Dallas ISD wants to have zero D and F campuses by next year’s public school ratings.
Dallas students posted significant academic gains this year, with dozens of struggling campuses improving in the 2025 A-F scores. Only 16 campuses received a D or F rating, the lowest count the district has had since the state began issuing campus grades in 2019.
Now DISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde is aiming to bring all of the district’s schools to an A, B or C grade.
She expects to achieve it. In the past year, the number of F-rated schools dropped from 24 to 2, while D-rated schools decreased from 41 to 14.
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That means only 6% of Dallas students attend a campus that received a D or F rating, compared to 26% in 2023 and 24% in 2024.
Having no D and F schools “begins to support that, with the right approach, with the right research strategies, all kids can,” Elizalde said.
“It makes it kind of hard for other school districts to go, ‘Well, our kids can’t because we don’t have enough money, because they’re poor, because they don’t speak English,’” she said. “I hope that the message is that there is hope that if we can do it in Dallas … it starts to make people rethink our deficit philosophy around poverty.”
“Absolutely achievable”
DISD is the second-largest district in the state, with 228 campuses serving nearly 140,000 students, 90% of whom are economically disadvantaged.
A number of North Texas districts, including Highland Park ISD and Carroll ISD, already have zero D and F schools. But those districts have far fewer campuses than DISD and lower rates of low-income students.
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Achieving zero D and F schools would put Dallas ISD on par with its peer districts. Houston ISD, the largest district in Texas, had zero F schools this year, after two years under a state takeover. None of the 96 campuses in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, the state’s third-largest district serving nearly 118,000 students in Harris County, scored lower than a C.
Miguel Solis, president of Commit Partnership and a former DISD trustee, said Dallas’ track record over the past few years suggests that reaching zero D and F schools by next summer is “absolutely achievable.”
Elizalde attributes the district’s success in recent years to long-term investments paying off, investments that include early childhood learning, high-quality instructional materials and the pay-for-performance teacher model known as the Teacher Excellence Initiative.
“We have to continue to ask, ‘How did we get here?’ How is it that 49 schools from the original 65 were able to no longer be a D or F?” Elizalde said. “So we know it’s very possible, and so being able to just look internally, what were the successes for those schools, and ensuring that those are the same things.”
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DISD Board President Joe Carreón said the district’s student outcome goals, which were developed with community input, have helped guide the district’s trajectory. The measurable goals aim to improve students’ state assessment scores and college, career and military readiness.
“Ensuring every student is at a great campus is what this Board strives for and we will get there by remaining fiercely focused on our student outcome goals of increasing achievement in reading, mathematics, and college readiness,” Carreón said in a statement.
Solis also pointed to the success of DISD’s signature turnaround model, formerly called Accelerating Campus Excellence. Since 2015, the district has temporarily provided longer days, extra tutoring and additional student support to chronically struggling schools. The district also offers stipends to encourage Dallas’ best educators to work at and lead those campuses.
District leaders will increase support in, and closely monitor, low-performing schools, as well as any “fragile C” schools that could drop over the next year, Elizalde said.
She plans to ensure those 16 campuses have no teacher vacancies. The district, which employs nearly 10,000 teachers, had 59 vacancies as of the first day of school — the lowest number of unfilled teacher slots DISD has seen since 2014.
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District leaders are also evaluating whether they need to move teachers from other schools to those campuses or add extra support staff, like a counselor or social worker.
A math specialist will be transferred from a high-performing school to Ronald McNair Elementary, which received an F this year. The school showed greater declines in math proficiency, Elizalde said.
A new turnaround model
Many of Dallas’ low-performing schools, which district leaders projected would receive a D or F, were chosen earlier this year for DISD’s new campus turnaround model, the District Support Initiative.
The three-tiered model, which will replace ACE and High Priority Campuses, maintains the district’s signature strategy — flood struggling schools with extra time, money and some of the best teachers in the district — but focuses the resources in fewer schools, district leaders say.
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Low-performing elementary schools, many of which are in high-poverty communities, are DISD’s main focus.
Two D-rated elementary schools, José May Elementary and Julian T. Saldivar Elementary, will be among the nine schools that receive the highest level of support this school year. The campuses will get funding for two literary specialists and one math expert. Students will have access to expanded afterschool sessions, a mentoring book club, a home library program and more.
Highly effective teachers who work at these elementary campuses are eligible for stipends between $4,000 and $12,000.
Boude Storey Middle School, which received an F, as well as five D-rated elementary and middle schools, are among the 32 campuses that get the second-tier of support. Those campuses will receive literary acceleration specialists, math interventionists and performance-based stipends for teachers.
Wilmer-Hutchins High School, which received a D, was one of 12 campuses chosen for the third tier of support, which includes staffing help and stipends for some teachers.
Ronald McNair Elementary, which received an F and was a designated High Priority Campus last year, was not selected for the District Support Initiative in March. Teachers at the school will instead receive a “bridge year stipend,” valued at half of their previous amount.
“McNair wasn’t on our radar at all,” Elizalde said, noting the campus received a B last year.
Solis said he believes Elizalde’s individualized attention on the campuses will be enough to improve their grades.
“When the superintendent is so dialed in to the performance of these campuses, one can only imagine that that additional resource alone is what a school would need to be able to ultimately turn around,” he said. “So any other additional resources that come in on top of that are just going to be a value add.”
The district will need to ensure that the dozens of campuses that improved this school year don’t backslide, Solis said, especially because the accountability system prioritizes academic growth.
“Our students deserve the best in our community. So this isn’t just a Dallas ISD goal,” Solis said. “This is a city of Dallas goal.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.