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Dallas-area school districts praised for going ‘above and beyond’ in fighting child hunger

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Dallas-area school districts praised for going ‘above and beyond’ in fighting child hunger


With one in 5 Texas kids dealing with starvation regularly, a handful of Dallas-area faculty districts are going “above and past” in combating meals insecurity amongst their college students.

4 North Texas faculty districts – Garland, White Settlement, Irving and Mesquite – have been honored Wednesday morning for his or her efforts, praised by the non-profit advocacy group Youngsters At Threat as a number of the state’s leaders in combating baby starvation.

“We all know that faculty meals are important to fight starvation and meals insecurity, so youngsters can study,” mentioned Sharon Watkins Jones, Youngsters At Threat’s chief fairness officer. “There are Texas faculty districts who proceed to take revolutionary approaches towards meal supply techniques and so they make sure that each pupil has entry to a few meals.”

Among the many state’s largest high-poverty faculty districts – with over 50,000 college students enrolled and a minimum of 60% of them from low earnings households – Garland ranked No. 4 within the state in Youngsters At Threat’s rankings, behind San Antonio, Pasadena and Houston ISDs.

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No Dallas/Fort Value-area district completed within the High 10 of the general rankings, which included faculty techniques with a minimum of 10,000 college students. Nonetheless, constitution operator KIPP Texas Public Colleges – which operates seven charters in North Texas and 59 statewide – ranked No. 8.

Three Rio Grande Valley faculty techniques completed within the prime 5 of Youngsters At Threat’s general rankings: No. 1 McAllen, No. 2 Brownsville and No. 5 Pharr-San Juan Alamo.

Throughout a webcast Wednesday, three different North Texas districts have been singled out for his or her successes: No. 18 White Settlement, No. 21 Irving, and No. 26 Mesquite.

White Settlement’s Director of Meals Companies, Kathy Huey, praised the work of her workers, saying that labor shortages over the previous few years have “actually doubled … their quantity of labor they do a day.”

Irving earned its mark by having 54% of eligible college students collaborating at school lunch, and 52% of these college students additionally having breakfasts.

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“Baby diet has confronted a number of the most difficult instances these final two years,” mentioned Olga Rosenberger, Irving’s government director of federal packages and group engagement. “And as with most districts nationwide, we’ve been coping with provide chain points, shortages of meals, shortages of paper and shortages of workers as effectively. Now we have needed to lead weekly, even day by day .. and even typically a number of instances a day [meetings] to brainstorm on menu substitutions and plans of motion.”

Youngsters At Threat solely highlighted the highest performing districts, and didn’t launch the entire rankings to the general public. The group did, nonetheless, give some broad perspective on meals packages in Texas – noting that roughly half of all districts with greater than 10,000 college students took half in federally funded baby and grownup after-school meal program.

Whereas prime 10 districts had over 70% participation in breakfast packages, the weakest 10 districts, which included “a number of constitution districts” based on Youngsters At Threat, had breakfast participation charges between 11 and 27%.

In creating their awards, the non-profit evaluated all the state’s faculty techniques and constitution operators, making a scoring system that captured participation ranges and meal distribution over breakfasts, lunch and after-school snacks. Due to the continuing coronavirus pandemic, meals distributed over the summer season have been included within the district’s index scores, mentioned Watkins Jones.

The DMN Schooling Lab deepens the protection and dialog about pressing training points important to the way forward for North Texas.

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The DMN Schooling Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with assist from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Basis of Texas, The Dallas Basis, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Basis, Options Journalism Community, Southern Methodist College, Todd A. Williams Household Basis and the College of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning Information retains full editorial management of the Schooling Lab’s journalism.



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Dallas, TX

Like it or not, Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is gaining ground for a contract extension from Jerry Jones

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Like it or not, Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is gaining ground for a contract extension from Jerry Jones


Late Sunday night in the Dallas Cowboys locker room, as players reveled in a 26-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, head coach Mike McCarthy was making his way through a jovial scene when he spotted Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones near an entrance. Earlier in the day, the two had shared a conversation steeped in disappointment when they’d learned the Cowboys had been eliminated from the playoffs by a Washington Commanders win. But now, as McCarthy approached Jerry, the tenor of the day had changed.

Jerry smiled. And when McCarthy held out his hand for a shake, the owner instead opened his arms and drew his head coach into a hug. He then took a few moments speaking to McCarthy, one hand on the coach’s shoulder and another gently tapping him in the chest with a fist. As the dialogue subsided, Jones patted McCarthy on the shoulder a few times and pumped his fist. All of this, perhaps not by coincidence, unfolded in front of a “Sunday Night Football” camera that was televising the emotional exchange to whatever portion of the Cowboys’ audience that was still watching.

If you were going to gauge what’s going on with the Cowboys’ head coach and the franchise’s owner right now, this was a worthwhile snippet of video for two reasons: First, it’s clearly something that Jerry — still keenly aware of optics and the power of theater — wanted people to see. Whether it was a public display of pride or affection that McCarthy had earned or Jones just wanted to staple an image to his words that night, he knew where the moment would go. In a word, everywhere. And the second reason the moment matters? Jerry knows it’s coming in the midst of a time when the primary conversation about McCarthy is one of his job status, a situation Jerry created when he chose to make his head coach go into the final year of his contract with no discernible public mandate on how an extension could be achieved.

Let’s be honest about this joyous but complicated embrace as it moves forward: both of these men created it. Jerry by letting McCarthy play out this string of games with no clarity on what could be next for the Cowboys’ coaching staff. And McCarthy by arguably saving his best coaching for the portion of the season when there was nothing more to clinch other than the dignity of not quitting.

