As we were eating dinner, about half an hour ago, the 7-year-old who lives in my house asked me to check Dallas Independent School District’s Facebook page to see if there’d been an announcement about school tomorrow. So I did. I read this aloud:Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Dallas ISD schools…
Way back in September, Laura Bush stopped by North Dallas High School to introduce the George W. Bush Institute’s education initiative intended to change “the way America’s public school principals are identified, recruited, selected, prepared, evaluated, and empowered.” Well, now that that’s been taken care of comes Initiative No. 2…
Here’s something else that got lost in the snowdrift: Earlier today, the Dallas Independent School District send word that come Sunday …Drill teams from Thomas Jefferson and W.T. White high schools will perform during the Super Bowl XLV halftime show, which will feature the Black Eyed Peas as the headlining…
I brought the boy into the office today. We had no choice — even he was getting cabin fever, and better Unfair Park HQ than another day staring down his LEGOs. But now this from 3700 Ross:Breaking news: Dallas ISD schools will be closed on Friday, Feb. 4, 2011. Administrative…
This just in from the Dallas Independent School District, which, apparently, no longer adheres to its 6 a.m.-morning-of policy when it comes to announcing closings:Continuing weather-related issues will keep Dallas ISD schools and administrative offices closed on Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011. Continue to seek warm shelter and stay off those…
This just in from 3700 Ross, via the Facebook:Because of icy road conditions that are not expected to improve overnight, Dallas ISD schools and administrative offices will be closed on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011.I have not yet told the 7-year-old who lives in my house, who, at this very moment,…
Nothing short of the End of Days gets the Dallas Independent School District to close its doors. But well before 5 a.m., the district made up its mind and told the kiddos to stay at home. Or: “Debido al mal tiempo, las escuelas del Dallas ISD están cerradas hoy.” Which…
Last night, WFAA reported that some 300 Dallas Independent School District employees will not return next year — not because of the state’s $25-billion shortfall, but because the $104 million in federal stimulus money that funded their positions beginning in 2009 has gone away. As DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander tells…
While the Plano Independent School District is already preparing for a worst-case scenario and eliminating top-tier administrative positions, the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees is not scheduled to address the state’s $25-billion shortfall at its meeting on Thursday — save for that resolution to which we directed your…
Earlier this afternoon, over on the DISD Blog, Matthew Haag posted a memo Dallas Independent School District sent to district employees Friday, in which the super warned: The state’s mammoth budget shortfall could result in “a staggering $180-$200 million” being excised from the district’s budget during the next two years…
Yesterday ESPN and Texas agree to a 20-year, $300 million deal to launch a 24-hour Longhorn network in September. Planned programming includes sports, original series, studio shows, historical programming and academic and cultural events. More precisely ESPN/UT hopes to televise at least one exclusive football game, eight men’s basketball games,…
Something I thought I’d never write in 2011: Todd Dodge is the new quarterbacks coach at Pitt. By now I figured Dodge — who ascended from historic success at Southlake Carroll High School to a gig at North Texas — would be choosing from primo Division I jobs in the wake of…
This morning, the D.C.-based Food Research and Action Center released a report — School Breakfast in America’s Big Cities 2011 — that takes a look at the free-breakfast programs in 29 of the nation’s largest school districts, including the Dallas Independent School District. Says the study, during the ’09-’10 school…
Back to the Dallas Independent School District trustees’ to-do list for Thursday …Like I said, lots of interesting stuff there, beginning at the top of the briefing agenda: “Discussion of 2010-2011 Repurposing Plans for Academically Unacceptable (AU4) Schools.” That AU4 refers to schools that have been on the academically unacceptable…
Lots of interesting items to be found on the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees’ briefing agenda for Thursday, and we’ll get to ’em in short order — which is to say, in the order the phone calls are returned on the myriad subjects of interest. But let’s begin…
Tony Fiorillo curates the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science’s paleontology collection, and he’s spent every summer since 1998 in Alaska, studying dinosaurs’ tracks and bones. It wasn’t till last year that he seriously considered all their crap. Fiorillo’s also an adjunct professor at SMU, and his work’s been featured…
A fellow Thomas Jefferson High School grad forwards along this brief interview KERA-FM’s Bill Zeeble did with former Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Linus Wright, who’s now one of Governor Rick Perry’s appointees to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas’s board of trustees. In the clip, Wright suggests that when…
A subscription-only piece in the Bond Buyer this morning directs our attention to S.B. 272, which was introduced December 17 by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, a D from Laredo. The proposed legislation would authorize the issuance of $3.2 billion in tuition-backed revenue bonds to fund what Zaffirini calls in a…
Here you’ll find a list of how many slots are available at each of the Dallas Independent School District’s elementary vanguards, middle-school academies and magnet high schools for the 2011-’21 school year. Might wanna glance at it, hard, if you’re trying to get the wee one into one of the…
While they were busy voting not to extend their term lengths last Thursday, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees also made the call to extend the district’s partnership with Teach for America, on the heels of the glowing review they heard of TFA’s first year-and-a-half here so far…
Back in August we sneak-peeked the Dallas Independent School District’s new-n-improved school menus, which offer a few more healthier alternatives than in recent years. But the district has long said this is just the beginning of the beginning, pointing to the passage of the $4.5-billion Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of…
Texas Comptroller Susan Combs was at the University of Texas at Dallas today, where she unveiled the state’s Financial Allocation Study for Texas website, which measures how well the state’s school district’s spend their dough. Dallas ISD only got two stars out of a possible five on the overall chart,…
