2025 October Preston Hollow Advocate

Beyond Location: Finding Your Family's Home Base

Your Dallas Neighborhood & Education Specialist, Catherine Cole doesn't just find you a house in a good school district—she maps your family's entire educational journey.

W hat Makes Catherine Different:

Education-First Approach

Deep knowledge of both private and public school options across Dallas

Understanding of each school's unique culture and academic strengths

Insight into how educational choices impact long-term property values

Neighborhood Expertise

Specializes in Preston Hollow, Park Cities, Lakewood, and surrounding areas

Knows which streets feed to which schools

Understands the nuances that make each community special

Investment Intelligence

Helps families AND investors understand how school ratings affect property values

Guidance on neighborhoods with rising educational stars

Long-term perspective on district changes and developments

"Finding the perfect home means more than just location—it's about community, lifestyle, and access to top-tier education."

W hether you're seeking:

A home in the heart of the Dallas Private School Corridor

Neighborhoods with exceptional public school options

Investment properties in education-focused communities

Catherine provides expert guidance to help you make the best choice for your family's future.

Ready to Find Your Family's Home Base?

Contact Catherine, Connecting Dallasites to Great Neighborhoods and Great Schools! Catherine.cole@alliebeth.com 214.641.5760

3838 Oak Lawn Suite 500 www.alliebeth.com/bio/CatherineCole

Contact Catherine and ask her for THE MAP, Neighborhoods and Great Schools!

BENEFITING COMMUNITY PARTNERS OF DALLAS

OCTOBER 1 – NOVEMBER 2

CENTERPARK GARDEN

Step into an enchanted world of 15,000+ pumpkins and gourds, autumn plantings, a wishing well, a gnome village, and more at the NorthPark Pumpkin Patch benefiting Community Partners of Dallas.

This fall fairytale destination will offer photo opportunities, storytimes with Bookmarks, a Dallas Public Library, and whimsical scavenger hunts that will spark imagination and creativity in little minds.

FREE TO THE PUBLIC

PRESTON HOLLOW ADVOCATE

VOL. 25 NO. 10

PROFILE

10 Candace Balderas-Miller

DINING

12 Montlake Cut

FEATURES

8 Hockaday’s honey bees

16 Walnut Hill Lane development

18 Hope in Hygiene

20 Report cards

38 Good Shepherd’s Disaster Relief & Recovery SPECIAL SECTION

26 Education guide

Montlake Cut serves fresh seafood in a Seattleinspired space. Read more on page 12. Photography by Kathy Tran.

HISTORY OF PRESTON ROYAL ANIMAL CLINIC:

Founded in 1969, by the late Dr. Malcolm Cameron, Preston Royal Animal Clinic (PRAC) has been serving the North Dallas, Park Cities, and Preston Hollow area for over 50 years. The practice has grown and changed along with the vibrant community that it serves.

VETERINARY CARE FOR CATS & DOGS IN NORTH DALLAS

Located in the Preston Hollow area of North Dallas, Preston Royal Animal Clinic provides comprehensive primary care for your dogs and cats. We specialize in dental, wellness, and preventative care, offering a full range of services to support your pet through every stage of their life, from nose to tail, kitten to senior. We are dedicated to making every visit a positive experience, which is why we practice Fear Free handling and adhere to Cat-Friendly guidelines. Your pet’s comfort and well-being are our top priority.

WHERE EVERY PET IS TREATED LIKE FAMILY

Wellness Exams

Sick/ Illness Exams

Vaccinations

Preventive Pet Dental Care

Spay & Neuter

Heartworm Prevention

Flea & Tick Prevention

Diagnostic Testing

Nail Trims

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Advocate (c) 2024 is published monthly in print and daily online by Advocate Media - Dallas Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation based in Dallas and first published in 1991. Contents of this print magazine may not be reproduced. Advertisers and advertising agencies assume liability for the content of all advertisements and sponsorships printed, and therefore assume responsibility for any and all claims against the Advocate. The Publisher reserves the right to accept or reject ay editorial, advertising or sponsorship material in print or online. Opinions set forth in Advocate publications are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the Publisher’s viewpoint. More than 180,000 people read Advocate publications in print each month; Advocate online publications receive more than 4 million pageviews monthly. Advertising rates and guidelines are available upon request. Advocate print and online publications are available free of charge throughout our neighborhoods, one print copy per reader. For information about supporting our non-profit mission of providing local news to neighborhood readers, please call 214-5604212 or email aquintero@advocatemag.com.

Visit the NorthPark Pumpkin Patch from Oct. 1 to Nov. 2, 2025. Photo courtesy of NorthPark Center.

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Mark the arrival of the Silver Line at one of our station celebrations!

Join the fun as we launch the Silver Line with food, festivities and surprises at every stop!

Saturday, October 25 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Plus, enjoy FREE rides systemwide so you can check out every station celebration!

There’s more! DART is offering FREE rides on the Silver Line October 25 – November 8.

