Dr. Blackburn,
I attended the Dallas Achieves Community Conversation meeting last Thursday at Sunset High School, the school in my feeder pattern.  Dr. Hinojosa was present and gave a good presentation to the large crowd present.
 
During the Q &A I asked if he would approve the posting of a multi-year enrollment by grade spreadsheet, with annual graduation numbers, on the www.dallasisd.org web site. He immediately said yes!  
 
This will be the greatest step forward possible for greater transparency.  One large enrollment by grade spreadsheet for all of Dallas ISD will be great.  Then, if we can have similar spreadsheets included in the scorecards for each school, DISD will have moved ahead of the rest of the nation in the area of transparency.  It will be a very positive change for all of DISD, but initially it will be painful as people realize how many students are missing at graduation. On the positive side it will identify the issue and give concerned citizens a place to follow progress more objectively and publicly!  It will give more people the motivation needed to really fight the dropout trends doing more damage to life in our city than any other single factor.
 
Hopefully we have made another step forward on our way to being the best school district in the nation! Now to actually get the spreadsheets onto the DISD web site.

I was just wondering what code of conduct/ethics, DISD teachers and faculty follow. If a parent feels that the code of conduct is being violated by a teacher, what are the repercussions, and how should a complaint be filed? Thank you for your help.

I was looking through the DISD website under the new bond proposal to build new schools and to make renovations to existing ones. Nothing in the Wilmer-Hutchins area is listed. I'd like to know WHY? I'd also like to know how can the middle school be leased to an outside source while you guys are shipping them to schools over 10 to 15 miles from their neighborhood. The school I'm referring to is Kennedy-Curry Middle School. If it's good enough for them, then why are our children being denied THEIR school that's right in the neighborhood with kids living less than two miles? It's even closer for the Wilmer and Hutchins groups. But I see all the schools YOU attended are being tended to. So I guess from a Highland Park/Highland Hills perspective....If you don't have money and black, you don't count. Yet they have a parking garage to park their parents Bentleys...Benz's...and Land Rovers....while our kids foot it and are denied a place to call home in "Eagleland."

Why aren'y we backing up to what's happening or not happening in the junior highs. We are in our 2nd year of a new principal. Badges aren't reinforced. If you don't know who they are, it's easier to get away with things. We recently had our PTA president take her daughter out due to sexual harrasssment from a student. Code of Conduct booklet given in late Oct. or early Nov. Should of been first week of school. Breaking the Code of Silence...dealing with bullying, etc. and who to go to. Done near Christmas break is a joke. You teach your children what to do and to make good choices, but in Junior High, do they know who to really go to and that something will be addressed. There are tons of programs and parents and then in Junior High, you are left without parents and to figure it out on your own. I am Sick and Tired of fighting for DISD and have my sons friends attending magnets or moving to other districts. Do more for Junior Highs.

As far as Hinojosa...I think he knew more than he let on. Personally seeing how things continue to not get to the Board Members, after asking for them is just A Game. It's every month for however long. Jack plays stupid, Adam hasn't talked but once in 2 years, Edwin is very unprofessional and cocky. Please tell Jack if Carlos disrupts the meeting to the extent you have to stop and let me know he'll be removed the next time....don't tell him 3 more times. Let him know that unless he speaks up and tell the guards to remove him, they will just stand there. Thursday night after the Board meeting, the Riffed Teacher who spoke in the end was mistreated by the guards. I personally reported it the following day. Thank Goodness, more people were not present. It was very Frightening, Unprofessional and hope it will not prevent others from coming, in fear it could happen to them. Hopefully they will be reprimanded.

