Inside Dallas ISD

Young Women’s STEAM Academy at Balch Springs is proving what girl power can really accomplish. The change to an all-girls school was prompted by the need to deal with academic and behavioral issues at the school when it served boys and girls at a time when it was also going through a major rebuild. A transformation to a new model was proposed following the example of Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School. With support from Lynn McBee, president and CEO of the Young Women’s Preparatory Network, the district launched a parental opt-in pilot program in 2014. “We were all…

Being a middle school counselor can be a juggling act between providing social-emotional support and academic guidance to students at challenging ages, but Yolanda Sims, counselor at Piedmont G.L.O.B.A.L. Academy, mastered the task. “In middle school, students are at an impressionable age, trying to find their way,” she said. “They are too old to be coddled, but they want to know that you care and that you are a safe person to talk to. The goal is to make sure that if they are OK emotionally, they will be OK academically in the classroom.” She still remembers her middle school…

In Fernando Rocha’s dance studio at Sunset High School, lessons begin with his voice counting off a steady rhythm in a large mirror-lined room with an open floor. Here, Rocha teaches students the art of dance, specifically traditional Mexican dances, connecting students to their Hispanic heritage. “I like to say that Sunset chose me,” Rocha said. “I came in with intention. I came here to be present with my students and, so far, I’ve been able to see the impact of that through the success of the dance program and the way my students are now also doing everything with…

When Silvia Fields started working as a custodian at the new Henry W. Longfellow Career Exploration Academy 14 years ago, the work was a lot different than it is now. “It’s a much larger building, of course,” she said of the school that opened this fall. “But all operations now are computerized and work off of touch screens. There has been a lot of training to learn how to operate the school.” Roles of custodians like Fields in schools across the district are expanding and adjusting to new technologies for air conditioning, heating, mechanical rooms, and other essential operations that…