BEE-YOND THE BOOKS

Each year, the honey bees make around 100 jars of honey.

Photos courtesy of The Hockaday School.

THERE’S A NEW KIND OF STUDENT BUZZ -

ING around the The Hockaday School campus. About 25,000 to 30,000 of them, to be exact. They don’t sit in classrooms or carry backpacks, but they’ve quickly become part of the school community.

The Italian honey bees, tucked away in a hive behind the school’s athletic facilities, have become both a source of honey and a hands-on lesson in sustainability for all grades.

Laura Day, director of the Institute for Social Impact at Hockaday, first brought bees to campus after receiving an email from Alvéole, a company that typically works with corporations to put hives on top of their office buildings. Around the same time, Hockaday was redoing its athletic facilities and setting aside a piece of unused land for Blackland Prairie restoration. Day thought this could be the perfect home for bees, as long as the company could guarantee they would be “nice bees.”

Her request was granted, and

the Italian honey bees were brought to campus.

“Italian honey bees, I call them the golden doodle of bees,” Day says, describing their gentle nature. In addition to the honey bees, the company provided bee hotels for native species, where solitary bees can leave their eggs until they hatch.

Teagan Breedlove, Hockaday’s beekeeper, comes by to care for the hive once a month. Breedlove has a background in environmental education, which makes her well-suited to teach the students as she is taking care of the bees. She documents hive activity through photos and videos posted to a website that students across grade levels use in class. Breedlove will sometimes visit classes to teach about hive dynamics and how bees interact with their ecosystem.

That integration of the bees into the Hockaday curriculum has been steady and intentional.

“It was piece by piece, and it was me going around asking teachers where it connected,” Day says.

First graders take part in Hive to

Thousands of honey bees have become The Hockaday School’s newest residents Story by NIKI GUMMADI

Honey, harvesting honey from the honeybees and bottling their own jars to take home. Eighth graders, after reading The Secret Life of Bees , observe Breedlove during hive maintenance and write about the experience in English class. In the Lower School, where learning about bees was already part of the curriculum, students meet her during workshops. Even physics classes use the hive to study the geometry of the honeycomb hexagon.

The excitement goes beyond the classroom. The beekeeper bottles around 100 jars of honey each year, and the bottles are sold in the school store. According to Day, the honey typically sells out in a day. The money earned goes right back to maintaining the hives.

“Now, everybody is into bees,” Day says.

Despite the thousands of bees on campus, Day says no one has been stung by them. That’s because, in her words, “honey bees are so obsessed with what they do” that they don’t bother with humans unless provoked.

For Hockaday, the bees are part of a larger lesson on sustainability. As part of the school’s AP environmental science curriculum, students go to the Trinity River Audubon Center, a nature center in southeast Dallas. There, they learn about restoration of Blackland Prairie, an ecosystem named for its dark soil that used to cover the Dallas area before the city was developed. The students then bring these lessons back to campus, where they work on restoring a piece of land. Day says the prairie restoration is one of several efforts to connect the classroom with hands-on lessons about the environment.

“Oh, they love it. They think it’s so cool. They talk about it a lot,” Day says of her students.

The honey bees’ presence has drawn interest from other schools as well, many of which have reached out to learn how to replicate Hockaday’s model. Throughout the campus and beyond, Hockaday’s honey bees have turned out to be a pretty sweet deal.

The new ordinance that amends the definition of “smoking” to include electronic smoking devices (Vaping) goes into effect at midnight on Thursday, December 11, 2025. Any area that currently prohibits smoking, now includes vaping of any kind. These areas include all indoor and enclosed spaces within fifteen (15) feet of building entrances, and on park property. For more details, visit us at the

The public and business owners and operators please note the date to come into compliance is December 11, 2025.

A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME

Hillcrest’s new athletic coordinator is kicking off her first season with big goals for Panther athletics

Story by NIKI GUMMADI

Candace Balderas-Miller just started her first year as Hillcrest High School’s athletic coordinator, following a lauded history as a coach in the district. She spent 10 years as a coach at Moisés E. Molina High School, where she was involved with the wrestling team, girls’ soccer, volleyball and more, eventually becoming Molina’s assistant athletic coordinator. While at Molina, the Lubbock native was named Dallas Independent School District’s Assistant Athletic Coordinator of the Year in 2024-2025. She was also named a Dallas Cowboys Coach of the Week in the spring of 2025 during Molina’s first girls’ flag football season. Balderas-Miller’s start at Hillcrest makes her the only female campus athletic coordinator in the district. We sat down with her to hear more about her new role.

HOW DID YOU FIND YOURSELF GETTING INVOLVED IN ATHLETICS?

Growing up, I was a tomboy, like big into sports, and that continued through high school even as I grew out of my tomboy phase. I played soccer most of my life in high school. I was kind of one of those kids that did all of the sports, but soccer was my main one. When I went to Texas Tech University, I had a friend who was connected to the rugby team there. They were looking for transitional athletes, like athletes who had never played rugby but maybe were good in other sports. So I joined the rugby team at Tech, and I ended up getting quite good at that. When I graduated, I ended up getting certified to be a teacher. I wanted to be a coach, because my whole life was sports up until that point. So that’s how I ended up here.

