News Briefs

Dallas ISD’s Jimmie Tyler Brashear Elementary School yielded a $1,300 bounty from a barbecue-filled Spirit Night this fall. The Spring Creek Barbecue restaurant at 2827 W. Wheatland Road played host to the Sept. 19 Spirit Night, with 20 percent of the net proceeds collected between 5 and 9 p.m. that night donated to the school. At least 12 percent of the students have to attend the Spirit Night to qualify for the donation, and with Brashear there were 116 ready to help out (and eat). Spring Creek Barbecue partners with elementary schools (serving grades pre-K to sixth grade) within five…

Under the leadership of Director Barbara Johnson, the STEM Health and Physical Education Department is likely the only one of its kind in the country. Johnson said it makes sense to combine STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and Health and Physical Education since both are key components in growing students into strategic and creative problem solvers. Formerly known as the Urban School Wellness Department, the STEM Health and Physical Education Department is coordinating in-school initiatives such as kinesthetic classrooms, the digital media fair, Fitness Stars—which teaches STEM through hockey—and Read and Ride, which places stationary bike…

Robots, rocket launches, three-dimensional doodlers and so much more kept students and their families engaged on Thursday, Nov. 1, at Winnetka Elementary School. The evening, “Learning is a Walk in the Park” – playing off a Jurassic Park theme – featured all kinds of hands-on scientific projects. The Perot Museum took a couple TECH trucks (Tinker, Engineer, Create, Hack) and a bunch of other projects and gadgets. The projects demonstrated concepts of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics).

The Dallas ISD Racial Equity Office announced the ALAANA Multicultural Reading Initiative. ALAANA is an acronym for African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American, and the initiative’s intent is to capture the voices of humanity that are sometimes silenced in history books and in popular literature. One of the goals of the Racial Equity Office is to ensure all student voices are heard through a variety of mediums. The office believes it’s imperative to value students’ lived experiences and recognize the importance of their voices being expressed in art, literature and film. The first engagement of this initiative will be…