Beliefs in Action

Actions speak louder than words.

Ben is proud to have led or supported:

Putting Kids First

• Instituted monthly, quantitative student outcome results progress monitoring in the 2021-22 School Year which gave the board direct insight into student achievement across the district. Dallas ISD saw enormous growth and recovery from pandemic lows based on the 2022 STAAR scores. (June 2022)

• Piloting of two innovative calendar options - Intersession & School Year Redesign - to help minimize long-term learning impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while building opportunities for more individualization and smaller group settings for students who need it the most. (Jan 2021)

• Dallas ISD’s continued improvement as one of the nation’s fastest improving large, urban school districts. Dallas ISD achieved an overall rating ‘86 - B’ from the State of Texas for 2019-20, up six points from last year. Dallas ISD navigated the pandemic without losing a step, scoring another 86 - ‘B’ in 2022. (Oct 2019 & Aug 2022)

• Adopting first-of-its-kind policy to (1) install cameras in all self-contained Special Education classrooms to ensure student safety and (2) expand parent rights to allow audio recording of their student’s annual ARD discussion. (Feb 2020)

• Passing the ‘Environmental & Climate Resolution’ to review and revise current policies and set goals for reducing our environmental footprint while finding ways to improve efficiency in spending and minimize costs, which has resulted in the passage of major policy overhaul to implement recommendations from this committee. (Feb 2020 & Nov 2021) In the Spring of 2023, this had resulted in 29% decrease in landfill contributions, 42% decrease in water usage, 30% decrease in natural gas usage and a 9% decrease in energy usage. (May 2023)

• Receiving a $7.3 million grant from the federal government to purchase up to 25 electric school buses in alignment with Dallas ISD’s commitment and action plan as it relates to environmental justice and sustainability. (Nov 2022)

• Offering scholarships for Pre-K students who may not qualify for free tuition, but also may not be able to afford tuition, thereby expanding access to early childhood education for families across Dallas. (June 2019)

• Adopting anti-discriminatory student dress code policy that provides increased protections for LGBTQ+ students, as well as explicit protections for students wearing natural hair and natural hair styles. (June 2020)

Respect & Empowerment for Campus Staff

• Over $217.6 million in raises for educators across our system between the 19-20 school year through today, including over $147.1 million for teachers and raises for all other positions across the district. Over the past four years, average teacher salary has increased from $58K to over $70K for more than a 21% increase. (June 2019 - June 2024)

• Raised the minimum wage in Dallas ISD to $16 per hour to ensure our employees are earning a livable wage. (June 2023)

• Exceeding the state, region, and surrounding DFW districts at retaining teachers in the 2020-21 SY, which was the full school year impacted by the pandemic and maintained that trend in 2022. (Dec 2021 & Dec 2022)

• Increasing empowerment and support for campus teachers and administrators, including a measurable, anonymous way to seek feedback on how our campus educators are feeling, explicitly outlined in our district’s Educational Philosophy Policy. (Jan 2020)

• Ensuring that one of the components of the Superintendent’s Evaluation is directly linked to the level of empowerment he provides to campus leaders based on the survey noted in the bullet point above. (Nov 2020)

• Aligning the Superintendent’s Evaluation directly with the goals and constraints of the district where 60% of the evaluation is tied directly to student outcomes and 22% is tied directly to constraints such as racial equity, student experience, staff climate, staff empowerment and financial stewardship. (Dec 2022)

•  Improvements to the teacher evaluation system (TEI) by expanding the number of teachers who can achieve the ‘Distinguished Teacher’ status from non-magnet schools and refining how points are scored on different components of the evaluation system. (Feb 2020)

• Ensuring all Dallas ISD employees maintained their employment and income during the COVID pandemic. (Mar 2020)

• Reduction in PK - 4 class size waivers from November 2019 to November 2020 by 37% from 253 to 158. (Nov 2020)

Racial Equity and Access for All

• Eliminating suspensions as a disciplinary action for low-level offenses and instead creating a place on campus where the student would be sent to receive more individualized socioemotional and academic support, which resulted in 60% reduction in fighting referrals, a 58% reduction in out-of-school placements of students and a 47% reduction in student repeat offenses. (May 2021, June 2022)

• Increasing the percentage of Proficient teachers and above in High Priority Campuses by 30% between 2021 and 2022, which aims to ensure the most effective teachers are in front of the students who need them most. (Nov 2022). Annually monitoring the closing of these gaps each June (June 2023).

