Dallas, TX
Parents fear closing of Good Street Learning Center as leaders push to stay open
For decades, families like Nasia Peterson’s have cycled through Good Street Learning Center, a South Dallas/Fair Park child care center that working parents can afford at $90 to $134 a week. Her husband and their five children spent their early years there.
But now, Peterson says the center could close soon. Center leaders dispute an immediate shutdown, saying they expect to stay open even as a funding crisis leaves the runway unclear. Parents say there’s no comparable affordable option nearby, especially for families who rely on public transit.
Center director Gwendolyn Sneed says they are fighting to remain open, pointing to pending grants and a push to rebuild their board.
But Sneed also acknowledges leadership cannot promise what will happen after January. “I don’t know about 2026,” she said.
The numbers are stark: Enrollment is down to 15 children against a licensed capacity of 100. Staffing is down to two teachers from a pre‑pandemic total of nine. The center is scrambling for operating cash while recruiting a hands‑on board to help with grants, sponsorships and staffing. Dallas ISD provides Good Street an annual $23,000 stipend through its pre‑K partnership.
Founded in 1952 as a church‑run child care ministry, the center operates in a church‑owned building. The church does not charge rent, but leaders say upkeep falls on the center.
Good Street Learning has applied for funding from The Crystal Charity Ball in Dallas and H-E-B’s Community Investment Program, Sneed said. She says the award decisions won’t occur until February or March.
“That first quarter of 2026 would be pretty much a defining time for us,” board chair Jasper Daniels said. “We will know for sure whether or not we’re going to get the necessary assistance.”
The center’s origin
The purpose of the center is clear: to ensure “the working poor in South Dallas will have a place to put their children and keep them on a daily basis, [and] teach them something while they go to work,” Daniels said.
According to center leaders and the organization’s published history, Good Street’s child care ministry began under the Rev. C.A.W. Clark Sr. with trustees, deacons and church members.
Toddlers teacher Angela Nails holds 1-year-old Jayden White’s hand while a group of students walks to class at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas. Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
An advisory committee chaired by Dr. B.E. Dade, with early childhood specialist Willene Dade as a resource, set standards around space, safety, sanitation, nutrition and staff training, and secured the city of Dallas operations permit in 1952.
The program has operated at the same site since then, originally at the Watson Memorial Mission on what was then Hatcher Street, Sneed said. In 1992, it moved into the new C.A.W. Clark Community Center built on that property, she said. The city later renamed the street Elsie Faye Heggins.
Sneed has led the center since October 2001, expanding partnerships such as Educational First Steps, Child Care Group, prekindergarten programs with Dallas ISD, and accreditation with the National Accreditation Commission for Early Care and Education Programs.
Jayden White, 1, climbs low shelves in the toddlers classroom before morning prayers at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
Leaders and parents describe multiple generations of families continuing to enroll their children at the center, which has served over 2,000 students, ages 18 months to 12 years old.
The center is also four-star certified with the Texas Rising Star program. That’s the highest assessment level available through criteria like teacher-child interactions and program management.
“We don’t have to do a lot of marketing, because we’re serving third- and fourth-generation family members,” Sneed said. “Even now, the children that we have, they’ve had family members that have come through.”
The center’s challenges
The center’s issues began when they closed for a week during the pandemic, Sneed said. Some of their staff members contracted coronavirus and didn’t come back.
Without as many teachers, the center can’t serve as many students, Sneed said. But without enough students, the center lacks the funding from tuition to pay staff.
The center also competes with Dallas ISD’s free pre‑K programs, even though it formed a pre‑K partnership with the district in 2008.
Toddlers teacher Angela Nails lists off books of the Bible with students at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
“Several years ago when they started taking 4-year-olds, we lost our 4-year-old population,” Sneed said. “So then they came up with the partnership where the children could come here.”
The school district now enrolls 3- and 4-year-olds into free pre-K programs, Sneed said. But “that’s cutting right into the heart of early care and education” for the center, which can only charge parents for after-school or extended care services since DISD covers the core school hours, she said.
Dallas ISD provides an annual funding stipend of $23,000 to Good Street as part of its pre‑K partnership with the center, according to a Friday evening statement from Dallas ISD spokesperson Nina Lakhiani. She said the district does not have discretionary or board‑directed funding available, and that contracts executed after the district’s budget is set at the start of the fiscal year cannot be amended.
