Monitor Photo/Russell Slaton
During Feb. 18’s school board meeting, Malakoff ISD recognizes National School Counseling Week held Feb. 3-7 by honoring Malakoff Intermediate School and Malakoff Junior High Counselor Laura Smith (from left), Malakoff Elementary School Counselor Michelle Dickens and Tool Elementary School Counselor Amanda Jones, along with high school counselors Jerri Cheek and Natalie Preston (not pictured).
 

MALAKOFF-Malakoff ISD (MISD) trustees voted Feb. 18 to approve by 6-1 the 2025-26 school year calendar, which includes a fall break and finishes instructional activity before Memorial Day, with trustee Tina Crawford dissenting. The district is currently in its 2024-25 school year.
MISD Acting Superintendent Dr. PJ Winters told the board that he presented multiple calendar options to the MISD District-Wide Improvement Team (DWIC), which the committee whittled to two options and then asked full-time staff members to vote for their choice among the two. Dr. Winters said 86% of such staff responded to the survey, with two-thirds of them choosing Version B, a calendar which also aligns the school district’s spring break with Trinity Valley Community College.
Dr. Winters also gave a superintendent’s update, which included a progress report on the Leo Orr Sr. campus gymnasium renovation. The acting superintendent said foundation and plumbing work was underway, but workers discovered the electric connection is single-phase and not three-phase, which has led the district to explore whether to make redesigns or get an easement across State Highway 31 to access three-phase electrical abilities, which Dr. Winters said simply wasn’t available on the south side of the highway.
Dr. Winters also told the board that temporary signs at Malakoff Intermediate School and Malakoff Junior High are being replaced for $6,700, that the intermediate school had passed its state-mandated intruder audit, that the district was preparing for February’s Black History Month and that Malakoff Alternative Program Principal and MISD Human Resources Director Danielle Copeland had received “Remarkable Woman” recognition from The CW Network and affiliated Dallas television station Channel 33, which included an on-site interview filmed in Malakoff.
In other business, the board:
• Approved updating the signature card for Texas Trust Credit Union to replace a former MISD superintendent and business manager with Dr. Winters and MISD Chief Financial Officer Shannon Freeman.
• Heard the first reading of Texas Association of School Board’s recommended localized policy manual Update 124, dealing with such items as financial ethics, investments, intellectual property, employee standards of conduct, curriculum design in relation to special programs, gifted and talented students, child abuse and neglect and community conduct on school premises.
• Learned from Malakoff High School Principal Dr. Jeff Lahey that the school’s boys’ basketball team beat Sabine that night, 55-50, for the Bi-District championship.