Inside Dallas ISD

Lindsey Hudman’s job teaching pre-K at Thelma Elizabeth Page Richardson Elementary School is anything but child’s play. She stays up every night going over the next day’s curriculum and thinking about what worked—and didn’t—in the classroom that day. Hudman often talks with her assigned pre-K specialist about best teaching practices, and she always attends the six-week training available to all Dallas ISD pre-K teachers. Given her dedication to her job, Hudman tries not to get frustrated when she hears from someone who thinks pre-K is basically just daycare where young children goof around all day. “Since 90 percent of a…

Due to the generosity of school adopter Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, every student at Lee A. McShan Elementary School received high school shirts last week. Senior leaders from Conrad High School personally delivered the shirts to students and described the high school experience. The “I will graduate” schools shirt program has the goal of reaching all 80,000 elementary students in Dallas ISD. Approximately 30,000 students have received shirts thus far for at least one grade level at 150 campuses. This small gesture is intended to make a lasting impression by giving elementary students a shirt representing their high school on the front with colleges…

Camp M&M Reloaded – no, that’s not the name of a teen movie sequel. That’s the recently completed spring break extravaganza between Marsh Preparatory Academy and Medrano Middle School. The two schools got together to enjoy a four-day Metroplex excursion that took 60 students, all part of Big Thought’s Thriving Minds program, to a variety of destinations that provided a perfect combo of learning and fun. The camp included four parent volunteers as well as our own Shianne Patrick, Thriving Minds Program Manager at Marsh Preparatory Academy. Social media was always part of the plan – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram…

Dana Clark, a Dallas ISD Teacher of the Year, has taught science at Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School since 2004. During that time, she has fired up the imaginations of her students and others around the country as she blogged from such far-flung locations as Mount Kilimanjaro as part of an international team studying climate change. She has also visited Alaska as a member of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientific delegation mapping the Alaskan seafloor. Clark says such experiences are meant to excite her students about the study of science. “My hope is that my enthusiasm…