Inside Dallas ISD

Dallas ISD is joining a 50-year celebration on May 10 that recognizes school nurses and promotes a better understanding of the role they play in education—National School Nurse Day. Zelda Saxton has been a school nurse at Obadiah Knight Elementary School for the past 14 years, and she said she has loved every moment of it. She previously worked in oncology and hematology units with a focus on cancer patients, so she said it wasn’t until she came to Dallas ISD that she fully understood the importance of supporting education. She recalls working with a student who had dyslexia and…

Jazmin Mier, instructional coordinator in the World Languages Department, is a citizen of the world. She has visited over 30 countries and uses this knowledge to help teachers in the district. So when she saw that the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth was offering an opportunity for 12 educators to participate in a United Arab Emirates Educator study tour this past spring, she jumped at the chance to go. Mier and 11 other educators from around the country visited the cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai March 11-18 to make connections between classrooms in the Emirates and the United…

It’s been said that a place without art is a place without an identity. That’s not the case for Moisés E. Molina High School where artwork, images, murals, and 3D sculptures can normally be seen throughout the school. Visual arts teachers like Melissa James and Miriam Montaño Perez have made these displays possible with the aim of helping students develop a strong sense of identity. The visual arts program at Molina High School is so successful that students recently took home 18 regional medals at the Texas High School Visual Art Scholastic Event (VASE). This weekend, three of the students’…

Van Harris, a fifth-grade science teacher at Maria Moreno STEAM Academy, knows how to motivate his students to go above and beyond. For example, he had a student miss just one question on her common assessment test last year. As he was guiding his class through setting goals for their upcoming State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test, this student decided she wanted to aim for a perfect score. “I said, ‘OK, we’re going to focus on that goal,’” Harris said. “So I got her packets on the one TEKS she missed, and from that point on we…