South Dallas School Support

By: Anne Edwards

From the minute I approached the multi-colored façade embraced by the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I could tell that this school was a special place. Since September 2020, I have had the privilege of working with the staff at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Academy. It all started with a school supply drive PHPC conducted to help meet the needs of this Dallas ISD school, located about a mile and a half from Fair Park.

The staff’s dedicated efforts with the students are evident in the creative and engaging learning projects that I have seen. Some of the projects this year include Robotics activities, Black History Month videos that incorporate dance, music, drama and art, a black-light school-wide arts and music adventure, and school-wide math incentives. As a school that emphasizes the Arts, the staff truly works to make the students’ education meaningful and fun. This has resulted in the MLK Arts Academy being named a B-rated campus from the Texas Education Agency with 5 Academic Distinctions in Math, Reading, Closing the Achievement Gap, Academic Growth, and Post-Secondary Readiness.

Having been a teacher, I know how the school’s atmosphere and climate make a huge difference in the morale of both the staff and students. I continue to be impressed by the camaraderie and unity of spirit amongst the MLK educators. This spirit is contagious and makes for a great partnership as we together tackle some of the needs of our South Dallas students and families.

I am very thankful for the ways in which PHPC has supported the students with school supplies and Angel Tree gifts and how we have supported the staff with goodie bags, extra needed supplies, funding for the Robotics project and a luncheon. It will be exciting to see how this partnership and ministry will grow in the future as we continue to live out our PHPC mission statement, ”Trusting that all belong to God and living like we belong to one another.”

PHPC's partnership with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Academy is a part of a larger effort to bring awareness and support to organizations and leaders investing in the residents of South Dallas and working towards building a brighter future for the whole community. This effort is led by Forest Forward, a nonprofit launched by CitySquare in 2020.