News Briefs

As the first day of school gets closer, the Hub asked three Dallas ISD principals for tips on how students and their parents could prepare for a successful school year. Read their replies below: Principal Eneida Padro Campus: O.M. Roberts Elementary Grades Served: PreK–5th grade Tip 1: Start your child on school-day routines, like going to bed and waking up at a specific time, and reading daily to increase your child’s literacy skills. Re-establishing school-day routines in the last weeks of the summer will result in a smoother transition back to school, which will help them stay on the path towards college…

To hear Dallas ISD alum Lorena Watson tell her story during a TEDx talk, you’d never know that she overcame incredible odds as a high school student who, in addition to being homeless her senior year, was searching for her voice and place in the world. During her TEDx talk, she commands the stage with great poise and confidence and engages you right away. It’s easy to see she’s a real person of interest and clearly destined for success. Today, this David W. Carter High School alum (2010) is working her way through grad school. AlumNow, a Hub feature that checks in…

The Dallas Morning News profiled how Dallas ISD police officers are trained in verbal judo, “a method used to de-escalate conflicts with verbal techniques.” Dallas ISD Police Chief Craig Miller said in the article that verbal judo is a way to defuse, and not escalate, a situation, according to the article. Click here to read the full article. Photo courtesy Dallas Morning News 

Brenda Benitez, a senior at Skyline High School, spent the summer as a Mayor’s Summer Intern with the Dallas ISD Food and Child Nutrition Services department. She wrote the following blog post. I always assumed our school meals program focused on preparing and serving foods that would get us through the line quickly, not caring if it was good or not.  Of course, I didn’t try everything and I did have some favorites on the menu, but this was my train of thought. I wasn’t concerned about who fed us. I, like many of my friends, just thought the school…