Inside Dallas ISD

Some budding young authors at Benjamin Franklin Middle School are still basking in the glow of admiring customers who attended their December book-signing celebrating publication of Falcon’s Anthology, a collection of the students’ poems and prose. Dallas ISD librarian of the year Rosenid Hernández-Badia, Ph.D., supervised the students’ efforts and accompanied them as they read their works aloud to the audience at Barnes & Noble. “When I told my family that I had two poems that were going to be published in a book they felt so happy to know that because they know I love writing and expressing myself,”…

Superintendent Mike Miles had high praise yesterday for staff members who kept students safe, communicated with parents and worked alongside government agencies and the medical community during last fall’s Ebola scare. About 75 employees from Maintenance, Counseling, Health, and Psychological and Social Services and their family members attended a district reception held in their honor Monday at the Crow Collection of Asian Art. Developer Trammel Crow donated the use of the facility for the occasion. The venue’s collection of rare Asian art served as the backdrop to the superintendent’s words of appreciation to the staff for their courageous and timely…

When Dallas ISD found itself at the epicenter of the U.S. Ebola health scare last fall, a core group of dedicated staff members throughout the district rose to the challenge and addressed the situation — calmly and compassionately, with student safety as their top priority. In the wake of the news that five of our students had been exposed to the Ebola virus, the district faced questions from concerned parents and  community members, the national and local news media, the medical community and government officials. With no modern precedence in the U.S. to look to for guidance, district leaders, school…

One’s career path is rarely straight. People often find their calling through bypasses and detours. Five years ago, Delauren Kruzel wasn’t counselor at Stephen C. Foster Elementary School, but she was in the business of guiding others’ paths. “I’ve always had a passion for working with children,” said Kruzel whose previous work involved rehabilitating and preparing prison inmates to renter society. “Listening to their stories, I learned many of their hardships began when they were young children.” This realization led her to school counseling, a career path that would allow her to have optimum impact at the most impressionable time…