Inside Dallas ISD

If a room is filled with 30 children with autism, Theresa Shattuck, Dallas ISD autism program supervisor, is quick to point out that the room is filled with 30 unique individuals who have their own personalities and talents. With April being National Autism Awareness Month, Shattuck said the conversation is moving from understanding the research and basics on autism to increasing appreciation for the skills that people with autism bring to the community. “You can’t just pigeonhole people with autism,” she said. “Each person has so much to offer, no matter the diagnosis.” Dallas ISD has more than 1,000 students…

Gatorade and USA Today High School Sports recently announced that Admon Gilder, a student at James Madison High School, is its 2014–15 Gatorade Texas Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Gilder is the first athlete in his school’s history to be chosen for the award that recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court. “It means a lot to have been named for this honor,” Gilder said. “It’s a big accolade that not many players and athletes get a chance to experience. I’ve been working so…

Student engagement and an innovative entrepreneurship curriculum is what makes W. E. Greiner Middle School teacher Stephen Thomas’ Principles of Business, Marketing and Finance classroom so effective. Thomas is part of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s North Texas program, which provides business education to young students while earning high school credit. Out of 17 North Texas educators, Thomas was chosen to represent Texas at the 2015 Global Enterprising Educator of the Year Award sponsored by MasterCard. Ernst and Young sponsored a “send-off” party earlier this month for Thomas, who accepted the award March 25 at the NFTE 2015 Global Showcase in New…

Rock STAARs were out in force Friday afternoon at Martin Weiss Elementary. The school at 8601 Willoughby Blvd. held a pep rally to get its third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders excited and motivated for the next week’s STAAR exams. And, since the pep rally’s theme was Be a Rock STAAR, teachers and students wore bright wigs, sunglasses, headbands, and other outfits worthy of a red carpet. “The idea behind the pep rally is that, at this point, we have done a whole lot of work to make sure our students are ready for their STAAR exams,” Weiss Principal Shundra Brown…