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two newest educational attributes: dual language and International Baccalaureate.

On their own, these two programs are titillating to educated, middle-class Dallas families. Together, they form a kind of educational pièce de résistance. And in our neighborhood, fore with a different executive director and a different principal, and really got nowhere,” says Roxanne Cheek, Lipscomb’s current principal. “This a huge victory for the neighborhood to see Lipscomb as a viable option.” not just Lee but also William Lipscomb Elementary in Old East Dallas will offer both programs starting this fall.

Families in the Junius Heights, Munger Place and Swiss Avenue neighborhoods organized under the Old East Dallas Early Childhood PTA in 2008, as parents of young children began returning to these areas. These families have been successful in campaigning for changes at Lipscomb. Cheek, who became Lipscomb’s principal in fall 2013, credits parents for the school’s new direction along with Tracie Fraley, executive director of Woodrow Wilson High School and the schools that feed into it, including Lee and Lipscomb.

Dual language at both schools began years ago with neighborhood parents making the case. Roughly one-fourth of Lee’s students and one-half of Lipscomb’s are native Spanish speakers, allowing for two-way dual language classes in which a combination of native Spanish and English speakers learns material in both languages. Studies show the positive benefits of such learning, parents argued, so why not make it happen?

At Lee, the program came to fruition in fall 2013 with a single kindergarten class. They are entering second-grade together this fall, with first-graders and new crop of kindergartners on their heels. At Lipscomb, the inaugural two-way dual language kindergarten class launches this fall.

“Parents had approached these topics be-

With Lee and Lipscomb offering both dual language classrooms and IB programs, it creates a continuum for students when they move on to J.L. Long Middle School and to Woodrow, both IB schools with dual language offerings. It also gives families two more “choice schools,” Cheek says, part of Fraley’s vision to make all of Woodrow and Long’s elementary schools desirable to neighborhood parents, and allow them to make a choice that fits their family. Lee and Lipscomb both have room for transfer students; Cheek says she received applications from 10 to 20 based on the IB program, and another 10 to 15 who are coming to Lipscomb from Spanish House Immersion School.

East Dallas families are more familiar than most with IB because of its implementation and surrounding buzz at Long and Woodrow. Still, the overall idea of creating “global thinkers, global learners” is a bit esoteric, and even if a rigorous IB diploma track at secondary schools makes sense, boiling that down to an elementary level can be mind-bending.

The misconception, Cheek says, is that because it’s “international,” students are learning about the world.

“It’s not just, ‘We’re going to learn about Africa today,’ ” Cheek says, though Africa may work its way into the curriculum. “The big difference between ‘normal’ or ‘traditional’ elementary schools is that everything is transdisciplinary. We’re always trying to find ways to connect and integrate curriculum.”

IB for elementary students is not about the content being taught; it’s about learning those things in context. For example, second-grade students might study what makes up a community, looking at the difference between rural, urban and suburban communities (social studies), graphing those differences (math), asking how different organisms depend on a community (science) or how the environment impacts our settlement patterns (science and social studies) and then journaling or writing a song about it (language arts) or looking up questions on an iPad (technology) and so on — all while focusing on a single topic.

“This is going against the grain. People in schools are so prone to go straight to that standardized testing,” Cheek says. “We’re saying this is going to be more beneficial than isolating the learning.

“These are things all teachers want to teach because they’re meaningful. This is the real world.”

In addition, IB adds a foreign language class to each school’s elective rotations, adding it to music, physical education and the like. Similarly, French and Mandarin coursework is, or soon will be, part of Long and Woodrow’s IB curriculum. At Lee, students will learn French, and at Lipscomb, they considered Mandarin, but the community felt that Spanish would be a better option; that way even students not in enrolled in the dual language program would build a bilingual foundation.

Parents are still a bit unclear on what exactly IB looks like but seem excited about the changes.

“We’re talking about more than knowing things just for knowing things’ sake,” says Chris Widell, a Lee dad, at the recent Blind Butcher social hour.

“It’s more real,” echoed fellow dad Luke Rice, “and it’s explicitly community minded. It applies to all the kids at the school but also to the families. More parental involvement is encouraged and expected.”

And that’s the icing on the IB cake for families who have spent years working to build their school communities.

Danielle Petters spent seven years as principal of J.L. Long Middle School before announcing this summer that she would become principal at Dallas ISD’s Spruce High School in Pleasant Grove. She will be its fourth principal in four years. Her hallmark achievement at Long is no doubt the school’s International Baccalaureate (IB) designation in 2014. Before exiting the East Dallas stage, Petters talked to us about what changed during her tenure at Long, and what is left to accomplish.

Choice: Personalized learning at Dan D. Rogers A ‘one size fits one’ approach

This year at Dan D. Rogers Elementary School on Abrams and Lovers, students will be given the freedom to learn at their own pace.

Rogers is one of Dallas ISD’s six new “choice schools,” converting its traditional elementary to a “personalized learning” campus. What that looks like, says principal Lisa Lovato, is a classroom full of children hard at work but not on the same thing at the same time.

“It allows kids to be comfortable in their learning and not feel bad about where they are,” Lovato says. “Since we have 16 languages and, I would say, very distinct tiers as far as where the kids are, we’re going to be able to better meet their needs.”

Each classroom will have various stations — a teacher might be working with a handful of students at one station while another four or five students work on iPads or laptops at a technology station. In another spot, students can partner up on projects or work independently. Teachers monitor each student’s progress and tailor projects to their instructional needs.

Rogers piloted the approach last year and saw “a lot more independence in students and more accountability in their learning as well,” Lovato says. “Once they’re invested, we see them being more driven in wanting to succeed.”

It’s a “one size fits one,” approach, says Ashley Bryan, Dallas ISD’s director of special projects. Lovato’s team at Rogers was one of

36 chosen by the district in its initial call for choice school applications, which eventually winnowed down to six schools. As part of its selection, Rogers is receiving its share of the $2.6 million Gates Foundation grants, doled out to the Dallas ISD campuses on top of their general budgets.

The money allows the school to purchase 10 student devices per classroom, in addition to roughly five stationary computers. It also supports a project-based learning coach and a personalized learning coordinator to help as new programs get off the ground.

Eventually, Lovato says, Rogers wants to move into mixed-age groupings based on students’ progress. The school has roughly 125 transfer students from refugee-populated Vickery Meadow, so standards and learning are all over the map, quite literally, depending on the countries from which students hail. Personalized learning allows Rogers to catch up these students while simultaneously challenging its talented and gifted students.

Though Rogers is popular with transfer families, Lovato notes that Rogers isn’t well-attended by children in its own neighborhood, but “I’m getting a lot more interest from the neighborhood than I have in a while,” she says.

Within the next five years, Dallas ISD hopes to create at least 35 choice schools, and many of them will be like Rogers — neighborhood schools that change their educational approach. The schools will primarily serve their attendance areas and also welcome transfers as they have room, which is good, Lovato says, “so that not everybody feels like they have to transfer to a magnet school.”