From the outside, Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary School in Dallas ISD looks like a lot of schools, but inside it’s like stepping into another world.
“The theme this year is Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary takes flight,” Principal Crystal Cavitt said. “It takes flight because we are at the beginning. We are getting our students ready to soar! We’re getting them ready to be advocates for themselves for their community, and so this is where you’re teaching them to take flight.”
The sound of staplers and crinkled construction paper filled the hallways on Thursday morning as teachers and staff got to work transforming a 1st grade hallway into a runway with planes and clouds overhead.
“They love colorful things,” 1st-grade bilingual teacher Maria Avila said. “They love to see fun stuff, so I think it’s the first way we have to motivate them to come to school.”
Every year, the school does a different theme. Years past included Candyland and Cultivating World Leaders. It’s not just about how the school looks; it’s about how it makes the students feel when they’re in school.
“It is that big a deal for our kids to come in here and feel safe,” Cavitt said. “Because we have one of the highest crime rates here in the Vickery Meadow area.”
“So we just want them to have a place where every morning they walk in, whatever happens outside the doors stays out there,” 2nd-grade bilingual teacher Marisol Garcia-Undiano said. “They come in here, and they see the color, and the joy.”
Garcia-Undiano and her fellow teachers were decorating their 2nd-grade hallways with hot air balloons and sunsets.
“It, like, makes them feel welcome and it shows them that we care about them and that we’re excited that they’re here,” Garcia-Undiano said. “Then throughout the school year, we also use it to display their work and so we like to think if we give them a nice place to display their work, then they’re going to be extra proud of it. They’re going to be working harder throughout the school year as well.”
“I feel so proud and thankful that I get to do this for them,” Avila said.
“We’re going to show them all the possibilities and then let them take off from there,” Cavitt said.
At the end of every year, graduating 5th graders at Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary put in ideas and vote on a theme for the following year.
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