Oh if your looking for more money...I looked at all Area Superintendents and excluding Castro..only because his salary has remained the same. From 06- 08 the other 7 Area Sup have increased their salaries, roughly 170,000. Robin Ryan in 06 to 07 went from 71,000 to 137,000..insane. I have dealt with Castro, going thruogh the Resolution procedure and other issues and he refuses to go by policy and put anything in writing. I have gone to Michaeux, nothing happens. I see LOTS of games with Olsen. Out to be interesting to see the new budget guy over her department, as it should be. Hinojosa should of at least given up a teacher's salary. Don't trust any of them that sit on the first 2 rows! I'm on several district committees and not always impressed in the quickness of decisions. No logic to look at both sides of the issue. Biggest problem..Teachers know more of the rules and policies than alot of principals, yet they have no voice and continue to be targeted. Teachers don't do what they do for 37 plus years cause they aren't doing it right. Many principals have too must power. There are no due process and fiarness in many cases. It has lead to the downfall of this district. Maybe Hiney thinks he's going to save the day. Teachers will save it. Didn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out, if you give the teachers another period of, someone still has to teach those classes...hint more teachers, more $$. Have the flu and can't concentrate. too many things to bring up and I'm just a parent!! Thanks for the concerns you bring up. It gives a different light on things and they have to hear it. I love the night you signed up as a speaker. You Rock!!

Dr. Blackburn,
Transparency is the first issue to address. Lack of such transparency within DISD is the only way the Dallas Morning news could have written about educational reforms for 2009 and not even mentioned the ongoing dropout crisis. The majority of Dallas 9th graders never graduate with their class! Is there anything that has more to do with causing the Dallas crime & poverty rates than the ongoing 50+% Dallas high school dropout rate?

First we must know the dropout problem. A simple multi-year enrollment by grade spreadsheet for each school available on their school district's page on the www.dallasisd.org web site would provide the transparency needed to motivate change. Such annually updated spreadsheets for all high schools should include the number of diplomas given out each year. These spreadsheets should go back 10+ years. Such spreadsheets would show that you have freshman classes that are cut more than in half by senior year for almost all DISD high schools!

Why does DISD avoid such transparency?

If schools, or the Dallas School District, think that the resulting spreadsheets give misleading dropout rates, they can place footnotes on the web page to correct and explain such perceived errors. Such more objective counts being visible, and in a spreadsheet format with excel copies of the spreadsheets available for download, would certainly be a monumental step forward for transparency. It would make the news!

Such spreadsheets can now be created from school enrollment and graduation information available from the Texas Education Web site, http://www.tea.state.tx.us/adhocrpt/Standard_Reports.html. However, it takes several hours to make such spreadsheets. To have them on the DISD web site would help lessen the misunderstanding and apathy about dropout rates. Initially there may be great anger in Dallas as the truth is known. But in the long run it would help solutions happen that could then be followed and verified on the same annually updated spreadsheets that now would document the ongoing crisis.

Second, DISD staff could be directed to study the School Archive Project that appears to have been a contributor to the 40% drop in 9th to 10th grade attrition at Pinkston and Sunset High Schools, formerly some of the highest dropout rate high schools in DISD. This 4 year old project costs less than $2 per 8th grader and needs to be explored for improvement. It involves 8th graders writing a letter to themselves that they then place into a 350-pound vault bolted to the floor in their middle school lobby knowing they will get them back at their class 10 year reunion. At that reunion they also know they will be invited to speak with then current 8th grade students about their recommendations for success. They are warned to prepare for questions such as "Would you do anything differently if you were 13 again?"

The current improvements from the Archive Project are documented at www.studentmotivation.org.

We must begin motivating our children much more successfully to stay in school! Focusing them onto their own futures is the best and most efficient way to achieve that motivation!

What do you think of these relatively simple ideas: spreadsheets documenting the problem and a time-capsule project to help focus our students onto their own futures and solve the same problem?

It is not too late this school year to get School Archive Projects started at every middle school that is interested in motivating their students. Finding donors was easy for the Archive Project. Our students also love the project! If we move fast, most of the 8th graders in DISD could be able to write letters to themselves to be placed into an archive this year! We must decide that focusing our students onto their own futures is important. Such a change in focus this year could send a ripple of students forward through DISD high schools to being the biggest graduation class in DISD history!