If Good Street reduces capacity or closes, Lakhiani said, the district will guide families through transfers to nearby options, including Joseph J. Rhoads Learning Center and Charles Rice Learning Center.
For the center’s leadership, the crisis at Good Street Learning is intertwined with challenges facing Good Street Baptist Church. Daniels, the board chair, said he sent letters to the church pastor, deacons and trustees to seek financial assistance and help finding grant writers, fundraisers and marketers.
“A large portion of the expenses at the C.A.W. Clark Community Center is paid by the Learning Center, thus at the demise of the Learning Center, the Social Service Center could become collateral damage,” according to Daniels’ April 2024 letter.
Director Gwendolyn Sneed flips through letters of endorsement from parents of students at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas. The learning center, a nonprofit, is at risk of closing in 2026 due to funding difficulties.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
The pandemic also hurt churches. Good Street Baptist lost members to COVID, including one of the center’s board members and another church member who used to help the center, Sneed said.
Leaders frame the next steps as a joint push: Stabilize staffing, rebuild the hands‑on board, secure grants, and address facility needs while keeping families served. Keeping Good Street open could also require five new full‑time caregivers, plus support staff and funds for security and building upkeep, Sneed said.
‘A generational place’
If Good Street Learning closes, it would become the latest in a wave of Texas child care closures since the pandemic.
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News last year that over 5,000 child care centers have closed in Texas since the pandemic. That trickles down to a loss of nearly 75,000 child care seats in 2024 alone, according to the advocacy nonprofit Children at Risk.
At Good Street, families and teachers describe the stakes in stark terms: affordability, access and stability for their kids.
Brenda Holmes pulls the door open for daughter Aniyah Cossey, center, and granddaughter Ariel Holmes-Aguora while taking the 3-year-olds to their toddlers class at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
“This child care center is the only child care center that working parents can afford to pay out of pocket,” Peterson said.
If a working parent can’t afford to put their kids in child care, then they’re at risk of losing their job, Peterson said. That means they’re at risk of losing their home and having to decide if they should feed themselves, or save money to pay rent, she said.
Brenda Holmes said the center provides exceptional care, including providing meals and teaching manners, hygiene and respect to her adopted daughter and granddaughter.
“It’s just like you’re taking your child to your grandmother’s place,” Holmes said.
Rikki Bonet, a pre-K teacher at Good Street, has been teaching since 2000 and has been at Good Street for nine years. She transitioned there after her previous employers downsized.
Pre-k teacher Rikki Bonet sets up a container of water and floating toys for students Toraj Russ, 3, and Aziza Fabien, 3, to play with at Good Street Learning Center, Inc. on Dec. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
Surrounded by students on a recent morning, Bonet said her Good Street students have a “100% readiness” rate for transitioning to kindergarten.
“This is a generational place people love because you get an education along with the devotion, the church side,” Bonet said. “…I just really hope it doesn’t close, because I love it here.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.
With the second wave of free agency underway, it’s just a matter of time before former Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney finds a new home.
Clowney is one of the most high-profile players left on the open market and easily the best free agent out of Dallas. The former No. 1 overall pick is coming off a season in which he tallied 8.5 sacks, which was tops on the Cowboys.
When it comes to possible landing spots for Clowney, Mike Garafolo of NFL Network reports “some of his former teams” remain interested in Clowney, although he did not say which squads exactly, which means Dallas could be one of them.
“I gather that some of (Clowney’s) former teams are interested in him, which is pretty easy when you’ve played for as many teams as he’s played for,” Garafolo said. “So, let’s see about Clowney here in the near future.”
Clowney has played for seven different teams during his career, with the Cowboys, Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans all on that list.
Would Cowboys re-sign Jadeveon Clowney?
We know Clowney liked his time in Dallas and he would be interested in coming back.
“Oh man, it was great. I enjoyed Dallas, playing on primetime every week. It was a great experience, man, and playing on Thanksgiving and Christmas was special for me. A lot of people watching, a lot of families showing up, and I had a great time playing for Dallas,” Clowney said.
