Eduardto Huerta proudly watched as his daughter, Ximena, started her first day of pre-K at Jose “Joe” May Elementary School. For Huerta, the anxiety of having a child start their first day of school was tempered by the fact that he would still be nearby: after all, he is a second-grade teacher at the same campus. “I’m going to try my hardest not to check in on her every hour,” he said with a laugh. Jose “Joe” May Elementary is one of four new Dallas ISD schools that opened this year, and the final school funded by the 2008 bond…

On behalf of the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees, welcome back to another school year. Last school year, we had many great accomplishments in the district. Along with my fellow trustees, I am proud of our students and staff. After a long hot summer, school is beginning again. The daily temperature has been around 100, the same number we want our students to score academically. They can do it! Now that school is beginning, what will it take for Dallas ISD students to do even better than the last school year? What will your organization do to help the neighborhood…

UPDATED Aug. 19: The TRE did not get the super-majority vote from the board of trustees needed to move forward for the November election. Original Story: Dallas ISD trustees tonight will consider calling for a Tax Ratification Election on Nov. 8 that would provide additional funds for three programs: early childhood education, early college high school programs, and strategic teacher compensation. Watch the meeting live here.

Results are back from the state’s 2016 STAAR 3-8 and STAAR End of Course (EOC) exams. Transformation Schools and Innovation Schools, which are under the district’s Public School Choice (PSC) initiative, showed overall positive gains in student achievement. These positive results are an early sign that the district’s PSC initiative is helping to improve student outcomes by offering an array of high-quality, specialized academic models which tap into individual student interests, learning styles, and aspirations. The full achievement report, which can be found here, includes several analyses that “slice” the data in different ways. Each analysis shows numerous examples of…