Eight more Dallas Schools Caught Locking Fire Exits.

A recent brush with catastrophe at DISD's Samuell High School didn't teach several principals elsewhere in town any lessons.


After Samuell students fleeing a blaze found an exit chained shut, local fire officials performed surprise inspections on 31 public high schools. Eight were caught locking fire exits, reports The Dallas Morning News' Diane Rado.

Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, said he was "livid" about the findings and ordered principals to obey the fire code. But what are officials going to do about the crime concerns that led principals to lock doors in the first place?

The eight high schools cited for violations were:



* A. Maceo Smith

* Carter

* Kimball

* Molina

* Pinkston

* Roosevelt

* Skyline

* South Oak Cliff



Please let me know if you get more information about what's going.

Teen Run Over By School Bus Trying To See A Fight...

Loved ones of Richardson teen run over by school bus grieve, seek answers
10:44 AM CST on Friday, February 19, 2010
By MATTHEW HAAG and JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
Anquanette Patterson's family huddled Thursday in a Far North Dallas apartment and struggled to accept that she's gone.
Mother of Richardson student killed by bus shares grief
February 18th, 2010

Mother of Richardson student killed by bus shares grief

Locking mechanisms on school bus under investigation after teen's death

Richardson ISD teen killed in school bus accident

Each story they told and every photo of her they looked at brought more tears a day after the 15-year-old Richardson ISD student died after she jumped from a moving school bus.

"I just really want some closure and know what happened to my child," said Shantell Hood, Anquanette's mom. "I know very little, and it makes it very hard. I don't know what happened."

Bit by bit, through bouts of tears and cries of sadness, Hood and the family are trying to grieve. But it's hard. They are stunned, they said, and have too many unanswered questions.

But family members said they have realized how well-known the J.J. Pearce High School freshman was. Friends trickled in to see the family throughout the day. Hood received flowers from people she didn't even know.

Thursday afternoon, the school's interim principal, Beverly Vance, kneeled in front of Hood in the apartment and clasped her left arm.

"I wish I could say something to make this better right now," Vance told her.

"There are no words."

Fight during trip

The bus did not have video equipment, but Richardson police investigators agree on the outline of events.

 Two boys got into a fight during the trip. When the driver, 73-year-old Eddie Farrell of Garland, stopped the bus, he recognized one of the boys as someone who had lost his bus privileges earlier this school year because of discipline problems.

Both boys were ordered off the bus on West Spring Valley Road, about a half-mile from the regular stops on the route.

Richardson ISD officials said it was not necessarily surprising that a high school student who had been ordered not to ride a bus would be able to get on board. In the swirl of after-school activity, a banned rider might get on a bus without being spotted by school officials or the driver, said district spokesman Tim Clark.

After the boys exited, Farrell, who had driven buses seven years for Dallas County Schools, resumed the ride. Anquanette ran to the front and demanded the driver stop. She pushed on the door and it opened. She fell out and was run over.

Get Richardson news and resources

Her cellphone slipped from her pocket. A student on the bus found it and dialed her mom. Anquanette had been run over, the student told her.

"I knew it wasn't good," Hood said. "My heart just dropped."

Hood said she hopped into her car and drove about a mile to the accident. She arrived as the paramedics were leaving and taking Anquanette to Medical City Dallas Hospital.

She was already dead.

Richardson police detectives are expected to meet with Anquanette's family this afternoon to return her backpack and a white shoe that came off when she was hit.

'I know nothing'

Her mom said she hopes detectives know by then why the bus door opened.

"It's very frustrating because I know nothing," Hood said.

The front door is designed to not open easily but be usable as an emergency exit, Dallas County Schools spokeswoman Deanne Hullender said. If the door is fully closed, a metal guard on the handle must be moved to open the door.

Hullender said she did not know if investigators had determined whether the lock mechanism had been engaged or was working properly or if Anquanette had used the handle to open the door.