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Make no mistake, that’s what we saw unfold last night. McCarthy showcased a locker room that is still galvanized despite having lost a postseason aim. They gutted it out with a massive spate of injuries on the offensive line and backup quarterback in Cooper Rush, not to mention wideout CeeDee Lamb, who played through a painful shoulder issue Sunday. Join that with a shorthanded defense that battered a good Buccaneers offense and literally ripped a win away in the final moments of Sunday night, when cornerback DaRon Bland pulled a fumble from the belly of Tampa running back Rashaad White. It was a moment that encapsulated a number of big-play stands on both sides of the ball, definitively halting a game-winning drive that seemed very achievable for quarterback Baker Mayfield.

The resounding feeling? The Cowboys’ playoff hopes are dead, but the attitude toward the remaining schedule is anything but buried. Instead, a narrative about culture is unfurling — about whether there is actually some kind of underlying strength Dallas can display in the final weeks of the season that say something about this team and coach. Maybe it’s enough to fulfill the hopes of the franchise cornerstones, including Lamb, quarterback Dak Prescott and edge rusher Micah Parsons, who have all (in some fashion) endorsed a McCarthy return in 2025. Surely, Jerry has heard that message, leaving him to look for reasons to keep McCarthy that goes beyond the three straight 12-win seasons that preceded 2024.

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Afterward, Jerry was effusive in his praise of the effort in the win over the Buccaneers — making clear that it had stoked something emotional inside him.

“Those guys came out and played as though they were fighting in the championship game to go to the Super Bowl,” Jones said afterward. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of them and the coaching staff. It really shows me something.”

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For his part, McCarthy tried to put a fine point on what that something was.

“I just think that [effort] shows you who they are,” McCarthy said. “I think everybody says the coach is always talking highly of the locker room — well, this is what I’m talking about. When I talk about, ‘It’s a great locker room,’ this is the definition of it. This is what a great locker room looks like. And it’s a mixture of men from all over the country, all over the world and different personalities. Obviously in circumstances [out of the playoffs] that we’ve discussed at length already. But when it came time to play, they played their asses off and I can’t tell you how proud I am.”

Of course, this peak of sorts — winning four of the last five games, getting to 7-8 with a chance at finishing the season at 9-8 — comes with measuring that goes beyond just a great locker room. There are fair questions to be asked about where this locker room culture was during a brutal five-game losing streak from mid-October to mid-November. It was an expanse that saw Dallas get obliterated in three of those games, against the Detroit Lions (a 47-9 loss), Philadelphia Eagles (34-6) and Houston Texans (34-10). And it wasn’t that long ago that Jerry was openly questioning some parts of the Dallas scheme, while also spiraling into sometimes odd postgame diatribes that lacked a cohesive connection to the here and now.

Those were the days of Bill Belichick possibly being the next Cowboys coach, and they weren’t that long ago. But times can also change quickly with Jerry. He rides Everest-ian highs after wins and Death Valley lows after losses. All of which typically result in McCarthy’s own roller coaster when it comes to his future employment.

Right now, the Cowboys are winning again — even if it’s too little and too late when it comes to the postseason. But as the victories have begun to stack onto the ledger and the support of vital players has ebbed into the public (and Jerry’s) consciousness, the disappointment has also started to soften where it matters. You hear it in Jerry’s words. You see it in the arms and embrace between an owner and head coach that seemed to be an intentional message to the fan base.

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Things are changing. A 9-8 finish and the positive feedback of his players has Mike McCarthy pointed toward the one thing Jerry has avoided offering him thus far.

A contract extension.



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Here is everything you need to know about Sunday night’s Dallas Cowboys game

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Here is everything you need to know about Sunday night’s Dallas Cowboys game


The Dallas Cowboys are playing their third game in a row at home that is in front of a massive television audience as they are now going from Thanksgiving Day to Monday Night Football to Sunday Night Football. America’s Team and all that jazz. It is the first time that they will be playing a game in general though as a team eliminated from playoff contention.

This time around the Cowboys will be hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and are underdogs even in their home building. While Dallas has won three of their last four, the Buccaneers have won all of their last four. Needless to say it is going to be a difficult outing.

We will see how well the Cowboys fare and if they are able to make it four out of five. The early parts of this season were extremely tough, but they have been playing very well for the last month or so.

This post will serve as our running recap throughout it all. We will update things on a quarterly basis and at the end of the game sort it so that it can be read in chronological order.

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Let’s go Cowboys!


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Notable Recent News

This past week saw the trailer for the Netflix documentary chronicling Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys teams of the 1990s release… if you are into that.


Injury Updates

We have known for some time that Trevon Diggs’ season is over, but the Cowboys formally placed him on injured reserve on Saturday.

Dallas signed Andrew Booth to the active roster in response.


NFL News Relevant To The Cowboys

As noted up top… the Washington Commanders beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday and in the process they eliminated the Cowboys from playoff contention.

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The Drought™ grows all the more large.


Up Next For The Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys are set for their final road trip of the season next Sunday as they will visit the Philadelphia Eagles. After that they will return home to host the Washington Commanders before they wrap everything up.



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Dallas police identify victim in Saturday morning shooting

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Dallas police identify victim in Saturday morning shooting


Dallas Police have identified a man who was shot and killed before 5 a.m. Saturday morning.

Officers were called to a shooting in the 9000 block of Soverign Row, which is off of John Carpenter Freeway near Regal Row.

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Investigators believe 21-year-old Joseph Ortega was shot by an unknown suspect.

Ortega died at the scene.

This is an ongoing investigation. 

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Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Frank Serra at 214-662-4552 or frank.serra@dallaspolice.gov.

DallasCrime and Public Safety



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