Twenty-one Dallas ISD neighborhood schools each received $50,000 in seed money to pursue innovative ideas that will increase school choice in families’ backyards.
The Dallas ISD Office of Transformation and Innovation launched the Innovation Engine Grant program in 2019 as a way to further support neighborhood schools and increase school choice. This week OTI notified the 21 campuses selected for an Innovation Engine Grant, bringing banners and a socially distanced celebration to the neighborhood schools.
“We are planting seeds of innovation throughout Dallas ISD,” said Shakeatha Butler, director of the Office of Transformation and Innovation. “Sometimes it takes money to innovate. A school team might have the passion and might have the ideas, but they need the funds to make those ideas a reality.”
The selected schools can use the funding in a variety of ways to support innovation on their campus.
As one of the 21 school selected, John Carpenter Elementary School in Oak Cliff will pursue a leadership model with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. Under the model, the school will, in part, host a “Socratic Hour”–an open-ended discussion that teaches students to think critically–and a financial literacy course.
“This will have an enormous impact on our students and the community we serve,” Carpenter Elementary Principal Constance Jawaid said. “We are thankful for this seed money to help us innovate here in Oak Cliff. It is our goal to do our part to help change the economic trajectory of Black and Brown people in this country and what better place to start than with the children.”
In addition to Carpenter Elementary, the other schools 20 selected, and the proposed academic model they will explore, are:
- Roosevelt High School (STEAM)
- Boude Storey Middle School (STEAM)
- Gaston Middle School (Communications and Culture-Inquiry Based Learning)
- Hector P. Garcia Middle School (International Baccalaureate – Middle Years Programme)
- Kennedy-Curry Middle School (Visual and Performing Arts)
- O.W. Holmes Middle School (STEAM)
- Herbert Marcus Elementary School (Leadership)
- Pershing Elementary School (STEAM College and Career Exploration)
- DeGolyer Elementary School (STEAM – Design Thinking)
- Adelle Turner Elementary School (STEAM – Project Based Learning)
- Eddie Bernice Johnson Elementary School (STEM)
- Rhoads/Thompson Elementary School (STEM)
- Brashear Elementary School (Leadership)
- H.I. Holland Elementary School (New Tech)
- Foster Elementary School (Personalized Learning)
- Harrell Budd Elementary School (Theater Arts)
- Dunbar Elementary School (STEM)
- Soto Elementary School (Leadership)
- Dorsey Elementary School (Leadership)
- Guzick Elementary School (International Baccalaureate)