The bus was new, and its last and only service was in December. Drivers are expected to inspect them, Hullender said. But drivers expect that students will realize the danger of jumping from a bus when it's moving, she said.

"For the most part, kids understand a moving vehicle is a moving vehicle, and they should remain inside," she said.

Farrell, the bus driver, was placed on administrative leave and did not return calls for comment. Hullender said Farrell had a clear driving record.

JIM MAHONEY/DMN
A single artificial rose marks the site on Spring Valley Road in Richardson where 15-year-old J.J. Pearce High School student Anquanette Patterson was killed in a school bus accident Wednesday afternoon.

 Wednesday's accident is only the second time in at least a decade that a child has fallen from a moving bus operated by Dallas County Schools, Hullender said.

In 2008, a Dallas ISD middle school student pushed his way out of an emergency door at the back of a moving bus, struck his head on the pavement, and later died.

Halls quiet, empty

Inside Pearce High School on Thursday, counselors were available and the halls were unusually quiet and empty. Students said that some of their friends were devastated by Anquanette's death and stayed home to grieve.

"I think a lot of people were affected," said freshman Briannan Craig as another student passed her crying.

A Facebook memorial page for her had nearly 500 friends Thursday night. Classmates wrote how they would miss her sense of humor and big smile. "Spanish is going to be soo terribly lonely and sad without you," a friend wrote.

Anquanette's family said she was a typical teenage girl. She liked to shop, go to movies and text-message friends, they said. She ran after school around her apartment complex and planned to try out for track at Pearce.

"Every day in life, she was happy, goofy and laughing," said Temesha Fletcher, 21, her niece. "She was just a bubbly kid."

Fletcher said that Anquanette called her last week and asked if she could baby-sit her 2-year-old daughter, Ja'kayla. She agreed, and when Fletcher came back to pick up her daughter, Ja'kayla cried.

"She didn't want to leave," Fletcher said.

Anquanette loved children so much, Hood said, that she wanted to become a pediatrician. Her voice faded.

"Oh, my God," she said, crying. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Staff writer Aida Ahmed contributed to this report.

Teen Pregnancy Falsehoods

This Sunday's Points section, we'll be running an interview with David C. Wiley, professor of health education at Texas State University and chairman of the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Wiley also is president of the American School Health Association. In the interview, he addresses many of the issued regarding teen pregnancy that have arisen in our Gap research regarding the vicious cycle of poverty, dropout rates and teen pregnancy. If you look at our database, one of the most shocking statistics concerns the high rate of teen pregnancy in southern Dallas. So this is an important issue worth addressing.


Wiley argues that too many people are using statistics and studies for political purposes. Some say the statistics are "proof" that abstinence-only works. Other say the statistics show it doesn't work. The truth, Wiley suggests, is somewhere in the middle. What does't work, he says, is the idea of using scare tactics to frighten kids into not having sex. It also is counterproductive to suggest that condoms shouldn't be used because they fail. When used properly, they only fail 2 percent of the time. But all this talk of failure is giving teens an excuse for not wearing them at all -- which could explain why pregnancy rates are going up.

The text of the entire interview appears on the extended page. The edited version appears in Sunday's Points. It's well worth reading.

Texas consistently leads the nation in teen pregnancies, and researchers say it's time to re-evaluate public-school sex education. David Wiley, a Texas State University professor of health education and chairman of the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, says federally funded, abstinence-only programs share at least part of the blame when kids don't get the right message

Read This Story In It Entirety
http://gapblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/02/teen-pregnancy-1.html

Dallas group buys Dillard's at Southwest Center Mall

Dallas group buys Dillard's at Southwest Center Mall


07:38 AM CST on Friday, February 12, 2010

By JASON ROBERSON / The Dallas Morning News

jroberson@dallasnews.com

El Rey Properties, a Dallas-based limited partnership, bought the old Dillard's department store at Southwest Center Mall for an undisclosed price, representatives of the seller, Dillard Texas LLC, said Thursday.

