Perhaps the most honest thing you’ll see in a principal’s office anywhere in Dallas is a gray shirt with three embroidered letters over the chest: FLA. DeMarcus Goree-Watkins has been running Forest Lane Academy on Forest Lane in the northern Dallas area where I-635 passes through apartment buildings and extended-stay hotels for the past ten years. That shirt says more about him than any motivational poster on the wall. It’s a shifting neighborhood. People come, take a moment to settle, and then depart. All of it is absorbed by the school.
The student mobility rate at Forest Lane Academy ranges from 40 to 43 percent. That figure merits serious consideration. By the end of the school year, about half of the kids who enter the building in August will have left. Reading groups, math benchmarks, lesson plans, and student-teacher relationships are all based on constantly changing conditions. The majority of Richardson ISD’s wealthy schools don’t deal with anything like this. Forest Lane is situated in a different reality, one that is shaped by families who are frequently merely attempting to remain in one location long enough for something to hold, temporary housing, and financial strain.
Goree-Watkins does not discuss this with resentment. He frames it with a steadiness, a kind of practiced clarity that comes from facing the same problem year after year without pretending it will go away. According to him, his leadership approach is centered on teamwork: teachers and administrators working side by side, internalizing the curriculum together, and analyzing data not as a compliance exercise but as a sincere attempt to understand where children truly are. It seems fairly straightforward. In reality, it calls for something more akin to stubbornness in a school where consistency is the most valuable resource.
He was named Elementary Principal of the Year by Richardson ISD this year. Although he had previously been named a teacher of the year, it was his first administrative honor in eighteen years of teaching. He has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to providing opportunities regardless of a child’s background, language, or circumstances, according to Tabitha Branun, the district superintendent. Practically speaking, that kind of praise from district leadership is important because it can influence how prospective teachers view a campus, which is important at a Title I school.
At campuses like Forest Lane, teacher retention usually lasts three to five years. Goree-Watkins is open about his hiring criteria, which include resilience. Not just passion or qualifications, but the ability to persevere in the face of challenges. He seems to have built a staff culture around that idea, choosing individuals who won’t be shattered by the unique weight of this type of school. He obviously hopes the name Forest Lane Academy will start to carry a different kind of reputation, but it remains to be seen if his new recognition will help attract more of those teachers.
In the meantime, the school has been creating tiny, almost defiantly concrete pockets of stability. Students are now planting native vegetables and bringing them home as part of a gardening program. On campus, hens are being raised; a coop is planned, and eggs are hatching in classrooms. Although Goree-Watkins doesn’t frame it that way, it’s difficult to ignore the symbolism—growing things in a place characterized by impermanence. All he says is that the children are getting their hands dirty.
His unpolished message to students consistently revolves around the same concept: get back up. Be strong. Reach your goal, knowing that those who make things seem simple aren’t telling you about the challenges you face. That advice has more weight than just inspirational words because it comes from someone who has spent ten years in one building while the outside world is in turmoil. It sounds well-deserved. The question that still lingers in the hallways is whether Forest Lane Academy can turn that earned credibility into long-lasting institutional strength—better retention rates, better academic results, a pipeline of teachers who choose to stay. However, Goree-Watkins isn’t leaving after ten years. That in and of itself says something worth considering.
