Dallas ISD Trustees Endorse Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson for Re-Election
Dallas ISD Board President and Trustees praise Mayor Johnson as “the education mayor” and applaud his efforts to make schools stronger and safer
Three elected leaders of the Dallas Independent School District have endorsed Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson for re-election. Mayor Johnson earned the endorsements of Dallas ISD Trustees Justin Henry (current Board President), Dan Micciche (Board President, 2016–2018), and Maxie Johnson.
“It is an honor to have the support of these Dallas ISD trustees. I am deeply appreciative of their service to Dallas ISD students, including my own children,” said Mayor Johnson. “No issue is more important to Dallas’ success than education. As Mayor, I have made it a top priority to work closely with our local education leaders to collaborate on initiatives that help the families that are raising their children in our city.”
Mayor Johnson attended Dallas ISD schools as a child and has been a leading voice for public education during his time serving Dallas in the Texas House of Representatives and now as Mayor.
“Mayor Johnson is the education mayor. He understands the value of community partnerships and the importance of a quality education. In over a decade of public service in the Texas Legislature and at Dallas City Hall, he has been a champion for our families, and he has demonstrated a commitment to every child in every neighborhood in our city. I am proud to support his re-election campaign, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead.” — Dallas ISD Trustee and Board President Justin Henry (Member of the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees since 2018)
“Mayor Johnson is a key ally in our efforts to make Dallas schools stronger and safer. Through his summer jobs program, his Summer of Safety campaign, the Mayor’s Back to School Fair, and other efforts, he has made a real difference in the lives of Dallas students and their families. He has championed early childhood education, improvements in school discipline policy, increased funding for public education, and strengthened the partnership between Dallas ISD and the City of Dallas to create a pipeline for students who want to explore careers in law enforcement. Mayor Johnson also led the efforts to successfully reform the City’s Code of Ethics. Our public schools and our community will benefit from Mayor Johnson’s re-election.” — Dallas ISD Trustee Dan Micciche (Member of the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees since 2012; served as President of the Board from 2016 to 2018)
“There has been no greater advocate for our families at Dallas City Hall than Mayor Johnson. He is a caring leader who has consistently worked to ensure all of our children from all of our communities have opportunities to succeed. Our city needs him back for another term as mayor — full stop.” — Dallas ISD Trustee Maxie Johnson (Member of the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees since 2019)
During his service representing Dallas in the Texas House of Representatives for nearly a decade, Mayor Johnson was a consistent advocate for greater funding of full-day, high-quality prekindergarten and passed legislation allowing Dallas ISD to take money saved from early high school graduations and reinvest it in full-day pre-K in the district. He also worked to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by passing legislation to prohibit student suspensions in pre-K through second grade and to require schools statewide to report demographic data on suspensions to the state to allow for better policies to be crafted.
Since he was elected mayor, Mayor Johnson has worked with Dallas ISD to expand the annual Mayor’s Back to School Fair to provide school supplies and laptops to more Dallas ISD students than it has ever provided in its 26-year history. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Johnson secured funding and resources to provide masks to Dallas ISD students and to provide meals and gallons of milk to thousands of families in need that his volunteers distributed at Dallas ISD schools. As Mayor, he launched a youth summer employment program, Dallas Works, which connects nearly a thousand Dallas ISD students to career training and employment each summer.
Through Mayor Johnson’s leadership on education and public safety issues, he created the Mayor’s Summer of Safety initiative, which grants Dallas ISD students free access to a variety of activities, including the Dallas Zoo, aquatic parks, the Arboretum, and other city amenities to help reduce crimes committed by young people in the city during the summer months.
Mayor Johnson, who took office in 2019, announced in September that he intended to seek re-election next spring. Since that announcement, Mayor Johnson now has already received endorsements from four former mayors of Dallas — Ambassador Ron Kirk, Tom Leppert, Mary Poss, and Steve Bartlett; three Dallas area members of Congress; the city’s largest police and fire associations; nearly 30 former Dallas City Councilmembers; and four members of the Texas House of Representatives who served as Chairmen of the Texas House Public Education Committee.
Prior to his election as Mayor of Dallas, Johnson represented Dallas in the Texas House of Representatives for nearly a decade. In Johnson’s three-plus years as Mayor, Dallas has seen a double-digit drop in violent crime, reduced the property tax rate to the lowest level in 15 years, and added more than $14 billion in new development.
The son of a former Dallas police officer, Mayor Johnson grew up in West Dallas and Oak Cliff. He received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Harvard University in 1998, as well as a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a master’s degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, both in 2003.
Johnson and his wife, Nakita, are raising their three children in Dallas.
