Inside Dallas ISD

Concentration, excitement, and camaraderie mix in what is one of the most popular extracurricular student activities in Dallas ISD: esports. Dallas ISD’s Student Activities department wanted to launch the activity in 2019 with 20 campuses, but when the department asked secondary schools if they would be interested, the response was overwhelmingly positive—62 campuses wanted to participate. The new extracurricular activity launched at those campuses with 800 students in sixth through 12th grade participating in district tournaments that year. “We got such a great response, and then we had to look at the budget because we hadn’t budgeted for so many…

Dallas ISD’s Maintenance and Facilities teams are Core 4 to the core, and they demonstrated this recently when they sprung into action after the May thunderstorms—which left more than 800,000 without power and caused significant damage to trees and structures—to make district facilities safe. According to Christopher Bayer, executive director of Maintenance and Facility Services, when the storms came in on May 28, each custodian assigned to every school or central site quickly gave the department a report back to indicate any interior or exterior damage and the status of the power. Whenever a  storm or some sort of natural…

With a passion that reaches far beyond his classroom walls, Rex Lees, a teacher at Emmett J. Conrad High School is an inspiration to his students.   Lees fosters a community-wide love of STEM education. And, under his leadership, the school’s robotic club, the RoboChargers, has expanded to supporting projects, such as the “RoboChargers for All” campaign. The campaign promotes inclusion and diversity in robotics and STEM through specialized camps run by female mentors with the goal of encouraging all students to go into the field of engineering.  “We hold robotics camps specifically for girls and non-binary students, led by female…

Imagine what it would be like to have a career day, where professionals and community members visit a school to share their experiences not just one day a year but on a regular basis. Associate superintendent Nancy Bernardino, who was the founding principal of the school and the late Jennifer Turner, the founding assistant principal, came up with Wisdom Wednesdays, also known as Wonder Woman Wednesdays, and Fierce Female Fridays. “To believe that they have potential in STEM and careers that are in leadership, they need to be able to see women who look like them almost on a weekly…