Inside Dallas ISD

Jamie Contreras is building on his family legacy – not just as principal at Gabe P. Allen New Tech Academy, but also in Oak Cliff and West Dallas. Every day he walks through the school, he sees a hallway or a room that was there when his father attended in the 1960s and knows he is in the right place. “When you look around, you can see where it has been updated, but you can also see what’s original to the school, and I can hear dad,” he said. “When I see the young boys here, I can see how…

Dallas ISD started the 2024-2025 school year with fewer than 70 vacancies—the lowest in almost ten years.  This means the district filled 99% of teacher positions before classes started, an accomplishment due in great part to the efforts of Human Capital Management’s Recruitment and Selection Team. The team of 16 members works year-round to identify and recruit the best teachers worldwide through strategic sourcing, travel, and participation in critical events. Their primary objective is to have a certified teacher in every classroom at the start of the year, a process that often starts a full year in advance. Meeting the…

When Christi Canady-Boyd, a speech therapy assistant at Skyline High School, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, she was anxious about talking to her supervisor. Little did she know the conversation would lead to a four-year legacy of love and support as dozens of Skyline Raiders walk every year in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.“It was my first year at Skyline, but I had known her from [W.H] Gaston [Middle School],” said Sonja Nix, assistant principal at Skyline High School. “When she told me, I took off my supervisor hat and put on my friend hat…

Olivia Rodriguez is a staple at the café in the Dallas ISD’s Linus Wright Administration Building. She joined the team in 2017 after years of working in a school cafeteria, where she forged connections with the community and the students because to her, food means family and culture. Rodriguez started in  the Food and Child Nutrition Services Department in 2014 at Leonides Gonzalez Cigarroa, M.D. Elementary School. One of her favorite things about working there was the connection she forged with the students who visited the cafeteria daily. “The students would always sing to me when it was my birthday,”…