And his name is Alan King. My mom’ll be thrilled — she’s a big fan of the late comic. Ah, wait. Wrong one, of course. No, this is the current deputy superintendent of the Lewisville Independent School District, who replaces the headin’-back-to-Austin Larry Throm. Before he was up in Lewisville,…
Before the first bell rings this morning, this inspirational moment … Perhaps you recall: Back in October, 16-year-old Amy Chyao, a junior at Plano’s Williams High School, was among the whiz kids invited to the White House to show-and-tell their science projects to President Obama. Chyao’s science project involved eradicating…
Speaking of historic landmarks …For more than a year, the Dallas Independent School District has been fighting the Landmark Commission to keep Adamson High School from being designated as a city landmark — so much so that in September ’09, the board passed a resolution that said, in part, “any…
We already know where Dallas Independent School District trustee Carla Ranger stands on extending DISD trustees’ terms from three years to four. (She’s very against it.) But moments ago, as the board finally got ’round to discussing the subject, District 9 trustee Bernadette Nutall made her case against extending the…
Last week we noted: Tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. at Dallas Independent School District HQ, the school board’s set to hear how the public feels about extending trustees’ terms from three to four years. You got something to say on the subject, now’s the time to sign up — deadline’s 5…
It’s déjà vu all over again as, once more, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees is set to take up the issue of giving a raise to its chief academic officer. That’s only the third time in less than two years this issue’s come up. Perhaps you call…
Four months back, Dallas Independent School District trustee Carla Ranger directed our attention to a a study by UT-Austin Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Planning Julian Vasquez Heilig that questioned whether Highland Park High School grad Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America was the success story it claims. Ranger also…
Remember two years ago, when there was all that ruckus over Dallas Independent School District trustees trying to extend their terms — from three years to four? But a single trustee said: No way, no how. (Right — it was Carla Ranger.) And remember how, in April 2009, Texas Attorney…
When we first looked at the Dallas Independent School District’s proposed anti-bullying policy one month ago, it was a brief two-page document intended, as trustee Edwin Flores said at the time, to be more “comprehensive” than the existing student code of conduct. But for some, the so-called “Freedom of Bullying”…
The Dallas Bar Association’s eighth annual Community Symposium for Justice in Education is ongoing today at the Belo Mansion, but a break for lunch offered a chance for Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa to share his thoughts on the state of things. The reason the district was in…
Nate Newton has lost almost 200 pounds. His son, Tre, has lost his interest in playing football. Tre, a running back at Texas, decided this week to give up football in part because of numerous concussions. The sophomore missed last week’s loss to Oklahoma State after sustaining a concussion in a loss…
Bike-riding the few blocks to F.P. Caillet Elementary back in the day was certainly no big deal — it certainly wasn’t revolutionary, it certainly wasn’t news. It’s how we got to school. Flash-forward three decades, and our neighborhood — same one in which I grew up — stages a Bike…
Back in February, we took a long, hard look at the 107-year-old Davy Crockett School on Carroll Avenue, a designated city historic landmark since 1993. Long story short: The Dallas Independent School District shipped its students to Ignacio Zaragoza Elementary in ’89, repurposed the building as administrative offices, and, about…
During my 90-minute FOX stopdown last night — still having a hard time getting around to Running Wilde, which is a decided fall-season disappointment — there were copious teases for the 9 p.m. news recap of the James Martin High School lip dub featuring everyone at the ginormous school. Alas,…
Speaking of the Dallas Independent School District …This morning, The New York Times — or, more to the point, The Times via its new-found relationship with the Texas Tribune and, in this instance, a partnership with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University — looks at…
There are countless studies that show children who get a full day of pre-kindergarten fare better than kids who only get partial-day instruction. Take, for instance, this ’06 National Institute for Early Education Research look-see, Is More Better? The Effects of Full-Day vs. Half-Day Preschool on Early School Achievement. (Spoiler…
Earlier this week, Robert wrote about state Rep. Eric Johnson’s October 28 letter to Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, in which Johnson wondered whether the district had exhausted all its options for building a new O.M. Roberts Elementary. Johnson also wondered, by the way, whether the DISD wouldn’t…
On November 20, 2008, only weeks after it came to light the Dallas Independent School District had come up with a sudden shortfall of $64 million, the district hired Austin ISD’s chief financial officer, Larry Throm, as its new moneyman in charge. Said DISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa in a press…
Exactly two months ago, it appeared as though the Dallas Independent School District was backing off its intentions to seize via eminent domain houses in Jubilee Park to make way for a new-and-improved O.M. Roberts Elementary. On August 12, the district informed Pat Berry, owner of Vickery Wholesale Greenhouse, that…
Maybe you’ve heard: Tomorrow the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees will vote on a proposal that will allow district higher-ups — which is to say, employees at the executive director level or higher — to live outside DISD’s boundaries. And, yes, that would even include the superintendent. Per…
Speaking of the Bush Institute …Its new director for education reform, Kerri Briggs, has been on the job for about two weeks now, after abruptly leaving her old job as D.C.’s state superintendent of education — jumping ship from lame-duck mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration almost a month before school chancellor…
I was looking for something entirely unrelated on Flickr yesterday when I stumbled across a cache of illustrations by the great Justin Claus Harder, who counts among his clients Disney, Cartoon Network, The Fray and, once upon a time, something called the Dallas Observer. As it turned out, the artwork’s…
