Inside Dallas ISD

Ask researchers how to best solve thorny problems like finding safe alternatives to fossil fuels and curing devastating illnesses, and chances are they will respond that we need more scientific study and more gifted minds searching for solutions. Challenging students to test their skills in math and science is one way Dallas ISD is preparing more students to enter careers in these areas. As early as elementary school, a growing number of students are attending weekend meets featuring tough math and science tests offered by the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association and coordinated by the district’s Student Activities department.…

Ask Terry Stotts about his job as the construction and technology teacher at the Multiple Career Magnet High School, and his eyes light up. Stotts could spend hours talking about all the reasons he loves his job teaching practical skills to students with special needs in Dallas ISD. But, by far, his favorite part of the job comes in December when his students give away the rocking horses they spent the first part of the year building by hand. This year was no different, and Stotts smiled wide as his students gave away their rocking horses on Dec. 11 to…

Huddled around their desks inside a classroom at Townview Center, Mrs. Ping Zhuge’s students are deciding whether to provide a loan so a 21-year-old nursing student in Cambodia can pay his college tuition. Or, the students’ discuss, maybe they should instead provide a loan to a Kenyan farmer so she can buy the lights and inputs needed to plant six acres? Then again, there is also 24-year-old in the Gaza Strip who is requesting a loan to buy a solar system for heating water for the family house. Maybe they should give a loan to him instead? The students are…

Teaching a room full of 3-year olds is challenging on many levels, and one of Dallas ISD’s best is rising to the challenge every day. Tara Broadus, a preK teacher at J. J. Rhoads Learning Center, was recently named Dallas ISD’s 2015 Teacher of the Year in the Elementary Category. Her career as a teacher is rooted in a family full of educators, including her father, grandmother and aunts and uncles. Her mother worked in adult education as well. But the 1989 gradate of Lincoln High School didn’t immediately choose that path in college. “My initial major was journalism,” she…