NEW SCHOOL HONORS LONGTIME EDUCATOR Billy Earl Dade Middle School celebrates the coming together of two schools
Two daughters of longtime Dallas educator Dr. Billy Earl Dade joined district officials, parents, students and elected officials
Friday, Nov. 8, at the dedication of the new school named in his honor.
Constructed at a cost of $36.3 million, the 213,616-square-foot school at 2727 Grand Ave. is the second district school dedicated this fall, and serves students from the former Billy Earl Dade and Pearl C. Anderson learning centers.
Superintendent of Schools Mike Miles lauded the modern learning facility and acknowledged Dade’s daughters—Dr.
Barbara Dade Martin and Ms. Billie Sanford—saying their father, “believed in the power of education to uplift people and communities.”
Principal Dr. Alecia Cobb presided at the event, which featured the school’s choir, band and Leadership Cadet Corps.
District 100 Texas House member Eric Johnson and Dallas ISD District 9 Trustee Bernadette Nutall shared their hopes for a bright future for the students served by the new school and encouraged the community to support it as volunteers and involved citizens.
District 7 Dallas City Council Member Carolyn Davis voiced similar sentiments and presented a proclamation in praise of the late Dr. Dade, who served as a teacher, college professor and mentor for more than a half-century. In Dallas ISD, he served as principal at Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, John Henry Brown, and C.F. Carr elementary schools and Pearl C. Anderson Junior High School. While teaching mathematics at Julia C. Frazier Elementary School and Booker T. Washington High School, he also taught post-secondary classes at El Centro, Bishop and Paul Quinn colleges and Prairie View A&M University.
Community leader and friend to the Dade family, Dr. Alfred Roberts, expressed how pleased Dr. Dade would be at having a school named for him. Following a student presentation to the family, Dade’s daughters thanked guests for celebrating their father’s legacy.
Dallas ISD Executive Director of Construction Services Ed Levine shared some of the features of the school, which includes 28 classrooms, competition and practice gyms, a two-story media center, two computer labs, eight science labs, drama, orchestra and choir rooms.
The construction team on the project included project manager Parsons, architect, KAI Texas and contractor, Satterfield and Pontikes.
In May 2008, Dallas voters supported a $1.35 billion bond program, paving the way for the district to build eight elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools, and construct 177 new classrooms on 13 existing campuses. In addition, the bond program is in the process of providing roughly $521 million to renovate more than 200 schools, add 19 new science labs at six secondary schools and updates to 16 school kitchens and 22 lunchrooms. Information on the allocation of bond funds can be found at www.dallasisd.org/bond2008.
