Monitor Photo/Russell Slaton
Malakoff ISD trustees heard a proposal July 17 to lease the district’s Leo Orr Sr. Education Center, which was originally the site of the segregation-era African American high school, later morphing into the integrated junior high school. The campus currently serves as an alternative school for students with behavioral issues, which is planned to be moved in Aug. 2024.

MALAKOFF–During their July 17 meeting, Malakoff ISD (MISD) trustees heard a proposal to lease the district’s Leo Orr Sr. Education Center campus, which formerly was the site of the segregation-era high school for African Americans.
Malakoff City Council Member Vincent Bailey Jr. discussed the future of the campus, continuing talks with the trustees from May’s meeting. “What I’m just trying to do is make that campus somewhat useful to the community” if the district has no future plans for the campus, said Bailey, who also told the board, “I do believe that campus has a place in my heart.”
The campus, which was named for a Malakoff educator and municipal judge who passed away in 2002, was transformed into the district’s junior high after integration, and is currently an alternative school for students from Malakoff and other area school districts who have behavioral issues.
MISD Superintendent Don Layton said July 17 that district campuses will be reshuffled in Aug. 2024 because of new facilities now under construction opening at that time. Some of that construction bond money has been set aside to rehabilitate the Orr campus, especially its 1950s-era gymnasium, Layton said at May’s meeting.
Bailey told trustees he believes he “can do even more” for the campus than revitalize the gym. “That’s not the future of it,” he stated. “There’s life still in it.” Bailey said he has secured grant funding for the campus, at which he proposed hosting reunions for people who attended school there, offering college-sponsored programs for community members or utilizing it as a ministry for people having a “life crisis.” Bailey said he knows that if the campus is donated, the district must go through a bidding process.
MISD Board President Jason Dalrymple told Bailey that he doesn’t think the district would sell the property or let it “degrade.” Dalrymple requested from Bailey “a more concrete, written plan” with numbers and a time frame for the proposal, adding the district is “legally constrained” about what it can do. The board took no action on the lease proposal.
The board also heard a report from Layton that he recommends giving all district employees an “across-the-board” 3% pay raise, which he said would be balanced out by any pay raise approved by the Texas Legislature, which Layton doesn’t think would happen before October. “We can make that happen without a deficit in the budget,” the superintendent stated.
In other business, the board:
• Approved a struck-off property resolution to put a Tool-area delinquent tax property up for sheriff’s sale in August.
• Heard the district’s cybersecurity training report, during which MISD Technology Director Randy Webb reported MISD has a risk score of 23.2, which a chart shown during the discussion puts MISD in the green for a threat assessment that ranges toward red.
• Approved a Texas Education Agency Region VII, X and XII Education Service Center contract for services provided to MISD, costing $132,000.
• Heard from Layton that Malakoff Elementary’s Rock School has hail damage that will require roof replacement.
• Approved teacher appraisers and the appraisal calendar for the 2023-24 school year.
• Approved the second reading of a localized policy manual update for accounting inventories; safety and security; buildings, grounds and equipment management; unemployment insurance; bidding and sealed proposals; the compensation plan; admissions; and student welfare (marked as “freedom from bullying”).