Submitted by Student Activities Department. With an assortment of extracurricular programs ranging from academic competitions to performance-based opportunities, the Student Activities Department’s theme for the school year is Enjoy the Experience.  This theme embodies the department’s goal for students to immerse themselves in opportunities for the exploration of new knowledge, the thrill of travel, and the benefit of earning academic scholarships. At Dallas ISD, student learning doesn’t stop when the school day ends. Instead, it expands to enrich minds beyond the traditional classroom. The Student Activities Department oversees extracurricular programs designed to engage students in ways that introduce them to…

As a child growing up in Seattle, Michael Johnson lived in a house perched on a hill beside King County International Airport, better known as Boeing Field. From his window, he watched Boeing 747s, affectionately called “Queen of the Skies,” take flight. Each night, engine tests rattled the windows of his home, but for Johnson, it wasn’t noise. It was the spark of a lifelong passion for aviation, which he now shares with students at Career Institute North. Johnson recalls how he began flight training while in college, balancing coursework with lessons in the air. He paid for training by…

When school ratings were announced, Dallas ISD learned it had doubled its number of A-rated campuses from 30 in the 2023-2024 school year to 60. Among those A-rated campuses were Umphrey Lee and Whitney M. Young Jr. elementary schools, both of which had previously been among F-rated campuses. “I expected it, but didn’t know we would get it,” said Yolanda Knight, principal of Umphrey Lee Elementary School. “But our expectation is always to be at the top. We didn’t know we would get there as fast, but we knew we would get there.” Shabranda Mathis, principal of Whitney M. Young…

Katherine Leiva remembers the first time she stepped into a U.S. classroom at age five.  After moving from El Salvador, she landed in Virginia, where she found herself surrounded by a language she didn’t understand. Every word feeling strange and unfamiliar. “You just got thrown into English,” she said. “I had a big disconnection with my culture, Spanish at home, English everywhere else.” Now, as a sixth-grade teacher at Annie Webb Blanton Elementary School, Leiva guides her students through the same challenges she once faced.  “It’s nice to be that person that they can talk to in whichever language they…