Inside Dallas ISD

“We have to think of what’s ahead of us instead of focusing on what we can’t control,” says Marysol Ortega, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, as she reflects on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the class of 2020 across the country. Ortega, vice president of her school’s senior class, participates in several sports – soccer, volleyball, cross country running and track and field. She is also an only child in her family and the first generation to go to college. Her senior year has been marked by two major unpredictable situations: a tornado demolishing her school in…

As senior students across the nation find themselves not being able to finish the school year through the traditional end-of-high-school activities, parents and staff at a Dallas ISD high school created a heart-warming initiative to bring smiles to seniors. The Adopt a Senior campaign was created by a group of parents and several staff members at Sunset High School. Parent Ramona DeLeon says she was sad about seeing her daughter miss prom in the midst of the COVID-19 restrictions, and all she wanted was to find a way to bring a smile to her daughters’ and classmates’ faces. “I thought…

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…