Today we’d like to introduce you to Dallas CORE.
Dallas CORE, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Dallas CORE (Communities Organizing to Reach Equity) is a group of parents, teachers, students, and community members leveraging the power of organized people from diverse communities to create lasting equitable systems in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for all children. Our goal is to ensure that the people who will experience the impact of decisions are not only in the spaces where decisions are made but get to lead the process. We uplift the voices of real students, families, and communities so that school districts are equipped with our stories to inform how the district operates while providing an additional layer of accountability for district leadership. Our process begins with having conversations and sharing those stories with School Board Trustees and other decision-makers in the district. Over the years, Dallas CORE has been able to impact racial equity, discipline, family engagement, and staff-related policies and practices within Dallas ISD. Dallas CORE is in the process of expanding our impact to Fort Worth ISD and charter schools across DFW so that more students, families, and educators are empowered to create the change they seek to optimize their experiences on school campuses.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are the standard challenges of any policy and practice change. With Dallas CORE, one of the biggest obstacles we have faced is ensuring that the intended impact of our work is the reality of student, family, and staff experience. Sustainable change and course correction are often afterthoughts in education; we attempt to lead with that goal in mind.
As you know, we’re big fans of Dallas CORE. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
Since 2020, Dallas CORE has been actively working towards creating the world as it should be through empowering communities. In 2020, we worked with local organizations and trustees to implement changes to the Dallas ISD Racial Equity policy. In 2021, we utilized relationship building to successfully implement reset centers in Dallas ISD as an alternative to in-school and out-of-school suspension for middle and high school students. In 2022, we mobilized community partners to encourage Dallas ISD Trustees and administrators to not move forward with a Central Reset Center, which had the potential to cause social, academic, and emotional harm to students, especially Black boys within Dallas ISD. Already in 2023, we have collaborated with local organizations to urge Dallas ISD to rethink the structure and operation of the Student Code of Conduct (SCoC) Task Force to be more equitable and more productive. The SCoC Task Force encouraged an increase in transparency and accountability for district leadership in Dallas ISD’s Student Code of Conduct for the 2023-2024 school year. Additionally, Dallas CORE has been a community support to ensure that ending exclusionary discipline became a policy rather than a practice and encouraged an expansion of accountability for middle and high schools with high discipline rates, as well as encouraged more frequent discipline data updates from the Dallas ISD administration to the Board of Trustees. Since its founding, Dallas CORE has become a credible voice within the community, and our ability to inform decision-makers has grown tremendously. We are excited to see how we will continue to ensure our students, families, and educators are taken care of by school districts.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
In order to effectively mobilize a community, it is necessary to have a positive and trusting relationship with decision-makers. Since we are an advocacy organization, we are often viewed as a group that is in opposition to School Board members or other decision-makers in school districts, but we reject this concept. Our goal is collaboration and to enhance community voice, bring missing perspectives, and reinforce accountability for the strong plans school districts already have to provide better support for students and educators. We aim to bridge the gap between policy and practice through ensuring that the experiences of our students, families, and educators are reflected in the policies that inform the practice of equity in school districts.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.equitydallas.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallascore/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dallas.core.team
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dallas-core/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dallascore2
Image Credits
Patty Bates-Ballard