Shortly after the ad hoc committee met to discuss closing those 11 schools yesterday, Dallas Independent School District trustees gathered to receive the district’s latest audit, which shows a fund balance of $135 million — meaning, the district has added close to $100 million to its emergency reserves over the…
As we mentioned Monday, the Dallas ISD trustees just got through discussing a very touchy subject: school consolidations and the repurposing of facilities — or closures, for those who aren’t sensitive to the subject matter. In all, DISD higher-ups are recommending shuttering 11 schools, nine elementary campuses and two middle…
Ah, so this is why Dallas Independent School District board president Lew Blackburn and trustee Bernadette Nutall want to clamp down on public speakers at school board meetings — comments made by Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace at the October 20 board meeting. Specifically, they’re furious over Wallace’s assertion at…
Teach for America, the nonprofit teacher pipeline founded by Park Cities native Wendy Kopp, has made a couple of appearances in the Morning News lately, first in a news story and then an editorial about the rate at which TFA teachers stick in their jobs. Apparently the first class of…
This story in last week’s paper served to remind us of what we’ve known for months: Sooner than later, the Dallas Independent School District’s trustees would begin discussing closing campuses to make up for the second round of budget cuts, a guesstimated $30 million worth, due to hit in the…
Speaking of learnin’ stuff …At last week’s Dallas ISD board meeting, district spokesman Jon Dahlander told the trustees that so far, a few hundred folks had signed up to read to kiddos on Friday, when the district’s hoping to round up 1,111 volunteers for its so-called “community-wide celebration of reading.”…
Get ready for remedial history, college-bound Texans, because the statewide blueprint that dictates what you learn in high school isn’t doing you any favors — a longstanding tradition in public secondary education, according to a report prepared for the Texas Board of Higher Education. A 1998 survey commissioned by the…
A couple of years back we espied three pallets of band uniforms and hats being auctioned off by the Dallas Independent School District, and at quite the nice price. (The whole lot wound up going for … $15.) This, then, is the sequel: Whilst perusing the latest DISD surplus-equipment offering…
Though there are a few exceptions to the rule, for the most part any one Dallas City Council member may pull an item from the council’s agenda and have it deferred till the next voting agenda meeting. Not so with the Dallas Independent School District, not anymore. Last month, six…
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…
