Throughout the week the in-box has been filling up with complaints from Dallas Independent School District teachers who insist they were given no advance warning that trustees would be voting tomorrow on extending their workday hours from seven hours and 45 minutes to eight and a half hour. Writes one:…
In the ever-lasting debate over whether and how and how well our teachers are living up to their charge — that charge, of course, being simply to save their country from a slow, seamless descent into collective idiocy — a lot of buzzwords get buzzed: evaluations, testing, metrics, merit pay,…
Just eight months ago, Lawrence Billy Jones III was a senior at Garland High School. He’s a UNT freshman now, double-majoring in political science and criminal justice. He just turned 19. And for reasons we really can’t figure, he’s running for office. Specifically, he’s gunning for a seat on the…
Just got off the phone with tax attorney Mark Melton, who, as you’ll recall, is co-chairing EducateDallas, that political action committee with ties to the Dallas Regional Chamber. I had questions following receipt of a release this afternoon that says the PAC is endorsing two candidates for the Dallas Independent…
Word got out that Michael Hinojosa was leaving the Dallas Independent School District ’round the exact same time Melody Johnson announced she was resigning as Fort Worth’s superintendent. Which means both school districts have known for eight months that they need new leaders. But several fellow DISD parents have asked…
Late Thursday afternoon, and only because interim super Alan King had a flight to catch, the Dallas Independent School District trustees finally got around to discussing the 2012-13 budget and consolidating — which is to say, closing — those 11 campuses in order to save a guesstimated $11.5 million next…
Still watching that Dallas Independent School District trustee meeting; it’s torture, man, torture. (Four hours after kick-off, we still haven’t gotten ’round to the budget or campus consolidations.) Like, here: The board has spent the last 40 minutes talking about next school year’s calendar. Shouldn’t have taken that long. Except…
Just returned from a funeral to find the Dallas Independent School District board discussing 21 ways to get better candidates down to 3700 Ross and how to restructure human resources — which, I know, sounds boring on the surface. But this is the so-called Star Employee Commission’s report to the…
The Dallas Independent School District board has much on its plate at today’s briefing, the first of the new year: that look-see at the coming year’s budget, a report on efforts to close 11 schools to save $11 million, a peek at how that under-construction teacher evaluation system is coming…
One week ago today, during council’s chat about the coming bond program, the subject of the UNT Dallas College of Law came up: Angela Hunt wanted to know when the university would take over the old Municipal Building, at which point City Manager Mary Suhm reminded the council, “They’re a…
Last month the Dallas Independent School District officially dedicated George Herbert Walker Bush Elementary, the Addison campus funded by the 2008 bond program. The affair was populated by pols, Ross Ave. administrators and educators, but at the 3:37 mark of the video just posted by the district the man for…
For several weeks we’ve known how 3700 Ross intends to deal with a budget shortfall in the coming school year — by closing schools (guesstimated to save $11.5 million) and jumping kindergarten to fourth-grade teacher-student ratios from 22:1 to 24:1 per classroom (which could result in the loss of 300…
Saw this when I got home last night — an invite to attend a Grand Prairie Independent School District open house January 21 at the South Grand Prairie High School Coliseum. The postcard thinks that maybe my Dallas ISD-attending child would want to attend, say, the Garner Fine Arts Academy…
On May 12 of next year three Dallas Independent School District trustee spots will come up for grabs — those presently held by Bernadette Nutall, Bruce Parrott and Edwin Flores. (And, depending on which rumors you choose to believe about possible doings on the Dallas County Commissioners Court and the…
The real reason I wanted to talk to Dallas Independent School District board president Lew Blackburn last week was about the district’s search for a superintendent — specifically, why it’s expected to take so long and why the district appears to be behind its own schedule. Because according to a…
I got the word late Friday: the long-disputed Jose “Joe” May Elementary School, which the Dallas Independent School District had planned to build on Webb Chapel between Royal and Walnut Hill as part of its 2008 bond program, is dead. Far as the neighbors are concerned, it’s an early Christmas…
Undaunted by last night’s cold drizzle, around 30 Dallas ISD teachers, custodial workers and other support employees held a quiet march and candlelight vigil outside 3700 Ross Avenue. The reason? DISD’s budget-cutting plan to outsource custodial services and HVAC repairs to a private company. Along with the 471 teachers who…
On the eve of the final school board meeting of the year, I had a long talk with Dallas Independent School District board president Lew Blackburn, who expects tonight’s adios to 2011 will be a lengthy one: “We’ve got a long list of people who want to speak about the…
I see here that on Thursday the Texas Education Agency quietly sent to superintendents its list of Public Education Grant-designated schools — otherwise known as the lowest of the low-performing campuses in the state. Forty-three Dallas ISD campuses make the list, from A. Maceo Smith to Woodrow — with Hillcrest,…
Friends and allies of former Dallas School board president Kathlyn Gilliam quietly mourned her death early Sunday afternoon. She had fought a 13-month battle with cancer. Gilliam, 81, was the first black woman in history to serve on the Dallas school board, elected in 1974 after a court battle to…
Slowly but surely we’re learning more about the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test that’ll hit classrooms in the coming March. As in: For those who may have missed it, the Texas Education Agency has released some sample test questions for grades 3-8. Keep in mind, though, we…
Speaking of SMU …It has officially been invited to join the Big East, and is only too happy to accept. In a conference call with media, commissioner John Marinatto just intro’d the Hilltop to the ranks of the conference, along with the University of Central Florida and the University of…
