Inside Dallas ISD

Eight campuses have advanced to the next round in the NCAA’s Read to the Final Four® contest for Dallas Independent School District third-graders. The bracket style tournament mimics the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament schedule, with schools advancing based on how many minutes students read outside school hours. Since November, third-graders from across the district have been counting the number of minutes they read each day. The Elite 8 advanced from the Sweet 16 round. Each Elite 8 campus will receive $500 for the school library, a pizza party for the top classroom, a gift card for the top teacher,…

Martin Weiss Elementary School became a School of Leadership in Fall 2016 by implementing “The Leader in Me” curriculum, which aims to develop students’ intellectual, moral, social and emotional skills to prepare them to be leaders in a global society. “The Leader in Me covers Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and we call them ‘the seven habits of happy kids here,’ ” said Principal Shundra Brown. “On top of that, they have internships their fifth-grade year where they get to hold real jobs around the campus.” In addition, the school’s location in the community makes it easy to connect students…

What do you get when you mix a prize-winning orator, book giveaways, music and dance performances, and students reading aloud from their favorite books? The answer is fun and education. The annual African American Read-In will offer all of the above this Saturday, Feb. 18, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for kids of all ages who love reading and books. Free and open to the entire community, the read-in will culminate with students selecting free books for their home library. The location for this Black History Month celebration of African American literature and literacy is Cornerstone Baptist Church, 1819 MLK…

There are many student organizations and clubs that we constantly hear about on the afternoon announcements; we hear about the latest football game, who won the soccer game, and what service project Interact is working on. A team we don’t hear about very often is the Hillcrest swim team, who have consistently placed in various events throughout this year and years before. Senior swimmer, Rebecca Brandt, has been on the swim team all four years of high school despite attending Booker T. Washington High School. She has been swimming competitively since she was three years old and is attending the…