HOW DID BEING A STUDENT-ATHLETE HELP YOU WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP?

I am shy by nature. I like to stay under the radar and just work hard, and that’s just kind of my personality. The spotlight is a little bit difficult for me, but sports is really where I found my power. It’s where I feel comfortable being powerful and being loud and being a force. I don’t think that I would be able to be in a position like this without that kind of experience, because it would have been uncomfortable for me in the past.

DOES BEING A FORMER STUDENT-ATHLETE PLAY INTO THE WAY YOU COACH?

It’s funny because at all of our coaches’ clinics and stuff, they always say, “You’re here as a coach, because you had a coach that inspired you.” And I’m kind of the opposite, because I had a coach who was really not my cup of tea, and it made me want to be something different. So that has been kind of something that I’ve used in my coaching career, and I’m actually still an athlete. I still play rugby for a women’s club here in Dallas, so getting to see both sides of the coin, I think that helps me understand how to relate to the other student-athletes.

WHAT IS YOUR COACHING PHILOSOPHY?

When I’m working with my students and when I’m working with my coaches, my priority is the same. It is the relentless pursuit of excellence. When I am with my student-athletes, I strive to be relentless in everything that I do, to push them to be better, to give them better experiences, to give them better opportunities. I’m just relentless, and I hope that seeing that causes them to be relentless in whatever it is that they do in their life. I have a saying with my girls that I’m not in the business of creating average young ladies. We’re in the business of creating extraordinary young ladies. And then same thing with the coaches. I try and inspire them to be relentless in their pursuit of excellence for their students as well.

HAS YOUR COACHING EXPERIENCE HELPED YOU IN THIS NEW ROLE?

It really does, because you get to see all of the different sides of the sports and the administration side of all of the sports. I was really fortunate that in the times that I was an assistant coach, I worked under really proficient head coaches who introduced me to the administrative side of their sport, because all of our head coaches have an administrative side to their job. Getting that exposure really prepared me for this role.

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO MOVE FROM COACHING INTO THIS NEW ROLE?

It’s tough because the higher up you get in this field, the less actual coaching you do, because there’s that administrative side. As I started getting really proficient in coaching and I felt like I saw successes with my team, etc., I was able to kind of mentor younger coaches or newer coaches. I felt like that was equally important to make sure that all of our students get proficient coaches. And that is just as exciting to me today as it is to watch an athlete grow. It’s exciting to watch a coach grow.

WHAT ROLE DO YOU SEE ATHLETICS PLAYING IN YOUR STUDENTS’ LIVES?

Every kid is different. For some kids, this is everything to them. Sports is the reason they come to school. It’s the reason they get up in the morning. It’s how they structure their lives, around the sport they play. And for some kids, it’s just something to fill some time or a place to find friends, and then everything in between. Every kid has a different reason, and so it’s kind of up to us as a coach to identify

what that is for that kid, and that kind of determines what excellence looks like for that kid.

YOU ARE CURRENTLY THE ONLY FEMALE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR IN THE DISTRICT. DOES THAT INFORM THE WAY YOU INTERACT WITH YOUR STUDENTS, PARTICULARLY YOUR GIRLS?

I really just try and lead by example as much as possible. Everything that I would expect from them, I try and emulate. So if I’m expecting them to be here early, I’m here earlier. And I don’t take lightly how important it is to see a female in this position, and to me that’s a huge responsibility, so I try and live up to that. When I was first hired at Molina, it was a female athletic coordinator who hired me. I remember sitting in her office interviewing at, like, 24 years old thinking to myself, “I want to have this job someday.” That’s how powerful that kind of representation is. So I don’t take it lightly.

HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THE GENERAL HILLCREST COMMUNITY ENGAGE WITH THE ATHLETICS PROGRAM?

The athletics community and the Hillcrest community in general is very engaged in pretty much everything that we do, which is exciting. It reminds me a lot of the high school I went to because it was a smaller town, so, you know, Friday Night Lights is a thing, right? And that is a thing here at Hillcrest. You see parents come to games, even if their kids are not playing. They come, they bring their kids. It’s very social. There’s lots of support. Parents are always reaching out asking how they can help. They want to be involved. So it’s really exciting, the role that athletics plays in the general school community, because the school community is massive.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE FUTURE OF HILLCREST ATHLETICS?

My end game is really, I want Hillcrest athletics to be the premier athletic program in the DFW area. We have kind of a tough challenge because we sit in, I guess, what’s called the private school corridor. And so families have a lot of options here. They can go Hillcrest, which is a great option, but they have a million private schools that they can choose from. So I want athletics to be kind of the shining star that they see in the community when they’re contemplating their choices for where they want to send their kids.

