Pre-K student Amandra Perez, 3, points to her school while walking with dad Armando Perez before the first day of school at John Quincy Adams Elementary in Dallas on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
The sun still hung low in the sky Tuesday morning when Armando Pérez and Alejandra del Muro walked their three kids up to John Quincy Adams Elementary School in Dallas.
The family arrived at about 7:20 a.m., a few minutes before the Pleasant Grove school opened its doors. They were early in more ways than one: their three kids, Alejandra, Armando and Amandra Pérez, started school two weeks before most other kids in Dallas ISD.
John Q. Adams is one of 20 campuses where district leaders brought students back to class early to allow them to get a head start on the school year. The early start is a part of a state program that allows districts to extend their school years with an eye toward helping struggling students catch up.
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At first, the kids were sad about the idea of their summer ending early, del Muro said through a translator. But as school grew near, they started to get more excited. She and Pérez explained to the kids that ending summer break early would help them learn more and improve their test scores.
That’s the result Dallas ISD leaders hope to see, as well. The early start program is designed to give students a chance to brush up on material they learned last year before the school year starts in earnest.
Dallas ISD starts school early at 20 campuses
As her mom and dad walked her to the school gym Tuesday morning, Alejandra Pérez, 10, said she was excited to be back. Alejandra starts fifth grade this year, the last grade before she moves to middle school. She was excited about meeting her teachers and getting started on the first day. She knew fun activities were planned for the first two weeks, but she hadn’t heard details yet.
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Students at campuses won’t get down to the business of school right away. The early days will be a mix of reading and math instruction, as well as fun activities designed to help students build relationships with their classmates.
Students will also go to school on five Saturdays interspersed throughout the school year. On those days, activities will center around fun themes like gaming, sports and superheroes.
Besides John Q. Adams, 12 other elementary schools are included in the program: Lee McShan Jr., Lida Hooe, John Neely Bryan, J.N. Ervin, José “Joe” May, Julian T. Saldivar, Harrell Budd, Birdie Alexander, Frank Guzick, and Ronald E. McNair elementary schools; H.S. Thompson STEAM Academy; and Marcus Leadership Academy. The middle schools included are T.W. Browne, Hector P. Garcia, Sam Tasby, Harold Wendell Lang Sr., and Boude Storey middle schools; Royce West Leadership Academy; and Young Men’s Leadership Academy at Fred F. Florence.
District officials selected the 13 elementary schools based on test scores and poverty levels in the neighborhoods they serve. The principals of the seven participating middle schools opted into the program.
During a June 11 board briefing, Tiffany Huitt, Dallas ISD’s chief of school leadership, said the program is designed to reduce the academic declines students see over the summer. Every summer, students nationwide lose a certain amount of the skills and knowledge they learned during the previous school year. District leaders hope the extra days will give them a chance to brush up on areas where they’re rusty, she said.
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Eloisa Badillo walks with her daughter Emilia González, 10, to the entrance of John Quincy Adams Elementary. John Q. Adams is one of 20 schools where Dallas ISD is bringing students back two weeks early.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
At about 7:30, Emilia Gonzalez walked up the sidewalk in front of John Quincy Adams with her mom, Eloisa Badillo. Emilia wasn’t thrilled to start the school two weeks early. She spent much of the summer in the water, she said, and she wasn’t happy about seeing it come to an end.
Badillo said she liked that kids at the school were getting back to learning earlier. A shorter summer also means less time that she has to worry about childcare while she’s at work, she said.
A few minutes later, Edgar Alva and Vanessa Balderrama walked up with their four-year-old son, Emiliano, who was starting his second year of pre-K. As other students around him cried or protested, Emiliano walked calmly up to a teacher, who led him inside.
Balderrama said they started the transition from summer into a school mentality early. Weeks ago, Alva and Balderrama started talking with him about meeting his new teacher, seeing his friends and getting school supplies ready. At some point, they broke the news that the first day of school was coming up fast.
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“We just casually mentioned that it was going to be earlier this year,” she said. “But it didn’t affect him that much.”
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Early start could curb summer academic declines
Curby Alexander, a professor in the College of Education at Texas Christian University, said bringing students back early can be an effective way of reducing the amount of material they forget over the summer.
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Generally, those losses seem to be bigger at the younger grades, he said. That could be because those skills are less solidified when children are younger, he said.
In some ways, learning is like running or lifting weights, he said: the longer students are away from it, the bigger the decline. So by shortening the summer break, the district may be able to mitigate some of those declines.
Academic declines tend to be most pronounced in reading and math, Alexander said. Mastery of reading requires several skills, including decoding, phonics and word comprehension. All of those skills take repetition, he said, and students may not get as many chances to practice them over the summer. Likewise students may get rusty on how to solve math problems that involve more than one step. Even if they have fully mastered their times tables, students may struggle with more complex questions like multiplication problems that involve more than one digit or reducing fractions, he said.
“Those are all kind of built on baseline skills that, if they’re not practiced, might deteriorate a little bit over the summer,” he said.
Summer learning losses also tend to be more pronounced among students in low-income families, Alexander said. That isn’t because those students are less intelligent than their more affluent peers, he said. It most likely has to do with what those students are doing over the summer, he said. If students spend part of the summer in enrichment programs that keep them engaged with reading and math, it’s possible they lose less ground academically, he said. But students can only take part in those programs if their families can afford to pay for them and a parent or grandparent is available to drive them there every day, he said.
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Pre-K student Cataleya Gutierrez, 3, reaches out to her dad, Gus Gutierrez, before the start of the first day of school at John Quincy Adams Elementary in Dallas on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Hugs, some tears on first day at John Quince Adams Elementary
After the Pérez family had dropped their two oldest kids off at the school gym, they made their way back to the south end of the building to drop off their youngest, Amandra, who is starting her first year of pre-K.
By this point, a steady stream of families were arriving, some in cars and others on foot. Lively music played on a set of outdoor speakers, and teachers and school leaders greeted kids as they walked up.
Some kids looked excited. Others were apprehensive. Still others had to be carried in, literally kicking and screaming. Amandra, wearing a Bluey backpack that was nearly as tall as her, looked unsure. She turned back just long enough to give her dad a hug.
Then, she took her teacher’s hand and walked inside to start the day.
Staff photographer Juan Figueroa contributed to this report.
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