Inside Dallas ISD

Juan Quesada, a teacher at Jill Stone Elementary School and a Distinguished Teacher candidate in the Dallas Independent School District, was among several teachers to participate in the NASA LiftOff Summer Institute at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. According to a press release, NASA’s Texas Space Grant Consortium sponsored the program. Teachers from across the nation were selected to participate and increase their knowledge of space education through this professional development summer institute. LiftOff is a collaborative effort of Texas Space Grant Consortium members and affiliates. Teachers apply for LiftOff and are selected competitively. The workshops are organized around…

A locally owned grocery store is raising money to help fund educational field trips for Dallas ISD students this upcoming school year. Elrod’s Cost Plus Supermarket, which has six locations in the DFW area, set up its Dallas ISD Field Trip Fund after a teacher from W.A. Blair Elementary School contacted them. The teacher asked Elrod’s about potentially donating hot dogs for a fundraiser at the school. After talking with the teacher, Julia Johnson, Elrod’s marketing manager, said the family owned grocery chain decided to go a step further and set up a donation fund to help finance Dallas ISD…

See It Again is a feature on the Hub that looks back on and reposts noteworthy stories from the past year. During Pre-K Registration Week this past school year, The Hub asked pre-K students at Cesar Chavez Learning Center and Withers Elementary about their favorite part of pre-K. Hear what they said in the above video. Pre-K Registration Week is the district’s effort to encourage parents to enroll their child in pre-K, which studies show set the child on a path of lifelong learning.

Hugo Duran couldn’t contain himself when he got the biggest news of his life. He learned he had just been selected as part of the High School Aerospace Scholars program and would spend a week this summer studying under the guidance of some of the nation’s top engineers and scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I was in physics class, and I jumped out of my chair screaming,” Duran said. “Everyone was looking at me, and I didn’t even care because it was so much hard work trying to get into the program—something that I really wanted to do.”…