To that, we’ve started working heavily with all of the schools in our area, our vertical team. It’s really common for high schools to work closely with the middle school because they feed directly, and sometimes the elementary schools get left behind. But we’re trying to be really intentional in programming at our elementary schools so that kids know when they enter Pre-K that they are Hillcrest Panthers all the way.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

WHAT A

A CATCH

Montlake Cut’s Market Fish

Preps feature different fish depending on which fresh catches are available.

For nearly a decade, Montlake Cut has reeled in neighbors with fresh seafood and a Seattle-inspired design

Story by NIKI GUMMADI

Photography by KATHY TRAN

You don’t need to hop on a flight to Seattle to get a taste of the Pacific Northwest. For almost 10 years, Montlake Cut has been serving fresh seafood in a space that transports diners to the West Coast.

The restaurant is part of restaurateur Nick Badovinus’ Flavor Hook hospitality group, which also includes concepts like Neighborhood Services and Brass Ram.

Its name is a reference to the Montlake Cut, a narrow waterway in Seattle that connects Lake Washington to the Puget Sound. Badovinus grew up in Washington, where he would often travel on Montlake Cut. Flavor Hook Program Director Jon Aisner says the sense of adventure Badovinus associated with these trips, along with the city of Seattle, are the biggest influences behind the menu.

Chef Roberto Lopez runs a kitchen built around which fresh seafood is available, meaning certain dishes change season by season. Depending on the season and supply, Nova Scotia halibut, coho salmon and other catches rotate through the menu. Diners can order larger entrées for themselves or opt for

a spread of small plates to share across the table, like the ceviche, which comes with a mezcal citrus vinaigrette.

According to General Manager Roxanne Hoffmann, certain dishes have become staples over the years. She says one of the most ordered dishes is the Milanese — one of the restaurant’s Market Fish Preps — which is a warm, breaded fish topped with a lemon caper sauce. Another favorite dish among customers is the Gulf Coast style fish, which comes blackened with Flavor Hook’s signature voodoo sauce.

Hoffmann says the menu’s “sleeper pick” is the crispy beef tacos, which has been included in older Flavor Hook concepts.

“That’s their dessert, is like some whiskey and a couple beef tacos,” Hoffmann says of some of Montlake Cut’s regulars.

The Seattle influence extends beyond the menu into the restaurant’s design, done by Badovinus himself. The space is filled with nautical details and references to Seattle, like memorabilia from the city’s sports teams. Sitting at the bar gives the impression you are in a boat, with white vinyl seats and a row of colorful oars hanging above.

According to Aisner, Montlake Cut has cemented itself as a neighborhood spot during its almost decade-long run. He says walk-in traffic is steady, and the bar is a popular neighborhood fixture. The restaurant has cultivated a group of customers that come in regularly.

As Montlake Cut approaches its 10th year, what started as a personal nod to the place Badovinus grew up has become a neighborhood fixture.

Cut, 8220 Westchester Drive, 214. 739. 8220

GROWING PAINS

A proposed 50-home development on Walnut Hill Lane is sparking debate between some neighbors and the City

Story by NIKI GUMMADI

ON A QUIET STRETCH OF LAND

just east of Marsh Lane and Walnut Hill Lane, a vacant 3.76-acre property has become the center of a debate over the future of one of the city’s most established neighborhoods.

The site, once home to the Primera Iglesia Bautista, has been vacant since the October 2019 tornado demolished the building. Partially paved, partially empty, it sits at the intersection of Walnut Hill Lane and Betty Jane Lane, part of the Walnut Hill neighborhood where mid-century modern homes, parks and schools are easy to find. The tight-knit community could soon welcome an influx of new neighbors.

Dallas developer Mehrdad Moayedi’s Crescent Estates Custom Homes is now looking to develop the property with 50 single-family patio homes.

The project requires the developer to receive a planned development district designation from the City that would modify the property’s current single-family zoning. Leonel Amaya of Crescent says the PD designation would allow for smaller lots, shared access drives and a maximum of 50 homes, while keeping the property zoned as single-family.

On Aug. 21, the City Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the developer’s PD plan, sending it to City Council for a vote in the face of a number of neighbors voicing their concerns at the CPC meeting.

At the meeting, neighbors expressed that they would like for the plot to be developed, but they believed the plan as it stood is not compatible with the neighborhood.

In response, Amaya points to compromises made after meeting with neighbors. Originally, Crescent was planning to build 60 homes.

Amaya says the number of proposed homes was reduced to 50 after listening to neighbors’ concerns following meetings held both by the City and the neighborhood. Along the northern property line, where the site backs up to existing houses, Crescent increased lot sizes from around 1,550 square feet to as much as 3,970 square feet.

“This ensures a thoughtful transition that respects the surrounding neighborhood,” Amaya says.

