no contribution that staff need to provide. Counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Reach out to LifeWorks at (972) 925-4000 or visit www.dallasisd.org/benefits and click on Benefits Resources to access online EAP information.

COVID has created a labor shortage across the nation and has affected hiring for key positions at Dallas ISD, both at the campus and central levels. To help mitigate the turnover and recruit the best candidates to fill these critical positions, Human Capital Management has two recruitment coordinators dedicated to work specifically with central departments.

These strategic recruitment efforts to address labor shortages and turnover as a result of COVID are part of one of the many activities funded through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER. There is increased demand for qualified personnel as a direct result of COVID and from the surrounding districts also adding central staff to support activities and programs that are accelerating learning to mitigate the effects of COVID.

“Additional positions and higher than usual turnover in almost all areas across the district due to the impact of COVID has amplified the need for more recruitment and staffing support,” said Chele Andreason, executive director of Staffing at HCM. “COVID has created a need to fill positions in central administration that support schools and student achievement. While recruitment of campus staff remains our first priority, we also need to focus on recruiting candidates for these key central positions so that we can continue to provide excellent support to schools.”

The central administration recruiters have already been hard at work promoting key openings to attract the best candidates. They are:

Jenae L. Parker 

A transplant by way of Columbus, Ohio, Jenae L. Parker has a dual undergraduate degree in human resources management and business administration from Franklin University. She has more than four years of recruitment and selection experience in higher education.

Josh Soto

A product of Dallas ISD, Josh Soto graduated from the district’s Talented and Gifted Magnet. He holds an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree from The University of Texas at Dallas. He has worked in education and the nonprofit sector, where he is committed to helping recruit the best staff who will support student success.

The Beat will periodically highlight central administration openings.

Are you working to get ahead as a leader in your career? Few skills shout leadership potential like the ability to speak and communicate clearly. In fact, numerous experts list communication skills as the top talent managers need to effectively lead teams.

Dallas ISD Talk It Up! Toastmasters can help you develop those skills. Learn more about it at the group’s virtual open house at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16. Dallas ISD Talk It Up! Toastmasters is inviting district employees to the open house to learn what Toastmasters is all about. While there is a nominal membership fee, there is no charge to attend the first few meetings to learn if Toastmasters can help you reach your personal or professional goals.

Offering a learn-by-doing curriculum, global leadership, and communications training organization Toastmasters International has equipped millions to lead and communicate effectively. Toastmasters offers its program in a club format where people who are interested in becoming more effective communicators and leaders meet regularly to practice and receive feedback.

Among the Dallas ISD leaders who have benefited from their experience with Toastmasters are Cecilia Oakeley, assistant superintendent of Evaluation and Assessment; assistant principal Roderick Goudy; and recently retired Communications executive director Lawana Porter.

If this sounds like something you’d like to try, mark your calendar for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, to join via Zoom. (meeting ID 488 896 308, passcode 391641). You are also welcome to direct questions to member Lawana Porter at (214) 384-2792.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges to schools and districts as they try to provide instruction to hundreds of thousands of students, and one of the hardest to overcome has been the number of teacher absences due to illness or quarantine. Dallas ISD has been able to keep instruction going thanks, in part, to central staff pitching in as substitute teachers in schools across the district.

More than 90 staff in the Teaching and Learning division, 65 School Leadership instructional lead coaches, and almost two dozen staff members in Human Capital Management put aside their daily tasks to go back into the classroom either a day or two or five per week when the number of absences were at their highest.

For Kaitlyn Reneson, an ESL curriculum instructional specialist, going back to the classroom reignited her passion for helping students learn because the experience reminded her of why she got into education.

“Teachers were using their planning periods to sub for other teachers, doing everything to make sure students were learning,” Reneson said. “There’s something about being in it together. You say you understand but subbing for a day really makes you see that we need to be in this together. If a campus needs you, you go.”

Reneson has spent five days substituting at an elementary school—outside of her usual classroom experience in high school. Her colleague, Fernel Gonzalez, a dual language campus support coordinator, also saw first-hand the level of stress teachers and campus administrators have been under to work tirelessly to bring students up to speed under trying circumstances.

And he agreed: “We need to have each other’s backs because we need to work together to help the students.”

The instructional coaches from School Leadership have been substituting within the clusters they serve daily. Where they had more than one campus, the team divided and conquered, said Felicia Gray, director of Instructional Lead Coaches. And in schools that needed additional support due to double-digit absences, several coaches were assigned.

“While maintaining instructional support for students was paramount, they not only covered classrooms,” Gray said. “They also worked as front office staff, parking lot greeters, lunch duty monitors and any other roles needed for the campus.”

