At yesterday’s Dallas ISD board meeting, trustee Mike Morath had a fairly novel idea regarding the school calendar. Long story short, he said: Let’s consider testing the merits of a radical school calendar change that would include more than 200 days of instruction. And, he told his fellow trustees, let’s…
Leslie’s up shortly with a recap of yesterday discussion about expanding the Dallas Independent School District’s calendar, which got further with the trustees than some of the Friends of Unfair Park predicted earlier. I sat through the rest of the meeting to see how the board would handle that $40-million…
At last night’s called meeting of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, representatives from PROACT Search, the matchmaking firm hired to help select a superintendent for the district, chatted casually with board members about the qualities they desire in a candidate. “I think there is a perfect superintendent…
Said it yesterday: Many interesting agenda items on the Dallas ISD board’s to-do list Thursday. Among them is an update on that teacher evaluation system, of which we’ve taken note a few times in recent months as trustees spend the next year figuring out how to best grade the graders…
Used to be, you knew school was back in session day after Jerry Lewis was on teevee, teetering in a tux. Now, of course, kiddos report back at the end of August. But how long will that last? Not quite sure: Amongst the many, many, many items of interest on…
Thursday evening, Dallas Independent School District trustees approved resignation incentives for the 209 “unassigned” employees who are under contract but lack permanent positions after personnel cuts and rearrangements this summer. Teachers, principals, librarians and counselors in the pool now have the option of filing their resignation by November 1 and…
Back in June, some two dozen educators, religious leaders and activists — among them The Rev. Zan Holmes, John Fullinwider, Frederick Haynes III, Diane Ragsdale and Beverly Mitchell-Brooks — urged the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees to appoint former DISD Superintendent Nolan Estes as the interim super following…
We told you yesterday that the Dallas Independent School District is considering offering “excess” Chapter 21 employees — teachers, principals, librarians, counselors — a pile of cash worth $3 million to retire. After last night’s called board meeting, it became clear that while that’s probably what trustees will ultimately vote…
David Barton — founder of Wallbuilders, former State Board of Education “social studies expert” and member of the Religious Right coalition that prodded Gov. Rick Perry to join the insufficiently Christian Republican field — isn’t exactly what you’d call a rigorous academic. What you might call him, though, is hellbent…
I see there’s a special called meeting tonight of the Dallas Independent School District school board, where there’s a single item on the agenda: “Discussion of Options to Deal with Excess Chapter 21 Employees.” And what are Chapter 21 employees? They’re the folks under contract with the district — teachers,…
Yesterday, in the comments below, we discovered that the Dallas ISD had summoned some of its principals and executive directors to 3700 Ross for what was described as an “emergency meeting.” Last night, I found out why from a Friend of Unfair Park doing some volunteer work for the DISD:…
Seriously, instead of trying to come up with cute names for teacher evaluations or asking the Dallas Regional Chamber for help, the Dallas Independent School District’s higher-ups (the school board, especially) need to take the few-minute drive to Mesquite and ask Superintendent Dr. Linda Henrie how to make schools, you…
The lovely woman you see at right is Willietta Bradley, a kindergarten math teacher at F.P. Caillet Elementary, where, on Tuesday, I took part in the Dallas Independent School District’s Principal for a Day program. I was especially delighted to have been assigned there, of all places: Only a few…
For two years, during test runs and slow roll-outs to a fraction of its campuses, the Dallas Independent School District promised that its much-ballyhooed Parent Portal would be The Future of Education. This was how parents were going to get deeply, profoundly involved in their kids’ school lives, by using…
The George W. Bush Institute this morning unveiled its Global Report Card, which compares and contrasts 13,636 U.S. school districts with their in-state peers and national and international counterparts. Long story short: U.S. school districts, even those considered affluent, are squarely middle-of-the-pack’ers when it comes to math and reading scores…
Turns out, Rick Perry was right after all.What you see at right is a slide I received last night from a fellow Dallas Independent School District parent. It was, until this morning, available on the district’s Curriculum Central website, accessible only to teachers and administration and a resource for instructors…
Speaking of Dallas ISD public hearings …A few weeks back, in advance of a series of town halls, we sneak-peaked the district’s vague suggestions offered to improve its 33 academically unacceptable campuses. But on the board’s meetings-and-agenda website, you’ll find the so-called School Improvement Plan for each individual campus prepared…
Here’s what we know about the Dallas Independent School District’s search for a new superintendent to replace Michael Hinojosa: nothing. Here are the criteria the trustees have agreed on for what they’d like to see in a new superintendent: none yet.Now that I’ve summarized the salient points of last night’s…
Anna’s going to swing by Midway Hills Christian Church tonight at 7, where Dallas Independent School District trustee Edwin Flores will host a town hall. The point of this meeting, per a DISD heads-up: “Dr. Flores requests input from the public on selecting a new Superintendent of Schools.” Oh, I…
Earlier this week, The News reported that former Cowboy and smack-talking DirecTV fairy Deion Sanders was hoping to break into the education business. He was just awaiting state Board of Ed approval to open two charter schools in DFW — one in Oak Cliff, the second in Fort Worth –…
In May, you no doubt recall, longtime Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews put the Dallas Independent School District’s School of Science and Engineering at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center at the very top of his list of the best public high schools in the country. In the video…
A little while ago, in this item below, Mike MacNaughton posted a link to this freshly minted release from the Texas Education Agency, which leads with the good news: “Texas has experienced a huge increase in the number of college-bound minority students who take the SAT college admissions test.” At…
