Inside Dallas ISD

The College Board has announced major changes to the Scholastic Aptitude Test, one of the nation’s leading college entrance exams. The changes that will go into effect in 2016 aim to make the test more closely reflect what high school students are learning. Some of the key pieces of the SAT that are going away are penalties for wrong guesses and replacement of obscure or abstract vocabulary words with terms that are more applicable to current college curriculums. Additionally, the previously required essay will be optional, and math problems will test students’ understanding of and ability to apply concepts required…

For Pedro Trujillo, being an urban specialist is all about going the extra mile for the students, focusing on those who are having challenges behavior to truancy, behavior or academics. “You want to walk away from the workday knowing that you did a little bit more, and that’s what counts in the long run,” said Pedro Trujillo, urban specialist at L.G. Pinkston High School. “I talk to them after they are referred to me, and I find out what is going on in their lives. Some students don’t have meals or clothes, and that can cause them distress. I also…

Some Dallas ISD kids are painting the town pink. For the second year in a row, students at Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School are creating artwork on a different kind of canvas. In minutes, this once orange vegetable transforms into an inspirational piece. It’s just one way these students plan to inspire breast cancer patients while also encouraging survivors and their families. Eighth-grader Alejandro hopes one day doctors will find a cure. “It shows that there’s millions of people that have breast cancer and maybe if we write, we could probably find the cure,” Alejandro said. The canvas serves…

Several of the schools at the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center recently received their PISA, or Programme for International Student Assessment, scores. The exam measures student literacy among 15-year-olds in math, science and reading. Townview’s School of Science and Engineering, Judge Barefoot Sanders Magnet Center for Public Service: Government, Law and Law Enforcement, the Rosie Sorrells School of Education and Social Services, and the School of Business and Management students participated in the spring 2014 administration of the exam, which is only given every three years. Law Magnet principal Enedina Townsend calls PISA a metric of cross-curricular competency that evaluates…