Inside Dallas ISD

On a weekday morning in a cold district warehouse, Dora Rivas makes a walkthrough inspection for the last time. After serving a decade as Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services executive director, winning numerous achievement awards, and propelling the district to its healthiest standards, Rivas is packing up her lunchbox and moving on. For the last 10 years, Rivas has worked hard to implement changes that would impact Dallas ISD students even beyond their school years. Under her leadership, the district moved to completely free breakfast and lunch for all students and rolled out the Breakfast in the Classroom initiative in…

Dallas ISD libraries checked out 40 percent more books over the summer than the previous year. During summer school, students, staff, and community members checked out more than 32,000 books from 32 Dallas ISD libraries. Meanwhile, the number of eBooks checked out by students and staff rose from 64 in summer 2014 to 1026 in summer 2015. “Each year the libraries and departments under the umbrella of the Language and Literacy Department continue to do their part by promoting summer literacy by keeping libraries open to service students and families,” said Gay Patrick, director of Library Media Services. “It’s critical that…

For his first podcast with Dallas ISD, Dr. Robert Bravo, the Dallas ISD Chief of School Leadership, had a wide-ranging discussion with Alan Cohen, the district’s Assistant Superintendent of Early Childhood. On the podcast, Cohen and Bravo discuss the significance of preK, the importance of supporting the emotional health of students, and a cultural shift that could have an immediate positive impact on young students. “There is nothing scarier in the world than having 24 four-year-olds look up at you at the beginning of the day and say entertain me for eight hours,” Cohen noted. Click here to listen to…

On the first day of the new school year, Alex Sanger Elementary School welcomed a new class of 60 smiling and eager sixth-graders. El primer día de clases, la escuela Alex Sanger le dió la bienvenida a 60 alumnos del sexto grado sonrientes y ávidos por aprender. Sanger’s new sixth-graders likely understand both those sentences because they are enrolled in a dual language program that features instruction in Spanish and English. Sanger, located near White Rock Lake, this year expanded its dual language program through sixth-grade. Previously, the school only went up to fifth-grade. Elsy Serpas, a sixth-grade math teacher…