The maximum height along that northern edge was also reduced, from the initial proposal of 45 feet to 30 feet, with a two-story limit to respond to privacy concerns from neighbors whose Wimberley Court homes are adjacent to the lot. To this point, Amaya says Crescent increased the setback in this area by an additional 4 feet beyond what is currently required. Across the rest of the development, the maximum building height dropped from 45 feet to 36 feet.

Architecturally, Crescent plans a transitional, modern style. Amaya describes it as blending contemporary touches with traditional appeal. The homes would range in size, but lot sizes throughout the development would be a minimum of 1,650 square feet.

Pricing has not yet been announced.

“Our goal is to provide housing that is both competitive in today’s market and attainable for the growing workforce in Dallas,” Amaya says.

Crescent says these changes demonstrate its willingness to work with the neighborhood.

“We listened carefully to community feedback and made several changes,” Amaya says.

At the CPC meeting, some commissioners echoed that sentiment.

“This case is about bringing a diversity of housing to District 13,” District 13 Commissioner Larry Hall said at the meeting. “All of Dallas needs a wide range of housing options at varying price points, and District 13 should not, cannot be excluded from participating in efforts to provide this housing.”

Traffic concerns were addressed with an independent study. “Although the City of Dallas did not require it, we commissioned a traffic study to better understand potential impacts,” Amaya says. The study, conducted in July, found a 24-hour, two-way volume of 297 vehicles, with peak-hour averages below national standards. “These findings indicate that traffic volumes are manageable.”

Some neighbors are not satisfied.

“I followed this effort closely, and I’ve been hopeful that the positive ongoing dialogue that we’ve had between the board and the CPC would result in a good product and a positive end result, which it, at this point, has not,” Marla Hartsell, vice president of the Walnut Hill Homeowners Association, said at the meeting. “If you’ve been down there, they deserve better. They have suffered a devastating tornado, a slumlord commercial landlord who has slow-rolled the rebuild of a shopping center. We have Albertson’s subletting to El Rancho and dd’s DISCOUNTS.”

Hartsell then asked for the vote to be delayed until a full and detailed PD plan can be created and reviewed.

Julia Hart, who has lived in Walnut Hill for 20 years, said 50 homes on small lots “is not compatible with the neighborhood.” She suggested cutting the project in half. “We’re just asking for moderation.”

Other neighbors raised traffic, safety and privacy concerns.

“Adding (an) additional 100 vehicles from 50 new homes would create dangerous congestion, especially for children walking home from school or playing outdoors,” Vavesh Patel said to the commission.

Sarah Fulmer, whose home backs up to the site and was destroyed in the tornado, said the proposal doesn’t align with ForwardDallas 2.0, the City’s updated comprehensive land use guide adopted in September 2024.

“If any of you lived in my home and saw what this plan is going to give us, you would vote no today,” Fulmer told commissioners.

Some residents emphasized they aren’t opposed to density outright.

“ForwardDallas has a noble cause to increase density, and we’re totally fine with that, but you can’t use that as an excuse to cram in as many houses as possible on a piece of property,” said John Wimberly, president of the Wimberley Court Homeowners Association. “We are not NIMBYs (not in my backyard supporters). We are totally for increased density.”

But others say the process itself has been flawed.

“Normally, a PD involves significant negotiation, design changes, restrictions and requirements to address neighborhood concerns,” said Ross Coulter, a past WHHA president. “Aside from a few parking spaces and trees, that process did not happen in this case, as virtually no requests submitted by the HOA were accepted. If neighborhood concerns are ignored or dismissed like this and zoning gymnastics are used to drop such a dense development into the middle of an existing R-16 neighborhood, then we essentially have no zoning at all.”

Residents circulated a petition against the rezoning, gathering more than 200 signatures. Some, like Peter Sommerville, argued it was less about density and more about process.

“This planned development makes a mockery of your residential zoning classification system,” he says. “The sense I get is that both the City and the developer are trying to squeeze as much revenue and profit out of this piece of dirt.”

Longtime resident Virginia Worley, who has lived in Walnut Hill for more than 50 years, tied the issue back to the tornado. For her, the zoning fight is about ensuring that same resilience is rewarded with development that feels fitting.

“In 2019, our neighborhood was hit with a disastrous tornado. You’ve all seen it in the paper. Our neighborhood came back and rebuilt. We didn’t go to Plano or Frisco. We stayed where we loved,” Worley said to the commission.

The debate over Marsh and Walnut Hill Lanes is now in the council’s hands. For Crescent, the project represents a chance to offer housing options Dallas badly needs. For neighbors, it is about the character of a community they want to preserve.

Wash & Learn

With Hope in Hygiene, Arya Ajith is teaching healthy habits worldwide

Story by NIKI GUMMADI | Photography by JESSICA TURNER

When Episcopal School of Dallas senior Arya Ajith traveled to Belize last summer, she came back with more than just memories; she came back with a mission.

Ajith was one of 11 Americans selected by the United States State Department Youth Ambassadors program, in partnership with Georgetown University, to visit Belize last summer. Over the course of the three-week trip, Ajith and the others completed a diplomatic tour of Belize and worked with a local philanthropic organization, the Love Foundation, to restore a preschool in the area.

