North Texas superintendents lay out priorities for school year

DALLAS COUNTY, Texas — As college students head again to school throughout North Texas, a handful of the districts are beneath new management.

Last school year, 10 North Texas superintendents introduced plans to depart their positions. Most of these districts have already chosen superintendents who will lead them into the 2022-2023 school year. 

RELATED: Superintendent openings: Which ones are open or stuffed in North Texas?

After serving as an administrator for Dallas ISD for 10 years, Dr. Usamah Rodgers will lead DeSoto ISD. 

Dallas ISD’s new superintendent, Dr. Stephanie Elizalde, was previously the superintendent for Austin ISD however spent almost a decade in administration in Dallas previous to working in Austin. 

Tabitha Branum served as interim superintendent from Richardson ISD final school year and has labored as an assistant and deputy superintendent within the district for eight years. 

All three superintendents shared that security and safety are the highest focus going into the school year. While preserving college students secure is at all times a precedence. The tragic mass elementary school capturing in Uvalde on the finish of final school year brings security ever extra into focus. 

“There’s a lot new because the state has required it,” Dr. Rodgers stated. “We’ve numbered all of our doorways. We’ve checked all of our doorways. We’ve had joint conferences with the City of DeSoto Police Department and the City of Glen Heights.”

All three stated their districts have been already implementing quite a lot of security measures on the brand new record of requirements from Texas Education Agency. 

“We’ve installed a new software program that will alert our front office if there’s an exterior door that is open,” Branum stated. 

Dallas ISD already had steel detectors in any respect of its secondary campuses. Dr. Elizalde stated the district spent some huge cash and time this summer time ensuring they’re up-to-date and in a position to serve their full function this year. 

“We made certain that we’re upgrading the methods. That we’re calibrating it. That we now have folks skilled,” Dr. Elizalde stated. 

She stated she has one objective for security and safety. 

“That we don’t have any horrific, catastrophic safety security situations happen at all. It should be zero. It’s not lost on me that it can happen in a moment,” Dr. Elizalde stated.

After two years of navigating studying a pandemic, districts across the state are grappling with getting college students caught up. 

“What we realized is that digital studying isn’t what’s finest for our college students, and them being again on campus in lecture rooms elevated studying,” Dr. Rodgers stated. 

When it involves the place the best gaps exist, all three superintendents pointed to areas the place studying is usually extra interactive and constructed on particular, hyper-focused educating. 

“It was with our pre-k 2 students and early literacy,” Dr. Rodgers stated. “For upper students, it was math and those hard sciences.”

Branum and Dr. Elizalde additionally recognized math and science as areas for development. 

“We’re working not to use the words ‘learning loss,'” Dr. Elizalde said. “You can’t lose what you never had, so what we have is we have learning gaps because we didn’t provide that instruction to our students during certain periods of time.”

All three superintendents stated they’re very centered on acceleration and are feeling assured after watching quick development, significantly in studying, throughout the second half of final school year. 

“We deployed a math and studying interventionist at each one in all our elementary campuses, and their jobs have been to have a laser-like give attention to figuring out the place a pupil hole was, offering further time, small group instruction and alternatives for that pupil to observe these expertise to get them to mastery,” Branum stated. 

A significant technique in sustaining tutorial achievement for all of the districts is retaining high quality teachers- a battle for districts throughout the state. 

“There’s not enough teachers coming into the pipeline, and then we have teachers that are leaving at an alarming rate,” Branum stated. 

While she known as trainer retention a “struggle” for Richardson ISD, Branum stated the district is heading into the school year in a superb place. 

“We’re going to have a high-quality particular person in each one in all our lecture rooms on Aug. 16 in order that our focus could be on pupil studying,” Branum stated. 

Dr. Elizalde stated Dallas ISD is about 98% staffed. 

“Our reality still is, if it’s my child’s classroom that doesn’t have a teacher, that statistic doesn’t really mean anything to me,” Dr. Elizalde stated. 

She stated licensed central workplace workers are being deployed, by their selection, to fill within the classroom gaps that stay so that each classroom has a professional trainer in place. 

Dr. Rodgers stated DeSoto ISD is about 90% staffed and that whereas the district is actively looking out for excessive school math and science academics, they have been in a position to rent greater than 100 academics over the summer time. 

“About 50% of our faculty are new or novice teachers, so it’s been a big lift even this summer. I won’t discount that, but the fact that we raised salaries, it created opportunity for a lot of teachers to return home to DeSoto ISD,” Dr. Rodgers stated. 

She stated they realized there have been many certified educators dwelling within the district who weren’t working for DeSoto ISD due to the pay. She known as the school board brave for shifting to boost trainer salaries this year. 

“We had to cut things, and we had to make the adjustments, but we say our priority is to put the students first and the way that we ensure that our students have a high-quality education is that they have a highly competent and qualified educator in front of them,” Dr. Rodgers stated. “You put your money where your mouth is.”

Dr. Elizalde additionally applauded Dallas’ board for elevating trainer salaries lately, beneath former superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa. 

DeSoto ISD will begin the school year with a masks mandate in place for college students, school and guests in any respect of its amenities.

“We will be masked because that is something the board has mandated, and there hasn’t been a change,” Dr. Rodgers stated. “Until there is a change in that mandate, we will be in masks.”

Dr. Rodgers stated the hope is that masking will stop any surges on campuses so college students can safely stay within the classroom for in-person studying. 

While all three districts carried out masks mandates sooner or later final school year, regardless of an order from Governor Greg Abbott prohibiting them, Dallas and Richardson are holding off on district masks mandates. However, they are not utterly off the desk. Both Dr. Elizalde and Branum stated they are going to be dealt with on a campus-by-campus foundation. 

“I’m going to continue to probably always follow the experts’ advice,” Dr. Elizalde said. “We’re going to really hope that it goes along with what some of our legislators are hoping we do. At the end of the day, we are responsible for the health and well-being of every single member of our team. Staff and students.”

Richardson ISD has its framework posted on-line. It lays out what threshold the district and particular person campuses must cross for completely different protocols, together with masks. 

“If we identify a campus that has a certain level of transmission of COVID, then we know that further protocols would be implemented at that campus,” Branum stated. 

The districts may also maintain and keep their COVID-19 dashboards, mother and father can monitor instances at their kid’s school and district-wide. 

When it involves particular objectives for the year, all three are actually centered on security, tutorial acceleration and group satisfaction.

“Our objectives be sure that our college students are secure. To be sure that our college students are studying. And to make sure that our group is actually happy with the work we do every day,” Dr. Rodgers stated. 

Branum shared an identical sentiment, with a heavy give attention to getting suggestions from the group and workers to ensure they’re getting what they want from the district. 

“How can we respect? How can we raise up our academics, So that they need to stick with us and so that’s not a gap that we’re filling for the 23-24 school year,” Branum stated. 

Dr. Elizalde stated it is time to give educators an opportunity to breathe, give necessary suggestions and give attention to what’s necessary after a really distracting two years. 

“Circling back to the reasons we exist,” Dr. Elizalde stated. “At the top of the day, regardless of what’s going on, we exist to make sure that we create our leaders of tomorrow via excessive tutorial achievement and thru social and emotional studying.”

WFAA requested interviews with the brand new superintendents from Dallas, DeSoto, Richardson, Plano and the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School Districts. HEB’s communications division stated the district’s new superintendent, Joe Harrington, didn’t have time for an interview main as much as the beginning of school. Plano ISD didn’t reply.