Inside Dallas ISD

Luke Mock’s brother and sister were always big into acting, but when he started at Hillcrest High School as a freshman, he was a sports fan who joined the basketball team. But he didn’t enjoy playing basketball as much as he expected. And his junior year, he decided to follow his siblings’ footsteps and audition for the school musical, landing the lead role. Performing in the musical changed his life, setting him on a path to pursue acting after he graduates next month “I really enjoy the aspect of finding the characters I’m playing,” Mock said. “I try to find…

Social distancing can’t stop Woodrow Wilson High School’s planned production of “Mamma Mia” from shining! While the COVID-19 threat might have caused the cancellation of the spring musical, a partnership with Charlie Uniform Tango helped the cast members digitally collaborate on a video featuring multiple songs from the show. “For a community so vested in its neighborhood schools and the kids who go there, no one was willing to let this year go down as an asterisk in Woodrow’s musical history,” Tina Meazell, a Woodrow parent and volunteer in charge of publicity, told the Lakewood Advocate. “This has made it…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ creativity and excitement has been essential for millions of students to continue their educational growth during at-home learning. Teachers have found new ways to communicate with their students in order to engage, teach, and motivate them while schools are closed. Eugenia Fernández is a bilingual Pre-K teacher at Leonides González Cigarroa Elementary School who set out to create a YouTube channel with instructional videos with the help of her videographer husband, Mario Barraza. Her son Ollin, who studies acting, also appears in videos reading stories out loud. “We have enjoyed making these videos as a…

JCPenney recently donated 100,000 disposable face masks and 500,000 shopping bags to Dallas ISD in support of its remarkable effort to feed area families during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The donation comes on #GivingTuesdayNow, a global day of generosity and unity created in response to the unprecedented need caused by the pandemic. Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services Program has provided more than three million meals since schools closed due to the pandemic, and its food-service employees were featured on the cover of TIME magazine’s April 20 issue honoring frontline heroes. “We deeply appreciate all of our partnerships stepping up for the…