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Letter From the Principal
Derek Thomas is a Dallas ISD product who grew up in Pleasant Grove and graduated from Skyline High School. He went on to receive his bachelor of Business Administration for The University of North Texas. He served as a supervisor in the financial industry and as a business owner before pursuing his passion for being an educator.
He served as a 6th grade and 8th grade math educator at Fred F Florence middle school as well as a CILT team member. While there, he was part of a team of educators that accelerated math passing percentage scores by over 28% in one year. After four years of teaching at Florence, he became a Math Instructional Coach at Lenore Kirk Hall Elementary School in Oak Cliff. There he led math educators in improving the campus math passing percentage scores by 18% in one year and going from 1 distinction to 4 distinctions in a two-year span. After two years, he went back to Fred F. Florence to rebrand it as the Young Men's Leadership Academy at Fred F. Florence as the math instructional coach. While there, he was able to lead the 8th grade math team by increasing their passing percentage by 27% and having 100% of scholars passing Algebra 1 with 54% of those scholars exhibiting mastery as defined by state standards.
This same year, Mr. Thomas graduated from Southern Methodist University with a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership. Two months after graduation, he was promoted to be an Assistant Principal at Annie Webb Blanton Elementary School, where he was part of the team to maintain and increase the culture of the campus. He was part of the team that wrote the proposal for Solar Preparatory School for Boys and had the privilege of opening the school and establishing the groundwork for what the campus would become. He served as Assistant Principal there for two year before having the honor to serve as the Principal at Adelle Turner Elementary School. While there he was able to secure a $50,000 grant toward STEM development in the campus as well as receive the honor of being the adopted campus of the Dallas Mavericks. One year later, he would then return to serve as the principal of Solar Preparatory Academy for Boys. While there he built a culture of growth and expectations around excellence while engaging with community partnerships to create an optimal learning environment for the scholars.
Mr Thomas believes in building scholars academically but has a major focus on character, culture, and community. He is excited to bring these beliefs to Barack Obama Leadership Academy as the principal. He understands that one person may start a movement, but a community maintains it. He is looking forward to building a community of scholars, educators, parents, and business partners that are about developing the whole child and assuring that ALL scholars have the opportunity to be successful, no matter their backgrounds.