We also know that, despite all the Cowboys’ additions at edge rusher, a team can never have too many. That’s especially true when Dallas has some question marks with their current ones.
The jury is still out on what a rookie in Malachi Lawrence and a second-year player in Donovan Ezeiruaku will be in 2026, and Rashan Gary is no sure thing, either, after he didn’t sack any quarterbacks in the second half of last season.
But owner Jerry Jones didn’t seem like he thought a Clowney return was in the cards after the NFL owners meetings.
“It’s real hard when you look at how Clowney came on last year in the snaps he gave us,” he said. “It’s real hard not to have a place there for Clowney, but you can’t have it all. You just can’t have it all. If things go right for us, we’ve already made a signing, we’ve made trades, we think that’s the better way to go. And, of course, we got the draft. It can very easily answer some of that question.”
There also seemed to be an indication that one of the reasons Clowney might not re-sign in Dallas is because he isn’t a good scheme fit in Christian Parker’s defense.
“He led the Cowboys in sacks last season and in January seemed like a prime candidate they would like to retain. But the move to a new scheme with DC Christian Parker seems like the Cowboys will look to other edge players first without completely shutting the door on Clowney’s return,” ESPN’s Todd Archer wrote.
The veteran would definitely push back on that notion, though.
“I walk in every year and play well on every scheme and every team I’ve been on,” Clowney said. “I want to continue to do that going into year 13. Showing people wrong and proving that I can still play at a high level. It don’t matter where I end up, where I play at, just know I’m coming to show you again and prove people wrong again.”
Whatever the case may be, it would appear based on Garafolo’s reporting that there is at least a chance Dallas might be a team interested in bringing Clowney back. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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Dylan Santos Green
The Strokes, the Grammy-winning band whose music dominated rock music in the early and mid-2000s (and likely still dominates your bad Hinge dates’ playlists), announced a world tour to pair with their forthcoming album, Reality Awaits. Strokers, as the band’s cult following calls itself, were disappointed when Texas was left off the map. The closest they’re coming is Manchester, Tennessee, for the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival — 725 miles, or a 10-and-a-half-hour drive away, if you contemplated it. But Different Strokes, a local Strokes cover band, is playing a much closer and much more affordable show at Granada Theater on Friday, May 8.
Different Strokes, comprised of Dallas musicians Cory Graves, Dev Wulf, Hunter Cannon, Eric Nichelson and Colin Beams, is breaking a two-year hiatus, returning to the stage ready to rip “Reptilia.” The band, which formed 10 years ago, was derailed by Graves’ frequent commitments to his full-time gig playing with the Vandoliers. But Graves left the cowpunk band earlier this year, meaning it was time to get the (cover) band back together.
“I called all the guys back, and everyone was really excited,” Graves tells us. He says it took them little time to find a venue to host, but the timing of Granada adding them to the calendar was chismet.
“We booked this Granada show several months ago, and as soon as we posted, the Strokes announced a new album and tour, and we had no idea,” he says. “It’s just really good timing for us. There’s no dates anywhere around here, and all I see is people on [the Strokes] Facebook pages complaining.”
Hopeful Strokers prayed the band might be announced as a headliner for Austin City Limits, though they topped the bill in 2025. To the dismay of leather jacket-wearing Texans, though, the lineup released this week does not include Julian Casablancas and company (though it does include Dallas’ own Cure for Paranoia). This leaves Different Strokes as the best available option for anybody in the Southwestern United States who wants to feel the rush of those opening chords on “What Ever Happened” live.
Casablancas must have a really severe aversion to good barbecue and a wide-brimmed hat, because the Strokes haven’t played in Dallas since a show at the Globe Life Field in 2022. Before that, it had been two decades since their last show in the region at the now-demolished Bronco Bowl in Oak Cliff in 2002, when the band only had one album out.
Plus, Different Strokes won’t play any of the deep cuts you don’t like, and all the ones you do.
“Their fans are so culty and rabid that we do get a lot of requests for super obscure deep cuts,” Graves says. “You never get that with another band.”
They certainly won’t skip the 2000s radio hits that’ve been removed from the real Strokes arena tour setlist, either.
