Dallas Independent School District supporters, take note: Today at noon, superintendent Michael Hinojosa will deliver his annual State of the District speech to the Dallas Regional Chamber, which no doubt knows the state of the district — broke and broken. You’ll find Hinojosa at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel on N…
DISD trustee Ron Price Moments ago, near the end of the nearly three-hour-long DISD board meeting — before the board went behind closed doors to talk about the superintendent in front of his face — trustee Ron Price said, “This is a critical moment in Dallas Independent School District’s history.”…
Schutze is at 3700 Ross Avenue, and he’ll provide a wrap-up from the board meeting during which the trustees and superintendent Michael Hinojosa will likely declare a state of financial emergency following last week’s $64-million budget shortfall revelation. That said, Allen Gwinn’s very, very good at this kind of thing…
After all the brouhaha over the Dallas Independent School District’s revised grading policy, the kid’s had plenty of honest-to-God homework since starring kindergarten earlier this month — very surprising and very welcome. Nonetheless, CNN yesterday revisited the controversy. And this morning, Kent Fischer grades the (mostly absentee) committee that came…
At least one DISD student will get a brand-new computer and printer: Charles Rice Learning Center fifth-grader Dalton Sherman, courtesy Ellen Degeneres and Hewlett-Packard on yesterday’s episode of her daytime chatshow. –Robert Wilonsky…
And so it begins. Though the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees does not meet till 2 today, to declare a state of “state of financial exigency” so it can begin laying off teachers in the wake of its $64-million budget shortfall, already campuses have begun shedding teachers. Programs…
Now, how about some good news for the Dallas Independent School District. You recall Dalton Sherman, right? Course you do: Charles Rice Learning Center fifth-grader. Delivered the keynote at this year’s back-to-school pep rally. Was suddenly everywhere. Well, Dalton will be on The Ellen DeGeneres Show tomorrow. Writes your genial…
For whatever reason, I couldn’t access the agenda for Friday’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees; district spokesman Jon Dahlander was kind enough to send it. And for those who do not want to click through, here are the two items of note: 3. Consideration and…
District 1 DISD School Board Trustee Edwin Flores “Everything’s on the table,” Dallas Independent School District superintendent Michael Hinojosa keeps saying following Wednesday’s announcement that the district’s got this teensy $64 million budget shortfall to cover right quick. Which means everything from staff cuts to school closings. But, as trustee…
Who knows what Dallas Independent School District chief of staff Arnold Viramontes’s “direct action plan” will entail to prevent a $64-million wuh-oh next year. (Trustees Jack Lowe and Edwin Flores, for starters, fully expect another shortfall in the current school year’s $1.6 billion budget — so, word of warning.) But…
Jack Lowe, DISD school board president Jack Lowe, president of the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees, is in New Braunfels awaiting the birth of his seventh grandchild. But shortly before he left town yesterday, he met with DISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who told Lowe the bad news reported…
Intern Courtney’s at 3700 Ross Avenue this very moment, where district officials have indeed confirmed a sudden $64-million shortfall — in the 2007-’08 budget. How’d this happen? Well, see, it’s “complicated,” said superintendent Michael Hinojosa, the result of having more teachers and support staff in the schools. “The majority of…
Four days into the new school year we finally got to spend time with the boy’s terrific, beloved, 31-year-vet homeroom teacher — very exciting stuff, especially when I discovered I could still sit in a kindergartener’s plastic seat without collapsing it. Before that, though, the principal — an ebullient, sincere…
A troubling lead from this morning’s back-to-school report on KERA-FM (90.1): “About 30,000 students were no-shows in classrooms in the Dallas school district yesterday, the first day of the new school year.” And one mother of an H. Grady Spruce High School junior told B.J. Austin that her daughter, who’s…
Apologies for the delay this a.m., but there was a good reason: The boy’s first day as a Dallas Independent School District student. Heck of a moment: He was cool, calm, excited but not nervous. His father, slapped in the face by the familiar smell of DISD hallways on the…
That’s what U.S. News & World Report says, anyway, in its latest ranking of the best colleges in the country. Which puts Southern Methodist behind BaylorRice, the University of Texas and Texas A&M when it comes to the other Texas universities on the list. But don’t feel left out, TCU:…
Dalton Sherman, a a fifth-grader at the Charles Rice Learning Center, was quite the hit at the Dallas Independent School District’s Believe/Achieve Back-To-School Kickoff at the American Airlines Center earlier this week. But the kid’s no rookie at making The Big Speech: Megan Feldman was in awe of the young…
After getting some bad press for its new grading policies, the Dallas Independent School District has posted to its Web site myriad documents explaining them — including one titled “Concerns and Facts.” Of its new grading procedures, the district insists they will “better reflect the more rigorous and effort-based learning…
No matter how you parse it, the Dallas Independent School District’s new do-over (or don’t, whatever) policy when it comes to homework and tests doesn’t sound good — which is why it winds up on Page 2 of The Wall Street Journal this morning. The intention’s good — cutting dropout…
Here is the Texas Education Agency’s July 31 letter to the Dallas Independent School District, informing superintendent Michael Hinojosa and school board president Jack Lowe that the district now has a babysitter looking over its slumped shoulders. The letter, which district officials have kept hidden, warns the DISD that if…
The state’s Commission of Education, Robert Scott This morning, Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander confirmed for me that Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott has appointed a special monitor to straighten out the Dallas school district’s academically unacceptable high schools. Dahlander didn’t know about the Texas Education Agency’s…
Looks like Mr. Funny Guy’s done the serious business of clarifying Friday’s Dallas Morning News story about the Dallas Independent School District’s homework’s-for-suckers policy that isn’t, not really, kinda-sorta, maybe just a little? For now, then, a deep, though also deeply suspicious, sigh of relief amongst those of us with…