Ajith says that while working on the preschool, the idea for her project Hope in Hygiene was born.

“I just came to realize that there is a cultural gray area when it came to hygiene practices,” Ajith says. “People knew the difference between clean and unclean but struggled with how to maintain that.”

Ajith spoke to the teachers she met while restoring the preschool to learn more about which gaps exist in hygiene education in the school’s curriculum. She also worked with the Love Foundation to distribute a survey to assess common hygiene practices across Belize. After completing her research, Ajith developed a comic-style pamphlet teaching children about handwashing, balanced meals and other healthy habits.

“Hygiene was a perfect mix of education, advocacy and something that also had a somewhat tangible solution,” Ajith says. “The solution to hygiene is knowledge. It’s about access, of course, but the first step to kind of using resources correctly is having the knowledge to do so.”

She worked with graphic design company C3 to print 500 pamphlets. She then partnered with her

school store, local charities and corporations to put together the Bundles for Belize Drive, which collected more than 3,000 reusable items like backpacks, water bottles, hats and T-shirts to send to Belize alongside the pamphlets.

The Hope in Hygiene initiative has received support from officials in both the U.S. and Belize. Olympic figure skater and former U.S. Ambassador to Belize Michelle Kwan has backed the project, and Ajith is working with the Special Envoy’s Office in Belize to ensure distribution of the pamphlets and donated items goes smoothly.

Ajith’s interest in global service began before she started Hope in Hygiene. She says her parents’ stories from growing up in India combined with her experience growing up in Dallas have shaped her worldview.

“I’ve never turned away from something that has caught my attention, especially if it’s in the realm of service,” she says.

Before Belize, she interned with a UNICEF partner in India, working on child rights and protection. She says that work, plus her love for learning languages and cultures, cemented her goal of pursuing international relations and public policy in college.

Now a senior in high school, Ajith says going to college will not be the end of her work with Hope in Hygiene. Once the Belize project is complete, she plans to adapt the pamphlet for other countries. Starting in Tamil Nadu, India — where her parents are from — she wants to work with a local nonprofit to redesign the pamphlet to address local health concerns. She also plans to bring the project to Lebanon, as she is currently learning Arabic and has a connection to a local nonprofit in the country.

For Ajith, Hope in Hygiene is just the beginning.

WHEN THE TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY released annual A-F accountability ratings this summer, parents in our neighborhood saw something they hadn’t in years. Nearly every neighborhood school was on an upward climb. It wasn’t just one standout campus pulling ahead, but a pattern of progress across the board. For families and neighbors who track these grades to understand how schools in their area are doing, the news was welcome: our campuses are trending upward.

The state’s accountability system, designed to give families an at-aglance measure of school quality, evaluates schools on three fronts: student achievement, student progress and “closing the gap,” which focuses on how campuses support historically underserved groups with extra weight given to students who advance from failing to passing. Taken together, these domains produce the overall letter grade that schools are given each fall.

The 2024-2025 scores were released only months after the previous year’s, which were delayed due to an ongoing legal battle between TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and over 100 school districts. The involved districts sought to block the release of the 2023-2024 scores, arguing that

REPORT CARD REVIVAL

School rankings show that our neighborhood is trending upward

Story by NIKI GUMMADI

the higher benchmarks announced in 2023 were not given to schools with enough notice. In April, the fifteenth Court of Appeals ruled to release the 2023-2024 scores and did the same for this year’s scores on July 3.

In our neighborhood, each school either had a clear trend upward or stayed within a two-point range, battling challenges like lower literacy rates brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Walnut Hill International Leadership Academy Principal Phillip Meaker — whose school earned an “A” this year after jumping from a 78 last year to a 90 — the explanation starts with people.

“I think it all starts with hiring good teachers,” he says. “If you’ve got good teachers, you don’t have to do as much work on my end to help grow teachers to grow kids.”

He pointed out that at Walnut Hill, every teacher in a state-tested grade has at least five years of experience.

“No one’s a new beginner,” he says. “All my beginners are not in STAAR grades.”

Teacher retention, which has been a major challenge across the country, has been equally critical.

“From last year’s ‘A’ to this year, I didn’t lose a single teacher. They all stayed,” Meaker says.

With that stability in place, Meaker says the school zeroed in on student goal-setting, especially in math.

Teachers met individually with each student to review academic targets.

“When the kid knows their goal, most of them are competitive,” he says. “But if they don’t know they have a goal and they don’t know what their line is, then they’re just here hanging out, hoping they learn.”

The approach paid off in the state’s “closing the gaps” category for Walnut Hill.

“We had 42 kids that made that jump” from failing to approaching grade level, Meaker says. “That gave us a huge jump in that domain three section, which really helped us grow.”

The gains were clear, with the school going from a “D” average in math to a “B.”

