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As the nation's eleventh largest school district, Dallas Independent School District serves more than 160,000 students who come from homes where 58 different languages are spoken.  Operating with a $1 billion dollar budget, DISD employs 18,613 employees including 10,000 teachers in 220 schools.

DISD Superintendent: Never Be Satisfied

15 Aug 2001

DISD SUPERINTENDENT: 'WE SHOULD NEVER BE SATISFIED, STAY FOCUSED ON INCREASING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT'

Moses Visits Two Elementary Schools On Opening day

DALLAS—DISD General Superintendent Mike Moses began the 2001-02 school year with visits to two elementary schools Wednesday morning and urged teachers and students to work hard this year to make further improvements and to never be satisfied with the progress that's been made.

During a televised interview, Moses said that while improvements have been made in the past year to make DISD schools better, "we're not where we want to be yet."

"We try to get better every day. We've taken some steps to try to improve test scores, reduce the number of low-performing schools, not raise taxes this year, give our teachers a raise, try to cut some non-teaching positions, about $2.5 million worth, try to take some steps that we hope will engender some confidence in our community in what we are trying to do in the district," Moses said.

When asked about the progress that's been made in the district, Moses said he would give the system a grade of "B" or "B+."

"I give the district a ..., I think a "B" maybe a 'B+' but we're not where we need to be," Moses said. "We should never be satisfied. We've made some improvement in terms of student achievement. I hope we've helped our teachers and supported them. We've also tried to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we're getting ready to try to improve our facilities. But we still have to be a district that is seeking continuous improvement. We can't ever be satisfied with where we are."

Moses said that efforts to show the public about the situations affecting district facilities must continue, but the focus needs to continue to be on student achievement.

"We do have 37,000 kids in 1,950 portable buildings, (but) I think what this community expects us to do is focus on student achievement, results—getting students to perform better. We were able to do that last spring. We've got to do it again. We've got to continue to show growth and improvement for every student, every school.

Moses said the message he would like to convey to students and teachers on the first day of school is that, "We've got great young people in Dallas, but we should expect more of ourselves. We don't need to be just another urban school district. We need to be a district that is setting the bar higher in terms of expectations for ourselves, and for our students. I think we want to develop an atmosphere that says 'achievement is important, pride is important, the way we handle ourselves, the way we bring ourselves to our jobs, as teachers and young people, to the job of learning. It's important. It's an atmosphere we're all trying to establish.'"

Moses made morning visits to Nathan Adams Elementary and Joseph J. Rhoads Learning Center.