Lakewood Elementary has a reputation for being a school that is highly ranked and highly sought after by parents moving to East Dallas. While both of those are true, the school has much, much more to offer! In addition to excellent academic achievements, Lakewood excels at community partnerships, student enrollment and retention, excellent teachers and staff and most importantly, high parental involvement!
In addition to being as involved as I can attending the SBDM Committee Meetings, I’m also a parent of a (now) second grader at Lakewood! Our son has had a great experience, and our daughter will be going into kindergarten in two years! Before the school year ended, I sat down with the Principal, Ms. Thompson, and got the scoop on some of the highlights at Lakewood Elementary. This past school year, Lakewood had approx. 1,070 students enrolled, which was their largest enrollment ever! Principal Thompson will be going into her 6thyear as Principal of the school in the fall of 2025, and speaking from experience, she’s the best!!
Lakewood focuses on advocating for all and for having empathy for others. They also instill and implement the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The school’s Vision is as follows: “We are a community of leaders, valued individuals and problem solvers who advocate for all.”
What really sets Lakewood apart from other Elementary schools and makes the school truly special are the volunteer organizations that partner with the school and community to go above and beyond in providing the students and teachers whatever they need to be successful. Lakewood has an incredible PTA (Parent Teacher Association) which has approx. 200+ Board Members and approx. 800 regular members that serve on 40+ committees. Those committees range from Student Life & Enrichment, Staff Support, Facilities, Community Outreach and much more!
In addition to the PTA, Lakewood is extremely blessed to have an early childhood PTA as well, which gets parents involved well before they have kids attending the school. The LECPTA has been around for almost 75 years, and during that time, they have raised over $4.5 million dollars to Lakewood and the surrounding neighborhood schools as well! Just in the spring of 2025 alone, the LECPTA dispersed over $400,000 to Lakewood, J.L. Long Middle School, Woodrow Wilson High School and various WWHS feeder pattern schools as well. For Lakewood, the money covers recurring programs such as the Leader In Me, classroom supplies, teacher support items and activities, campus improvements and supportive curriculum.
In addition to those great organizations, the school also gets support and funding from the “Friends of Lakewood”, or the FOL. The FOL is primarily a dad’s group and is dedicated to enhancing the educational experience of the students. They help organize fun activities for the families at Lakewood, including the infamous Camp Lakewood, the Father/Daughter Dance, the Mother/Son Dance, the Haunted House at the Fall Festival and much more. They also run an after-school program for hundreds of kids and the dads volunteer to help the crossing guards, occasionally wearing wacky costumes and playing fun music for the kids as they arrive in the mornings!
Last but not least, thanks in large part to the parental involvement and the great staff, support structure and teachers at Lakewood Elementary, the school is ranked #11 (out of over 6,600 elementary schools) in the U.S. News & World Report “Best Texas Elementary Schools” recent list. Lakewood is the TOP ranked elementary school in all of Dallas ISD, if you rank it amongst traditional K-5 schools. Technically, William B. Travis Vanguard Academy (commonly referred to as TAG) and Sudie L. Williams Talented and Gifted Academy rank higher, but both run from 4th grade to 8th grade. Lakewood was also given an A rating from the Texas Education Agency, but the last time those rankings were made public were from 2022. The latest official TEA ratings aren’t available due to an ongoing lawsuit between them and a variety of Texas school districts from across the state. However, according to Dallas ISD and the Woodrow feeder pattern Executive Director, Lakewood still remains an A-rated school!
Lakewood Elementary is simply the best, and we are lucky to be able to send our kids to this top ranked Dallas ISD school!