Inside Dallas ISD

Christopher Jenkins, reset center coordinator at Ann Richards STEAM Academy, has seen what can happen to young people when they lack a system of support. As a former parole officer for the State of Texas, he realized that his parolees all shared a similar story:  “The majority of them grew up with a mom who gave them the world, but Dad was absent, and they didn’t have a support system. They all shared that most of their issues began in school where they lacked any desire to gain a successful education and began acting up.” In his last year as…

Nathaniel Hawthorne Elementary, which recently moved to a brand-new campus, hosted its school garden inauguration on Friday, May 6th. Instructional Coach Rebecca Ajuluchukwu launched the garden project earlier this school year when students returned to campus for face-to-face learning after months of at-home classes. “During the pandemic, I had a lot of free time on my hands and really started investing in my own garden at home,” Ajuluchukwu said. “When we got back to school, I realized that we had a lot of social-emotional changes with the students, and thought ‘if gardening brings me a lot of passion, it can…

Learning how to code and perfecting his programming skills outside the classroom led Sam Hooper to serve his community as a leader, a role model, a tutor and a developer of educational software, all while in high school.  The 18-year-old School for the Talented and Gifted (TAG) senior teaches programming to his classmates, developed an app that helps third- through eighth-grade students review math concepts, and has become an acclaimed coder, earning first place in the UIL State championship for two consecutive years. “I got to learn a bunch of stuff that I wanted to learn and also got to…

Dallas ISD has partnered with The Holdsworth Center to build on the inspiration, tools, and resources needed to grow our leaders. One avenue of this partnership is the Campus Leadership Program (CLP), a two-year program in which campus teams will build stronger leadership muscles while working toward excellent and equitable outcomes for all students. The curriculum is centered in three areas: Developing Personal Leadership, Growing & Empowering Others, and Creating Change. Campus leaders will: Learn from expert faculty and guest lecturers. Collaborate on a Problem of Practice that leads to results that impact students. Develop new problem-solving methodologies by practicing…