Dallas Public Schools: A Love Letter

Photo: Bethany Erickson

In a news cycle that only lends itself to the worst and the very best of public education in Dallas, we rarely hear of the experience of the non-Harvard bound, magnet-school-attending student. Today, I’d like to tell you all about one of those students.

I know this student, Chris, because I’ve fretted and worried and been ecstatic and proud for a whole lot of his Dallas public school  experience. He is the Little Brother to my husband and me. My husband and Chris met through Big Brothers Big Sisters not quite 10 years ago, and when my husband and I began dating, Chris became my family, too. One of Tiny’s first visitors was Uncle Chris, who read him a book in the hospital. Uncle Chris is one of Tiny’s favorite people, too.

Tonight, what I like to call an ongoing miracle will happen. When he was five, Chris was hit by a car, causing some brain trauma. He struggled in elementary school to read at grade level. But teachers at Gooch Elementary didn’t write him off but instead worked to get him the help he needed and the encouragement required to do hard work. When he went on to Walker Middle School, teachers and counselors there picked up the baton ably, too.

But it was W.T. White High that gave him his chance to shine. When I met Chris, college was this nebulous idea that left him – you could just tell – a little incredulous. But those teachers and counselors saw his interests, encouraged him to follow them, and he is emerging a young man who will not only be the first person in his family to graduate high school, but also a young man determined to be the first person in his family to graduate from college.

Yes, having mentors and family who supported these goals was important. But we were cheerleaders. The coaches? The coaches were every single DISD employee that touched Chris’ life between the time he entered through the double doors at Gooch Elementary and now, when he crosses that stage tonight to receive his diploma after making all A’s and B’s this semester. Those were the people that saw his situation and potential and saw his strengths and weaknesses, and taught him how to use both.

They’re the ones that firmly cemented in his mind that yes, he could go to college. He has the smarts and the drive, and thanks to them, the confidence, too.

These are the normal, everyday, non-sexy stories of your local public schools. No, it’s not a fighting school board and superintendent or a recruiting scandal or the first graduating class from a new magnet school (not that all those things aren’t important), but the quiet daily difference these unsung heroes in our children’s lives make is worthy of a ticker tape parade. In other schools, maybe he would have never read at grade level, that’s true. And that is why efforts to make sure every Chris that walks through the double doors of a DISD elementary school is able to read at grade level when they walk back out and move to middle school are important. And that is why efforts to hold adults who don’t make this a priority accountable are equally important. We can’t fail all these children.

Because four-year-old boys who have 7 p.m. bedtimes and graduation ceremonies don’t mix, I’ll be watching the W.T. White graduation from my couch while my husband attends, so he can watch the next step in something that makes me teary eyed to talk about – I’m that proud – of Chris. And because I know how much hard work was poured into Chris’ education, I can also say this with a certainty: He’s not the only miracle crossing that stage tonight.

So congratulations, Class of 2015, and all the important people in your lives that helped you cross that stage tonight. And Chris, we are so stinking proud of you.