• Increased funding for staffing, professional development, social-emotional learning supports, and increased compensation for our top educators to teach and work in our most historically under-served schools. (Jun 2019)

• Implementation of Dallas ISD’s ‘Participatory Budgeting’ pilot program as a process where the students and school community take an active role in determining how the school’s resources are spent. (Oct 2019)

• Creating and utilizing the ‘Community Resource Index’ as a metric which assists Dallas ISD in tilting more resources to the communities in our city which have been most historically dis-invested in over Dallas’s history. (Jan 2020)

• Expansion of the African American studies courses in Dallas ISD, which led to the State Board of Education adopting the African American studies course for all districts across the State of Texas. (Apr 2020)

• Passing the ‘Resolution on the Commitment of Dallas ISD to Black Students and Black Lives’ and subsequent revisions of the Racial Equity Policy AEA(Local), which will resulted in the creation and monthly tracking of progress towards meaningful racial equity goals for Dallas ISD. (June 2020)

• Partnered directly with the City of Dallas to fund the planning for increasing technology infrastructure and access to make sure that every, single student in Dallas ISD has access to high-speed internet (Aug 2020)

• Led a broad coalition of community organizations and trustees to write and pass a revised Racial Equity Policy (AEA - Local) which, amongst other things, requires regular presentations to the board and a public facing dashboard to measure progress towards achieving racial equity. (Nov 2020)

• Name changes for schools named for members of the Confederacy. Specifically, Sidney Lanier Vanguard for the Expressive Arts will become the Jesús Moroles Vanguard for the Expressive Arts and John H. Reagan Elementary will become Bishop Arts STEAM Academy. (Mar 2021)

• Amendments to board policy BDF(Local) which pertains to advisory committees. The change replaces the word “citizen” with “resident,” opening the doors for non-citizen residents of Dallas to serve on board advisory committees. (Mar 2021)

Strong Financial Stewardship

• Decreasing the local tax rate from $1.41 to $1.30 to $1.248 to $1.185 per $100 of taxable value, thanks to the state legislature’s passing of school financing & tax reform in the 2019 session. With this change, Dallas ISD achieved the lowest legal tax rate possible and could not lower it further, even if we wanted to. (Aug 2019, Aug 2020, Aug 2021, Aug 2022)

• Adopting a 10-year energy contract that made Dallas ISD the first major district in the nation with a fully renewable energy contract, which also saved the district more than $1 million every year. (May 2022)

• Overhauling CL(Local) board policy in alignment with the recommendations from our Environmental & Sustainability Council, which resulted in Dallas ISD prioritizing (1) renewable energy contracts, (2) improved water & energy use efficiency practices, (3) tree canopy coverage goals, and (4) a drive towards LEED-ready buildings. (Nov 2021)

• Ensuring Dallas ISD receives a stellar “very strong” rating during our annual audit, with no issues identified by the outside auditing firm. (Nov 2021)

• Dallas ISD’s financial management practices which saw our bond rating improve to AA+ (Dec 2019)

•  “Joint Project Funding” as a funding mechanism which improves collaboration between governmental entities to improve effectiveness while lowering risk (Jan 2020)

•  Overhauling our district purchasing policies to close loopholes and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our procurement policies, as the chair of the Procurement Committee. (Feb 2020)

Traditional Public School Districts

• Passage of the ‘School Closure Resolution’ which outlines a thorough, community-oriented process that addresses equity before ever taking the last-resort step of a school closure. (Mar 2020)

• Invest in neighborhood schools such as Hogg Elementary by ensuring usage of available funding for necessary, physical improvements to the campus and grounds. (Aug 2020)

If you support these beliefs in action, join us.