Inside Dallas ISD

While Veronica De La Torres is no longer assisting physicians with open-heart surgeries, she potentially helped save the lives of Dallas residents and Dallas ISD families this summer. The registered nurse worked tirelessly–inside and outside her clinic at Young Women’s STEAM Academy (YWSA)–to make sure that her students, their families, and the patients at a local hospital survive Covid-19. YWSA is an all-girls middle school with a number of Special Education units, including an Activities of Daily Living (ADL) classroom. ADL units serve students who exhibit severe to profound cognitive delays and who may also exhibit varying degrees of physical…

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…