What to know as Dallas ISD welcomes students for first day of school

All summer, 10-year-old Oscar Deck and his 8-year-old sister Lucy have slept in. But on Monday, they were awake and excited at 5:30 a.m.: It was the first day of school at Walnut Hill International Leadership Academy.

“We came to meet the teacher night, and they didn’t want to leave,” Deanna Deck said after dropping her kids off. “That says everything.”

Roughly 140,000 Dallas ISD students are expected to return to the classroom this week.

Here are four things families should know heading into the new school year:

Few staff vacancies in DISD

Last summer, Texas’ back-to-school season was defined by a scramble to find enough teachers to staff every classroom. An educator shortage meant principals had to plug holes with substitutes or increase class sizes.

In Dallas ISD, the tide appears to be turning. Officials received huge numbers of applications and filled most positions.

The district is starting the year with about 70 teacher vacancies out of its roughly 10,000 slots, Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said Monday. Principals made alternate plans for those classrooms still without, including finding long-term substitutes.

“Our goal today was for every single student to have a certified teacher in their classroom,” Elizalde said.

No more ‘teaching to the test’

Elizalde said families can expect fewer “unnecessary” standardized tests this school year as she’s pledged to put an end to “teaching to the test” in Dallas ISD.

“That means basically that, without actually adding school days to the year, we have added instructional days to the year,” she said. “No more practicing the practice test.”

Students will do more hands-on, project-based learning, she said, and move away from worksheets and fill-in-the-blanks.

Keeping Dallas students safe

When students arrived on the first day, not all elementaries had a security officer on campus — despite a new state law that will soon require armed personnel at every public school.

DISD won’t be able to meet the mandate because the Dallas area — like many nationwide — doesn’t have enough police officers available for hire. The city’s own department is already short-staffed.

“If all we do is try to outpay Dallas PD, then where would we be removing officers from? Our entire community,” Elizalde said. “That’s an unintended consequence that no one’s thought of.”

As part of an alternate plan, DISD’s police force will deploy officers who are in supervisory positions to patrol areas around elementary schools. Secondary schools have long been staffed with resource officers.

“We know our response times can be under five minutes in the event of an emergency, if not even sooner than that,” Elizalde said.

But she cautioned that “safety is way more than a gun on someone’s hip.”

The new law is Texas’ response to the Uvalde school shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. However, hundreds of armed law enforcement responded to the school but failed to confront the gunman for more than an hour.

Elizalde said the best way to keep students and staff safe is to be proactive.

The district will this year require clear or mesh backpacks for all students in kindergarten through high school.

The Deck children brought their clear bags to school on Monday. Each was personalized by the trim — pink for Lucy, orange for Oscar.

Deanna Deck said she’s fine with the new security precaution.

“It’s nothing for us to have a clear backpack,” she said. “No skin off our teeth.”

School choice

A major political fight this year centers on whether Texas should allow public dollars to go toward private school tuition. School leaders such as Elizalde decried the proposal touted by Gov. Greg Abbott.

No voucher-like program made it across the finish line during the spring’s regular legislative session, but Abbott is likely to call a special session this fall to reignite the issue.

On Monday, Elizalde touted choices that exist within the public school system. DISD has magnets, career academies and dual-language programs throughout the city. During a first-day tour of Walnut Hill International, she observed a group of eighth-graders learning Mandarin.

“You get a private school education at a public school price,” she said.

The Decks live a couple of blocks away from campus. Many families in the area send their children to private schools.

At the neighborhood Fourth of July party, Deanna Deck said, she went up to parents to ask them whether they’d heard about Walnut Hill. She thinks it’s important to support the local public school.

“It will have an upward spiral of success,” she said.

Principal Philip Meaker said roughly 500 children are enrolled this year — about 100 more than last year, the campus’ first after a major rebuild and rebrand. That’s still under capacity, but Meaker expects to grow more every year.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.