Plans were not disclosed for the 160,000-square-foot, two-story building at U.S. Highway 67 and Interstate 20.

Southwest Center Mall, formerly Red Bird Mall, had been in bankruptcy since last summer. Unpaid electric bills threatened to shut it down in January when Madison Realty Capital, a private commercial lender in New York, bought the mall out of foreclosure and put it up for sale.

Brawls at Skyline brings security concerns to forefront

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Student-injured-in-fight-at-Dallas-Skyline-HS-84136067.html
Brawls at Skyline brings security concerns to forefront

1:05 PM Fri, Feb 12, 2010
Permalink

Tawnell Hobbs/Reporter Bio
E-mail
News tips

As you all probably have seen by now, Brett Shipp of Channel 8 reported yesterday on some brawls on the campus of Skyline High School involving students who were unsupervised — allegedly due to 50 teachers being absent from school. Dozens of students can be seen in the Channel 8 video, which you can watch by clicking on the link above. One student said they had been outside of the school for more than an hour.

The news report questioned whether DISD was prepared for such an onslaught of folks calling in absent yesterday, and whether the district should have taken that into consideration when deciding to open on such a blustery day. Shipp also noted that DISD folks at 3700 Ross Ave. got to leave work an hour early.

DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander acknowledged yesterday that there was not enough supervision at the school.

"Some kids started a snowball fight outside of the school," he said. "There were several teachers that had called in absent for the day, so there was not enough supervision outside the school and in some cases inside the school."

So let's hear from you. Is this an isolated event or something you've heard of before on bad weather days when fewer staffers are on hand

NBA stars' warmth shines through in Dallas-area volunteer work

NBA stars' warmth shines through in Dallas-area volunteer work

10:34 PM CST on Friday, February 12, 2010
By KIM HORNER and MARK NORRIS / The Dallas Morning News
khorner@dallasnews.com
mnorris@dallasnews.com
Betty Jean Wrighting, 84, stepped outside despite the near-freezing temperatures to thank someone she never expected to see painting her tiny South Dallas house.

"How are we doing?" Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki asked as he rolled crème paint on the side of her home.

Wrighting gave her approval before getting back inside Friday to enjoy the new heater that volunteers also installed as part of the NBA Cares All-Star Day of Service.

Despite weather-related closings throughout North Texas, NBA stars and volunteers did not let the snow thwart their annual pre-game volunteer projects.

But the record snow did make things more complicated – with fewer volunteers showing up than expected, though plenty were available.

At a separate event Friday afternoon, Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James dedicated a new playground at the Oak Cliff Boys and Girls Club. But the new playground was inaccessible – surrounded by 5 to 6 inches of snow.

The dedication was moved inside to the club's gymnasium, where more than 50 kids were waiting for James.

"Giving back to kids is a passion of mine," he said. "I wish it was better weather down here so we could actually play on the playground."

This is the third All-Star Game that James' foundation and State Farm have provided funds to install a playground.

Below-normal temperatures hovering in the mid-30s kept volunteers struggling to stay warm as they renovated the five South Dallas homes. Some took advantage of a heater and hot chocolate in the volunteer tent.

As part of NBA Cares, more than 1,500 players, legends and other volunteers also built a playground in Arlington and dedicated a Reading & Learning Center and made repairs at Burnet Elementary School in northwest Dallas.

The NBA Cares program has contributed more than 1 million hours and raised more than $120 million for charity since 2005.

"Rolling up our sleeves and giving back in North Texas is a very important part of NBA All-Star Week," said Todd Jacobson, vice president of community relations for the NBA. "Volunteering and being a leader in social responsibility is who we are as a league, and we're excited to have an opportunity to do it in North Texas."

NBA players began community projects Wednesday, with a visit to Vogel Alcove, a child care center for homeless children. NBA legends Bob Lanier and Dikembe Mutombo played games, read stories and handed out teddy bears to children there.

