Inside Dallas ISD

After working as a professional architect for more than a decade-and-a-half, Lorena Toffer found a calling in teaching. She’s a first-year educator and the leading instructor of the Principles of Architecture course at the new Career Institute East. After earning a masters in Architecture at Texas A&M University in 2004, Toffer began working for Corgan – a leading architecture and design firm based in Dallas. She was ultimately promoted to senior project manager, where she fully supervised projects from first sketches to construction. Toffer always felt a need to share her knowledge and experience with the younger generations. She began…

When Dallas ISD, Fort Worth ISD, and Univisón DFW teamed up in May to launch the television show Unidos para Aprender, which offers 58 minutes of educational programming in Spanish, they tapped brothers Fredy and Kevin Perez to help host the program. The Perez brothers were born in Dallas to parents originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, and only spoke Spanish in their house growing up. While Dallas ISD’s bilingual programs have taught the brothers English and they are thriving in school, they loved the opportunity to host the program that supports students’ academic progress by supplementing at-home instruction offered by Dallas…

The Dallas ISD Uniform Assistance Program (UAP) offers one free uniform (one top, one bottom) to eligible students in grades PK-8th each school year. The program issues uniforms to qualified students in the official district colors, which are white for the top and khaki, black and navy for the bottoms. In addition to these colors, the Uniform Assistance Program also provides red and navy tops. Bottoms available include pants, skirts, skirts, and shorts. All students attending any of the district campuses can wear the official district colors cited above. If a school has elected to allow additional colors through the…

Curbside meal grab-and-go service now open to all children Starting Thursday, Oct.1, all children ages 1–18 can pick up a week’s worth of meals at no charge through curbside grab-and-go service at participating Dallas ISD schools. The district is switching to the Seamless Summer Option to ensure no child goes hungry during the pandemic. “This new strategy gives more children access to qualify for the grab-and-go meal service, while allowing our department to distribute more food per person,” FCNS Director Julie Fletcher said. “It will look very similar to our summer meal distribution.” Meals are being distributed on Thursdays from…