News Briefs

A Spanish teacher at Dallas ISD’s Thomas J. Rusk Middle School won an award at the recent national foreign language conference, and was also invited to serve as a keynote speaker during the conference’s Assembly of Delegates. Akash Patel received the Leo Benardo Award for Innovation in K-12 Language Education from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In front of the 500 delegates, he was asked to discuss dealing with the national teacher shortage and what drew and keeps him wanting to teach. His interest was sparked when he discovered a lack of teaching in schools centering…

The Dallas ISD Racial Equity Office, Dallas Truth Racial Healing & Transformation, City of Dallas Office of Equity and Human Rights, and Dallas Public Library hosted Dallas ISD students from South Oak Cliff High School and Kimball High School for the first ever 2018 Dallas History Hackathon. Dallas History and Archives Division of the Dallas Public Library, Remembering Black Dallas and Dallas Mexican American Historical League gave interactive presentations that allowed students to interact with historical text and artifacts. Students were paired with community members from those organizations to edit selected Wikipedia pages to begin the process of highlighting Dallas…

To support the district’s early college high school initiative, Texas A&M University has created a program to recruit and develop teachers who are certified to teach high school and college credit courses (dual credentialed teachers) in the following areas at the high school level: English, speech, government and psychology. The dual credentialing program is seeking teachers with a master’s degree in any area and at least a minimum of three years of high school teaching experience. Those interested in the program should complete an interest form and attend one of the interest meetings to apply and interview for the program. The program is…

Volunteers from Toyota who are helping tutor Dallas ISD students via a computer throughout the school year met with the students face-to-face at a celebration in late November. TutorMate is an online tutoring program that connects Toyota volunteers with students at J.N. Ervin Elementary School learning to read. Some Toyota employees also dropped off presents to the students at Ervin Elementary. “The children were delighted to meet with their new tutors and the smiles on their faces were more than worth it,” said Tisha Barnett of Toyota Motors North America. “We are looking forward to another amazing season of helping…