South Dallas leaders want new career institute at old Billy Dade school site

By |Published On: October 24, 2024|Categories: Education, South Dallas|
The original Billy Earl Dade school sits at the corner of Malcolm X and Park Row, and has been vacant since 2013. Photo by Sujata Dand

The original Billy Earl Dade Elementary School, a historic Black Dallas Independent School District property in South Dallas, is being considered as the site for a proposed $50 million career institute, according to DISD Trustee Ed Turner. 

Dallas ISD closed Dade in 2013 when it opened the new Billy Earl Dade Middle School at Al Lipscomb Way and Malcolm X Boulevard, kitty corner from the original building. Since then the vacant campus has been in a constant state of disrepair. 

“This would be something state of the art,” Turner says of a new career institute. “We need a modern-day trade school in the heart of South Dallas.”

The idea emerged two years ago, when then-school board president Justin Henry formed a committee of South Dallas community members to address the future of the Dade property. Henry did this after neighbors expressed outrage when DISD auctioned off Pearl C. Anderson Middle School to Watermark Church without community input. Turner led the committee with the Rev. Todd Atkins, senior pastor of Salem Institutional Baptist Church, Anne Evans and Marian Williams from SouthFair Community Development Corporation, and community activist and former council member Diane Ragsdale, among others.

Billy Earl Dade was named for one of Dallas ISD’s first Black principals. A school board discussion on whether to demolish the building is expected to happen at tonight’s meeting. Picture by Sujata Dand

After Turner’s election to the school board, Atkins became chair of the committee. Atkins emphasizes the importance of including the community in the decision-making process. The committee has been approached by many people who wanted to buy the land for private development projects like housing, he says, but that wasn’t what the community wanted. 

“Our goal was to create something that could bring generational change, a transformative space for all of South Dallas,” Atkins says.

The 2020 voter-approved DISD bond package included hundreds of millions of dollars to build four new career institutes. One is fully operational — the Career Institute North at the former Walnut Hill Elementary School — and DISD is currently constructing the South institute, named for Charmaigne and Robert Price, at Village Fair.