Opened to students for the 2006-2007 school year, Sam Tasby Middle School is part of an educational complex shared with another new school, Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary School. Located at Vickery Meadow in northeast Dallas, the building has 222,000 square feet of space for the elementary and middle school programs, which share the auditorium, stage, kitchen, and central plant. Each school has a separate entrance and separate classrooms.
Sam Tasby Middle School also has a science classroom, art room, music room, instructional technology classroom, media center, gymnasium, and student dining and food service area. It includes space for fine arts, performing arts, career and technical education, and locker rooms. Sam Tasby Middle School is designed to accommodate 800 students, with expansion capability to 1200 students.
Biography of Sam Tasby
The school is named for Sam Tasby, who played a prominent role in the desegregation of Dallas ISD schools. It is the only school in the district named for a living person. Although the district's guidelines for naming new schools do not normally allow for this, an exception was made in Tasby's case because of his significant contributions to equal education for all children.
The fourth of eight children, Tasby was born in Canfield, Ark., on Nov. 21, 1921. Tasby left school after the seventh grade to support his family. At age 20, he moved to Dallas looking for better job opportunities. In 1946, six years after moving to Texas, Tasby married Georgia Green. Over the next few years, they had six children: Peggy, Lilly, Sammy, Melvin, Eddie, and Phillip. Because he did not graduate from high school, Tasby said his job choices were limited, and he wanted a better life for his children. He stressed to them from an early age the importance of pursuing an education.
In 1954, Tasby moved his family to the Arlington Park community. Tasby, the young man from Arkansas with a seventh-grade education, likely never dreamed that his commitment to his children's education would turn him into a plaintiff seeking to desegregate Dallas schools. However, after 16 years in the community, he felt it necessary to pursue change for the good of his children. Tasby filed a lawsuit when his son his youngest son, Phillip, was denied admission to two all-white schools near his home and was forced to attend an all-black school located miles away.
The lawsuit filed in federal court charged the Dallas Independent School District with continuing a dual school system, prohibited under the Supreme Court's 1954 historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. Parents representing 18 other children joined Tasby as plaintiffs. The Tasby litigation was initiated on Oct. 6, 1970. Following the trial that took place July 12-16, 1971, a U.S. district judge ruled that a dual system existed in the Dallas school system and ordered the Dallas ISD to develop a plan to desegregate its schools.
Over the next 10 years, several plans were presented and rejected by the courts. In 1981, the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the third desegregation plan presented. For the 30 years that followed, the court required the Dallas school district create programs to give students of all races equal opportunities to learn. The long history of judicial oversight of Dallas ISD initiated by the Tasby case ended in 2003.
Tasby's lawsuit made it possible for his son to attend a school in his own neighborhood. It paved the way for the creation of magnet schools, bilingual education programs, and other innovations to improve educational equity for all children. Tasby said the lawsuit also created opportunities for people to secure better jobs and helped to desegregate public places.
Among many honors and accolades presented to Tasby are an NAACP award, resolutions from the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees and the Texas House of Representatives, and an Arlington Park Elementary School library named in his honor. In 2005, Tasby was inducted into the African-American Education Archives and History Program Educators Hall of Fame in Dallas.
Retired since 1989, Sam Tasby still is a resident of the Arlington Park community. His neighbors, community leaders, and city officials consider him a trailblazer whose actions ensured educational equality for all Dallas ISD students.
Opened to students for the 2006-2007 school year, Sam Tasby Middle School is part of an educational complex shared with another new school, Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary School. Located at Vickery Meadow in northeast Dallas, the building has 222,000 square feet of space for the elementary and middle school programs, which share the auditorium, stage, kitchen, and central plant. Each school has a separate entrance and separate classrooms.