On Friday in South Dallas, fascinated neighbors watched as Nowitzki and Phoenix Suns star Channing Frye painted Wrighting's house. Across the street, Memphis Grizzlies star Zach Randolph and Utah Jazz star Deron Williams painted another house that had been damaged by a fire.

Williams said it meant a lot to him since he was from Carrollton. He attended The Colony High School.

"It's really special to be able to come help out in any way I can," he said.

Wrighting, who has lived in her house for more than 50 years, said she was thankful for the All-Star help. She also got new ceiling fans and safety rails in her bathroom.

"It's wonderful," she said. "I got to shake his [Nowitzki's] hand."

While he shook hands and posed for photos with residents, Nowitzki also joked about his performance at the house painting.

"I hope my dad's not watching this," said Nowitzki, who grew up helping his parents' house-painting business in Germany.

Kidding aside, Nowitzki said he was serious about community service.

"I think Dallas has been great to me over the last 12 years," he said. "I always try to stay busy in the community not just today, but all throughout the year."

Why Unified People Unified Purpose” So Important In The 21st Century?

Now why is Unified People Unified Purpose” so important in the 21st century? It’s important because soft bigotry is still prevalent in America. It’s important because politicians are still legislating with a set of old outdated traditional methods in the name of American values. Through soft bigotry entire neighborhoods throughout this nation have metastasize with continuous growing pains of poverty. Our public school system even though not under Jim Crow Laws which forced the races to be separate, somehow in the 21st century has fallen on a slippery slope of reasoning and tolerance into De Facto Segregation voluntary. Soft Bigotry as Dr. King would say,” is when laws are formed to seem just on its face but unjust in practice. When there is a great program like 'No Child Left Behind" on paper but no plans of adequately funding the program, one could easily find that as being unjust. One child every four minutes is lost due to dropout. That’s 15 students in 60 minutes, 360 in 24 hours and 132,815 in a year, that’s Texas alone. When it comes to African Americans and the prison system, what we find according to the ACLU study. African Americans comprises 11 percent of Texas population but 40 percent of the states prisoners. Blacks in Texas are incarcerated five times the rate of whites.

Today more than ever, we are hearing rhetoric proclaimed from the roof tops that minorities have no excuse now that we have our first African American president, two hundred and thirty three years later. Yet, those who hold prominent positions of power would tell you that in an Obama era, there are no excuses not to succeed in life because the skies are the limit. Well, tell that to six black students who visited Chicago on a senior class trip but could not get into a nightclub with the rest of their white peers because of bigotry. Tell that to Heather Ellis, a pre-med student of Kennect MO, whom while cutting line at a Wal-mart grocery store is facing 15 years because of bigotry. No excuse has become the new substitution for pulling up your boot straps. No excuse has been places on the highest mountain as a beacon of light while beneath the surface lies hidden agendas awaiting to erupted over those captured by the light. The light of tolerance and reasoning.


What we often forget is the freedoms that minorities are privileged to have today were not voluntarily given by the oppressor but demanded by the oppressed. It’s by law that minorities can live, Be educated and shop of their choosing. Unified People Unified Purpose is important because minorities have only been forty-five years removed from Jim Crow Laws and it’s all most embarrassing today to be what some would call, fighting for your right to have a right, an agitator in other words pro-black. Frederick Douglas Stated,” those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roars of its many waters. He goes on to say,” find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you find out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. Until the playing field is equal, Until minority communities no longer look like third world countries in the mist of a vast ocean of prosperity. Until we no longer have to fight to have our voting rights granted or signed back into law every 25 years, Until you can walk out side of your proud community and visibly see productive and vital African American neighborhoods all a cross this nation, don’t be pacified by the word change alone. I say and I say again, don’t be pacified by the word change alone. Obama said,” change doesn’t come from the top down but from the bottom up. Be the change you want to see starting with your block.



Unified People Unified People
Maurice Ash