“This band already has a fan base, so you show up and everyone’s pleased to hear these things that they already love so much and just maybe don’t get to see all the time,” Graves says. “In the case of The Strokes, if you see [them], they’re going to play a stadium. You’re going to pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket. You’re not going to be able to stand front row with The Strokes probably, but you can come right up to the stage for us.”
Ahead of the show, the cover band has added the latest Strokes’ release to their repertoire, rehearsing Reality Awaits’ lead single, “Going Shopping,” last week in preparation. It was their first rehearsal in years, but the dust brushed away easily, and they’d already played a secret and surprise set at the Seegars Deli opening a week before, with zero preparation.
“We played 50 people or something, just to kind of shake off the nerves,” Graves says. “We didn’t rehearse for that one. We all just showed up and expected each other to know the part. It was good reassurance that we still had it.”
Graves and other members of Different Strokes have had run-ins with real members of the Strokes band, smoking cigarettes with drummer Fabrizio “Fab” Moretti outside a show in Deep Ellum for his side project, Little Joy, in 2008, and chatting with lead guitarist Nicholas Valensi after his solo show at Trees in 2016. The latter Strokes member jokingly recommended the guys of Different Strokes buy wigs to really sell it.
And though cover bands get a bad rep, Graves, a seasoned, internationally touring musician who contributed to five Vandoliers albums, says they’re undeniably fun to play in.
“Cover bands are kind of divisive. When musicians are young, they take themselves way too seriously,” he says. “You get to a certain point where you’re older, and you don’t care as much about the posturing. Cover bands are just really super fun. There’s no stress, there’s no pressure.”
Different Strokes will play at Granada Theater on May 8 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. The band will only be playing music by The Strokes, but they will not be wearing wigs.
It’s hard to find much fault at all with the Dallas Cowboys draft class this season.
Dallas shored up three of their biggest holes on defense by selecting safety Caleb Downs, EDGE Malachi Lawrence, and linebacker Jaishawn Barham with their first three picks. They also added another linebacker, bringing in veteran Dee Winters in exchange for a fifth-round pick.
We already dove into which selection was our favorite from the class, which was an easy decision. Downs checks every box and has been called a perfect fit for new defensive coordinator Christian Parker.
Least favorite pick has nothing to do with talent
Choosing Downs was easy when it came to a favorite pick, but deciding on which one is the least favorite is far more difficult. Dallas maximized value and filled needs at every position, but if there was one pick that had question marks, it was Devin Moore, the Florida cornerback who was taken at No. 114 in Round 4.
To be upfront, there’s nothing to dislike about Moore as a player. He’s a talented boundary cornerback and he proved himself against some of the elite players in the SEC. The only true concern is his injury history.
While Moore played in 11 games this past season, he never suited up for more than seven in his three previous campaigns. He missed roughly 20 games due to injuries, with shoulder issues ending his 2022 and 2024 campaigns early. Prior to the draft, Dane Brugler said Moore’s injury history is a “major red flag.”
Devin Moore could prove the doubters wrong
Despite the red flags, Brugler saw a player with “rare height and body length,” making him someone to keep an eye on.
The Cowboys decided it was worth the roll of the dice, but it’s not an easy gamble to make. Dallas saw multiple cornerbacks battle injuries in 2025, including DaRon Bland. They were unable to turn to 2025 third-round pick Shavon Revel Jr. as he was rehabbing a torn ACL.
That’s what makes this the “least favorite” selection, even though Moore has the talent to make the pick look brilliant.
Cowboys have shaky history when gambling on injury concerns
Of course, it’s going to be hard to sell fans on a player with so many injuries in the past.
Dallas hasn’t had a great track record when gambling in this department. They’re still waiting on Revel, but have also struck out with their own players.
In 2022, Michael Gallup signed a five-year, $62.5 million extension while recovering from a torn ACL. He was never the same player, and was released following the 2023 season.
They also bet on Terence Steele following a torn ACL suffered in 2022. He signed a new deal ahead of the 2023 season, landing a five-year, $86.8 million extension. While Steele has had more success than Gallup, he hasn’t lived up to that contract and has struggled to regain the form he had before the knee injury.
The good news with Moore is that it’s not a knee issue, and he isn’t on a massive contract. Still, there’s some risk here and it’s at a position where they need less risk.
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