The battle over Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center — which Dallas Independent School District Michael Hinojosa is splitting up in order to excise five of its seven principals next school year, over parents and Carla Ranger’s objections — has reached The New York Times, via its relationship with the Texas…
Speaking of public eduction and whether or not the Dallas Independent School District can split Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center without the school board’s OK …A missive just arrived in the Unfair Park in-box that was sent today to the DISD board concerning plans to restructure Townview and cut five…
On Tuesday, the Dallas Independent School District announced it’s splitting Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center into two schools, divvying up the six magnets housed within and reducing the number of principals from seven to two in an effort to save money — and teachers. Shortly after the release went out,…
The Dallas Independent School District sent word earlier this afternoon: It is splitting the mammoth Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center on E. Eighth Street into two schools — one devoted to humanities; the other, arts and science. The six magnets housed within Townview, among them the TAG Magnet, the School…
A couple of weeks back Texas Appleseed and ACLU of Texas reps were down in Austin asking why oh why do state school districts feel the need to write class C misdemeanor tickets to students, some as young as 6, in the case of the Dallas Independent School District back…
Almost one month ago to the day the Dallas Independent School Board received an updated version of the district’s budget reduction plan made necessary, of course, in the wake of the state budget shortfall emptying classrooms of teachers and filling them with more and more students. Moments ago, the board…
Those tuning in to today’s Dallas Independent School District board briefing expecting to hear what was sure to be a heated discussion about how to “streamline the process for implementing a charter school” are out of luck. The item’s been pulled, as trustee Carla Ranger pointed out yesterday on her…
Mike Rawlings was the first candidate for Dallas mayor to address the Dallas Independent School District when, at the end of March, he unveiled his Education Plan. Said the former Pizza Hut CEO when discussing forming myriad partnerships and alliances with the district, “Some people will say education is not…
On Thursday morning, the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees will take its first long, hard look at a proposal to “streamline the process for implementing a charter school.” It’s the result of months of work by the board’s Charter School Ad Hoc Committee, which was tasked with exploring…
Who knows how seriously the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees will take the suggestions of the board-appointed Citizens Budget Review Commission — which, as far as Carla Ranger’s concerned, exists in large part to push the super’s charter-school agenda. In the end, the commission has no real authority…
Last week we asked: Will the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees extend to at-will employees the same buyout deal given teachers a few weeks back in order to trim its budget in the way of the $86-million to $150-million budget shortfall expected over the next two years? To…
Two days ago we looked at Mike Rawlings’s Education Plan, which calls for forming partnerships between the city of Dallas and the Dallas Independent School District. He follows up with the video you see above, in which the city’s former homeless czar insists that the mayor must take an active…
Forthcoming are Jim’s thoughts on the mayoral candidates’ forum held last night at Thomas Jefferson High School, which looks like it needs every cent of the $8-mil renovation that’s just commenced. But during the forum, Mike Rawlings referred to his public-educational platform, which he introduced yesterday during a press conference…
Back in September, when Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa was being considered for the Las Vegas gig, trustee Edwin Flores told Unfair Park: “He’s a hot commodity. Outside of Dallas he’s a rock star.” A few Friends of Unfair Park with long memories have disagreed, but the district…
State Sen. Royce West was there; so too Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, former mayoral candidate and “homeless czar” Tom Dunning, Arts District exec director Veletta Lill and an Alan Peppard’s column worth of bold-faced bigwigs with deep pockets. The affair, spread over the Booker T. Washington High School for the…
Last night, Robert teased us all with the news that Lynn Moak, from Dallas ISD’s lobbyist-consultant group Moak Casey & Associates, would be taking a seat before trustees this afternoon with an update from Austin on the Legislature’s attempts to finesse away the state’s budget shortfall. Earlier estimates, you’ll recall,…
From the looks of the bare-bones agenda, the Board of Trustees Budget Workshop doesn’t appear to be all that exciting, especially when you consider that tangible answers about the budget-cutting to come are still a couple of months off. But this evening I called Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon…
On Friday we were introduced to the Dallas Independent School District’s Citizens Budget Review Commission, a 10-member group selected by the school board and Superintendent Michael Hinojosa that’s been tasked with helping the administration find places to slash and burn the budget — without losing teachers, at least as far…
Two weeks ago Bill Zedler, state rep for District 96 in Arlington, tossed into the legislative heap House Bill 2454, which would prohibit “discrimination by public institutions of higher education against faculty members and students based on their conduct of research relating to intelligent design.” It was referred to the…
On Friday, the Dallas Independent School District unveiled its line-up for the first-ever Citizens Budget Review Commission, a trustee-appointed group charged with helping the school district find ways to cut the budget — without, it would appear, trimming teachers. Channel 11 was on the scene for last night’s first meeting…
Two weeks back we noted that at least one person had already been appointed to the Dallas Independent School District’s first-ever Citizens Budget Review Commission: Dallas Friends of Public Education’s Mike MacNaughton. The commission, made up of trustee appointees, was a board brainstorm in an effort to find fresh eyes…
About a month ago, Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander told Unfair Park that even during this current budget crisis, the district has no intention of touching its fund balance, which, he said, should sit at somewhere near the $100-million mark. Explained Dahlander, the DISD’s reserve fund is not…