Meaker says Walnut Hill has also invested in campus culture, making sure teachers feel valued.

“If we’re not in the right headspace, we’re not going to do very well for our kids,” he says.

To this effect, Meaker says he has implemented simple but symbolic gestures, like rolling around a “culture cart” once a month stocked with candy bars, sodas and healthy snacks.

“It’s just to say thank you. And it’s helped them feel acknowledged be -

ACCOUNTABILITY OVERVIEW

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT SCHOOL PROGRESS CLOSING THE GAPS

Student Achievement scores are calculated based on scores from STAAR tests administered at least annually to grades 3-11. STAAR performance details reveal what percentage of students are testing below, at or above grade level in three different categories: math, reading and science.

cause especially between Labor Day to Thanksgiving, it gets hard.”

At George Bannerman Dealey Montessori Academy, meanwhile, the story isn’t about sudden leaps but sustained performance. The Pre-K through eighth grade campus has earned an “A” for three straight years. For Dealey’s leaders, the secret lies in relationships across campus.

“Our biggest success point has been our culture and climate here,” Principal Amber Garrett says. “When we were first trying to go for the ‘A,’ the culture and climate was kind of not where it needed to be. And I think a lot of campuses might see that happen when you’re trying to work really hard for a certain level of academic achievement, and you might forget about the people behind the alphabet.”

At Dealey, leaders try to make the teachers feel supported, not just measured. “When you support teachers and you support your staff from a leadership perspective, and everyone is feeling supported, now they begin to do things on their own,” Garrett says.

Each school year centers on a theme to unify staff and students.

School Progress scores are calculated based on two factors: academic growth and relative performance. Academic growth is based on how many students grew academically by at least one school year or successfully accelerated their learning from the last year. Relative performance measures how students perform against those at other schools with similarly economically disadvantaged populations.

This year’s is “Where Dragons Thrive,” and every child gets a personalized plan.

“It’s not about passing or failing here,” Garrett says. “It’s just about growing from one point to another.”

The campus also thrives on parent involvement.

“I have an open campus, which means parents are here pretty much all day, every day,” the principal said. “So it’s one thing to invite parents into your space to just observe, but we have a culture and climate where our parents are actually working. You could be walking down the hall and you will see one teaching kids spelling words. And then you can come down another hall and you’ll see another parent teaching sixth grade math intervention.” That kind of daily collaboration has become part of what school leaders call the “Dealey difference.”

For W. T. White High School, the progress feels even more dramatic. The school earned its first-ever “B” rating.

“There’s like three things that we’ve been working on since I’ve been here ... keeping it simple, going back to the basics,” Principal Beth Wing says. Those three pillars include a school -

Closing the Gap measure how a school is doing in closing performance gaps between students. Scores are calculated by setting targets for four student groups: all students, the two lowest performing racial/ethnic groups and high focus students — which include economically disadvantaged, EB/EL, current special education and highly mobile (foster, unhoused, migrant) students.

wide literacy initiative, expanded extracurricular opportunities and a renewed focus on aligning values around students.

According to Wing, the literacy work has been especially important. “The goal is for every kid to speak, listen, read and write every day, in every class,” Wing says. Teachers were trained in a common strategy, which has helped both emergent bilingual students and kids still catching up from pandemic-era learning loss. The school has also expanded extracurriculars, with nearly 700 students now participating in athletics and the band membership quadrupling from 15 to 60.

“I just think kids that come here to school not just for academics really are better connected and do better, and they’re happier,” Wing says.

College readiness is another focus. W. T. White now offers 23 AP courses. In 2019, 350 students sat for exams with only 20% passing. This year, 740 tested and 38% passed.

“That’s a huge point of pride internally because the state doesn’t really matter that data,” Wing says. “But I also am aware that to get kids ready for college, that does matter.”

Scholarships have soared, too, from $5 million one year to $20.5 million the next.

Wing says that challenges remain, especially attendance.

“It doesn’t matter how great our programs are, if we can’t get 95% to 100% of our kids to show up,” Wing says. “There’s not a magic bullet for that.”

But for a campus that previously struggled to get out of the “C” range, this year’s ranking feels like a turning point.

Taken together, the stories of these schools represent a broader shift in our neighborhood. After years of pandemic disruptions, tornado relocations and declining enrollment, our schools are stabilizing and progressing. Teacher retention, community involvement and data-driven instruction all come up as common threads. So does the emphasis on culture, treating teachers and students as valued members of the school first, test-takers second.

The accountability system may reduce all of that complexity to a single letter grade, but inside these schools, leaders say the work is about more: helping kids set goals, supporting teachers so they can stay and creating a climate where families feel welcome. As Meaker put it, “The goal is to make them feel seen, known and grown every day.”

The grades matter, but the trend line may matter more. In our neighborhood, that line is pointing up.

