Students head back to school across North Texas
DALLAS - It’s opening day for most schools across North Texas. In the Dallas ISD alone that means more than 160,000 are heading back to class.
In Dallas, two new schools are opening. Jose “Joe” May Elementary in Northwest Dallas is opening for the first time for Pre-K through fifth graders.
“It’s a great building. There’s a lot of architectural features in the building. The resources, the technology is amazing and the kids are going to just be in awe when they walk in the building,” said Principal Isreal Rivera.
Also, the former Bonham Elementary in East Dallas has been transformed into a STEAM school for girls. Solar Preparatory School for Girls will accommodate kindergarten through second grade this year, but will eventually expand through eighth grade. The idea is to enable girls to succeed in fields where they have traditionally been under represented.
Fort Worth ISD is celebrating the year with two new schools that will allow students to see outside. The classrooms at Washington Heights Elementary and Van Zandt Guinn Elementary used to be completely under the ground surface. The new Van Zandt Guinn campus will open in January.
The district is also boasting 38 new Pre-K classrooms at eight of its elementary schools and 51 new general classrooms at six schools.
“It’s a little chaotic. We have lots of crying kids who have never left their moms and dads. And moms and dads are sometimes the ones crying and the kids are eager to go,” said Rosemarie Maginsky, a Pre-K teacher at Richard J. Wilson Elementary in Fort Worth.
A new Aviation Maintenance Center is being dedicated at Dunbar High School Friday and the new Westpark Elementary School in Benbrook is replacing the existing Westpark, which is becoming part of the middle school.
The fastest growing district in Texas is opening four new campuses. Frisco ISD opens a high school, middle school and two elementary schools. The district ended last year with 53,000 students and expects to start the day with another 3,000.
It’s more than just a new school year in the Red Oak ISD. It’s the first day students are returning to Shields Elementary after it was severely damaged by a tornado.
The campus is reopening after extensive work to repair damage from the December 26 tornado. It was so badly damaged that the students and staff had to move to a vacant junior high school for the spring semester.
About eight months and $13 million dollars later, the campus is now ready.
Similarly, students in West will be returning to new high school and middle schools Wednesday. Three years ago a fertilizer plant exploded in the Central Texas city, destroying the schools and many nearby homes.
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