For all the central staff who worked as substitutes, their regular responsibilities and deadlines did not go away. But none minded putting in extra hours to catch up because they knew that what they were doing was crucial for students, said Mayra Rangel, a dual language campus support instructional specialist, who has also spent time substituting.

“It is worth it,” Rangel said. “We stayed open when other districts had to close down. This proves that we are a united front.”

Due to scheduling conflicts, Dallas ISD is rescheduling its February retirement webinar to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, and cancelling its March webinar. If you are planning on retiring in the next few years and want to learn how to prepare, you can register for the rescheduled webinar.

For staff who plan to retire this year, you can get cash for your unused local days through the district’s Retirement Service Award. The more days remaining, the higher the payout.

To participate in the Retirement Service Award, employees should notify Human Capital Management no later than April 15 of the date they intend to retire. Notification should be made by entering the intended retirement date in Oracle Self-Service.

The Retirement Service Awards pays employees a flat daily rate of pay for any unused local days accrued by July 31. The exact rate to be paid will be determined upon calculation of the total of all participants’ remaining local days (calculated by July 31). There is no cap to the number of local days paid. There is no time in service requirement.

If employees complete the separation process in Oracle by April 15 and work the remainder of the year, they will continue to have pay and benefits through Aug. 31. Those who do not enter their separation date in Oracle Self-Service by the April 15 deadline will not be eligible for the award.

For additional questions, employees may contact the HCM Benefits Department at 972-925-4300 or email Retirement@dallasisd.org.

What job candidate wouldn’t want the chance to work alongside a mentor, getting hands-on practice while observing an experienced person in the role? That is the opportunity given Sunset High School Principal Resident Jacob Nunez and six of his colleagues, who are the first to participate in Dallas ISD’s one-year principal residency program.

“The residency is an opportunity for in-the-moment professional development, to grow and learn,” says Nunez. He joined Dallas ISD as a world history teacher in 2005 and has been an assistant principal at W.E. Greiner Middle School, where he helped in achieving an Exemplary rating; Dr. Wright E. Lassiter Jr. Early College, which won National Blue Ribbon status during his tenure; Skyline High School, where he was on a team that moved the school out of Improvement Required status; and Justin F. Kimball High school, from which he was selected for the residency.

Sunset High School Principal Jesus Martinez, his mentor, sees the value of the residency as giving a potential principal access to the inner workings of the actual job.

“It is a program that benefits potential candidates by giving them valid and real ‘at-bats’ for doing the job and getting used to the different aspects of the job that aren’t always learned about as an assistant principal or in graduate programs,” he said.

The duo has tackled many challenges together. For a while, the principal said, “we were homeless because the school was under construction, so we were working out of Adamson High School and then Pinkston. Nunez came in during my first year as principal here, in the midst of a construction project, so he’s gotten a real crash course in some of the things that can happen, even getting a chance to see the bond construction process up close. Sooner or later, he’ll be a part of that process when he becomes a principal.”

Martha Bujanda, director of the residency program and of new leader development, said the program is “an incredible opportunity to learn the work, to learn as you go, with your mentor principal at your side guiding you through the process of what it is to be a principal and the many different aspects that entails.

“We’re giving them the experiences in the safe space of learning. That’s the power of it,” said Bujanda, who was a principal herself for nine years in Dallas ISD. “If I’d had the opportunity of actually shadowing a principal before I became one, learning at their side instead of learning on the job, I would have had a better understanding of how to address all the situations that arise after you become principal of a school.”

The residents meet at Dallas ISD’s central office once a month as a full cohort to learn and deliver content. “We give them observational feedback,” said Bujanda. “We’ll practice here, and then they’ll go and practice that in their schools. We’re providing a framework around values-based leadership—we do a lot of internal adaptive work on being able to perceive and apply feedback in order to grow.”

Martinez believes the residency program will give Dallas ISD an advantage over other districts because, “our principal candidates will enter into the principalship better prepared and ready for the challenges that come with being a first-year principal.”

Velina Willis-Smith, Minority/Women Business Enterprise coordinator, has been appointed Regional Coordinator for the American Contract Compliance Association (ACCA). The ACCA was established in 1986 as a nonprofit national organization dedicated to ensuring equitable employment and contracting practices within the public and private sectors. The organization provides professional certification credentials, training, standardization of practice, networking, and support to M/WBE, supplier diversity, affirmative action, contract compliance, equal employment, and human rights professionals across the country.  It is the only nationally recognized certifying body for professionals in the respective fields.

Willis-Smith will represent Dallas ISD and the M/WBE Department on a national level by bringing more awareness to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility to racial equity programs and initiatives.  Her primary responsibilities will include developing and increasing ACCA membership, working on the education committee, and facilitating communication between 13 states—Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin. As a member of the education committee, she will be involved in developing and implementing educational and professional development seminars.