• National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence

• #1 Ranked High School Athletic Program in Texas with 22 Varsity Sports

• Most Comprehensive Community Service Program in the U.S., Supporting Over 350 Agencies Locally and Abroad

• 136 Academic Courses Including AP and College Dual Credit

• 22% of the student body honored by the National Merit, College Board, and AP Scholar Programs

• Nationally Competitive Programs in Debate, Robotics, Band, and Theater

• 100% Graduation Rate with 87% of Graduates Earning College Scholarships

• Opportunities for Financial Aid and Scholarships to Jesuit

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Good Shepherd’s Disaster Relief and Recovery brings aid to communities in need

Story by NIKI GUMMADI

S P O N D

The DRR’s response to the Kerr County flooding was the largest deployment they have had. Photography courtesy of Dave Harrel.

IN 2012 , the week after Hurricane Sandy tore through Staten Island, Good Shepherd Episcopal School’s Director of Outdoor Education Tad Long came to school with more than a lesson plan.

“He literally came to school on a Monday after and said, ‘We need to do something. I was laying in bed, and God is telling me we need to do something,’” says Andy Blount, assistant director of development.

Long turned his urgency into action, rallying the community with the support of the head of school. Donations poured in until the gym was filled with supplies. Long, Blount and five others used the school’s trailer and a rented 18-wheeler to carry everything to New York. Aided by a local church, the team cooked meals and distributed goods to families affected by the disaster.

“That’s where it started, with just a little vision from Tad Long and what he was kind of being tugged to do by God,” Blount says.

That first trip planted the seeds for what became Good Shepherd Episcopal School’s Disaster Relief and Recovery Program, an initiative that has since grown into one of the most visible ways the school seeks to live out its mission to lead, serve and learn.

“As we’re driving back (from Staten Island), we were like, ‘This is something we want to keep doing,’” Blount says.

Over the years, DRR has become a fixture of the school community, mobilizing whenever it can after tragedy strikes by loading up the rolling, fully-equipped mobile kitchen to serve meals to first responders, volunteers and disaster-stricken families. Blount has taken over the program since Long’s retirement in 2018.

“Our mission is to help feed first responders, help feed the volunteers that are helping in the disaster, and then feed and comfort the community that just got affected,” Blount says.

Feeding people isn’t the only way the DRR provides relief. The program tailors its response to the needs of each situation. Sometimes that has meant opening Good Shepherd’s own doors. When families displaced by Hurricane Harvey took temporary shelter at Walnut Hill Recreation Center down the street, the school welcomed children into classrooms, allowing them to maintain their routines while parents worked on recovery. After a fire in West Texas wiped out fields of hay, the team delivered feed and pellets to ranchers to help their cattle survive.

This past summer’s flooding in Hill Country brought about DRR’s largest deployment yet. The team learned of the disaster on July 4 and began internal talks the next day. By July 7, they were on site serving meals. Blount says 10-15 people typically participate in each trip, but this time the group swelled to more than 25, including two fathers from the school community who led sub-teams clearing paths for the excavators working on site.

DRR trips are rarely staffed by the same group twice as disasters don’t come with much warning. When a need arises, Good Shepherd sends out an all-school email asking who is available. Blount says it is an all-school effort with those that don’t go on the trip helping to cover classes for those that do.

“Even if they don’t go on the trip, the entire faculty/staff have some piece of the puzzle,” Blount says. “It’s kind of a good feeling when you have the community behind you and then an administration behind you that believes in the mission as well.”

Head of School Julie McLeod sees DRR as a natural extension of the school’s values.

“I think it speaks directly to our mission,” she says. “We inspire children to learn with confidence, serve with compassion and lead with courage.”

That service-centered vision, McLeod says, teaches children that responding to tragedy can require more than sympathy.

“There’s a piece of it that is understanding that sometimes really tragic things happen, and that it’s not a time for us to sit by and say, ‘Oh I feel bad for them,’ right? It’s a time for us to mobilize and try to do something to support people in their really, you know, dark times,” McLeod says.

She says that the Good Shepherd community consistently rises to that challenge.

“There is always a beautiful outpouring of generosity for any of the disasters that we have responded to,” McLeod says.

Sometimes, students join in, helping serve meals when it is safe or raising funds through creative efforts. After the flooding at Camp Mystic, a group of 10-year-old girls made bracelets and sold them, donating the proceeds to support recovery.

“For 10-year-old kids to start thinking that way is kind of what we’re trying to do as educators,” Blount says. “As a dad, it makes you proud. As a teacher, it makes you proud. As a coach, it makes you proud.”

While Good Shepherd welcomes students from all faith backgrounds, McLeod says the DRR is influenced by the school’s Episcopal identity.

“We believe that we are responding to God’s call to love our neighbor, to care for them and to be there and care for each other,” she says.

Now more than a decade in, the DRR program is firmly established with fundraising mechanisms and a growing volunteer base. The team responds at least once a year, sometimes more when possible.

Blount says being able to help those affected by disaster is a calling that stays with him.

“Once you taste it, once you feel it, there’s just nothing like it,” he says.