Three of the nine seats that make up the Dallas Independent School District’s (DISD) Board of Trustees will be up for grabs this spring, with candidate application filing having opened on Wednesday.
Elections for DISD Districts 2, 6, and 8, which will be held on May 6, will likely serve as a partial referendum on a school board that has been mired in controversy for years, careening from one scandal to the next, all while failing to educate the majority of its students adequately.
DISD is currently the subject of two damning lawsuits, the first of which alleges the district retaliated against an internal auditor after she discovered evidence of grade and attendance manipulation at a high school, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
A more recent suit, filed in federal court in early January, accused DISD of demonstrating negligence and “deliberate indifference” with regard to an incident in January 2021 in which a special needs student with a reported history of violence and behavioral issues allegedly attacked a teaching assistant, who subsequently died.
The district is accused of failing to notify the deceased woman’s family. No report was made to the police either, according to the plaintiff’s lawyers.
Trustees at DISD serve staggered three-year terms, and the three trustees on deck for possible replacement are Dustin Marshall (D2 – North and Near East Dallas), Joyce Foreman (D6 – Southwest Dallas), and Joe Carreón (D8 – Northwest Dallas, Love Field, and parts of East and West Dallas), per a DISD news release.
Marshall, who now has two terms as a DISD trustee under his belt, runs an expedited freight and logistics company and previously worked as a business consultant.
While his education district did not have any campuses designated as “failing” in student achievement outcomes, Marshall did make himself out to be an ardent opponent of school choice.
Foreman was first elected to the Board of Trustees in 2014 and has served on DISD’s Bond Advisory Committee since 2002.
Three of the campuses within Foreman’s education district received a failing student achievement rating for the 2021-2022 academic year from the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
Carreón also had three failing schools in his district that academic year, marking the end of the first two years of his first and only term on the DISD school board thus far.
He is a practicing attorney and confirmed to The Dallas Express that he is running for another term.
“Yes, I am seeking re-election. I filed this morning,” he said on Wednesday.
The Dallas Express also reached out to Foreman who said, “I will be seeking re-election.” Marshall was also asked if they were running again but did not hear back by press time.
Prospective candidates for the three board seats have a deadline of 5 p.m. on February 17 to file the necessary paperwork to secure a space on the May ballot.