KILLEEN, Texas — As many employees worked from home last year to stay safe from COVID-19, teachers have now returned to the classroom where students learn best. So when the Killeen NAACP needed to choose a focus for their Black History Month event, there was an easy choice.
"The Killeen NAACP wanted to focus on our Black educators and just educators in general. Because they have been those unsung heroes throughout this pandemic that have kept their promise to our kids to show up every day and teach them to their maximum potential," NAACP Killeen President TaNeika Driver-Moultrie said.
The event, which was held at Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church Friday night, honored both active and retired teachers. Students presented teachers with a carnation at the end of the event.
The event also featured family members of some of the first Black principals to work in Killeen ISD.
Dock Jackson was the first black principle in Killeen ISD. According to the KISD website, he first worked at Killeen ISD's Marlboro campus in 1954. The campus was for black students and provided classes from first grade though tenth grade.
Jackson had earned bachelors and masters degree and taught and coached in Rogers when KISD Superintendent C.E. Ellison hired him as principal of the Marlboro School, according to KISD. In 1956, KISD integrated its schools and Marlboro converted to a first- through eighth-grade school.
Jackson continued to service as principal until 1963, and later taught at Temple ISD before retiring in 1991.
In 2008, Killeen ISD re-dedicated Marlboro Elementary School as the Dock Jackson Professional Learning Center.
One year after Jackson stepped down at Marlboro, Alice W. Douse started working at the school as a sixth-grade teacher on the Marlboro campus. According to KISD, she moved to Pershing Park Elementary after Marlboro closed, and became became the district’s first African-American assistant principal. Douse became the district’s first elementary school science consultant before her appointment to principal of Haynes Elementary School, the first female African American in that role, which she served in for nine years until the opening of Hay Branch Elementary in 1986.
In 2017, KISD dedicated the new Alice Douse Elementary School in her honor.