Applying for ECISD

And the candidates for the Precinct 2 seat are: an attorney, a banker and a longtime volunteer. The first two are graduates of Odessa High, and the third is mother to ECISD schoolchildren.

The Ector County Independent School District’s board of trustees has received applications from A. Feliz Abalos, Fay Batch and Enrique Romero to fill the Precinct 2 seat recently vacated by Renda Berryhill.

Trustees meet at 5:30 p.m. today to interview the candidates.

Abalos, 2349 W. Berry St., is a criminal defense lawyer with Chavez Law Firm. Her father, Richard, is an Odessa College trustee, and her mother, Delma, held the Precinct 2 seat before Berryhill defeated her in 2004.

Feliz Abalos has thought about pursuing the position “for quite awhile,” she said.

“I spent 13 years in the Ector County Independent School District, and I just want to be able to give back all the skills they have given me,” she said.

Meanwhile, Batch’s interest in becoming a trustee is a natural outcome of her involvement with the Parent Teacher Association, she said.

Batch, 1074 N. Navajo Ave., has four children and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from the University of Southern California.

Her eldest daughter graduated from Odessa High last year. Another daughter will be a senior at OHS this year. Her youngest daughter and a nephew will be ninth-graders at Ector Junior High, and her son will be in sixth grade at Milam Elementary.

Rounding out the field is Romero, 2112 W. Seventh St. He’s the vice president/manager of Odessa’s Bank of America. He attended Odessa College, going on to receive three Bachelor of Arts degrees in marketing, accounting and international business from Northwood University in Dallas.

His 13-year-old brother is a student at Crockett Junior High.

“Hopefully, I can be a part of a team, or group, to help in deciding and influencing the future of students,” Romero said.

Feliz Abalos graduated from the University of Houston in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in corporate communications and received her doctorate of jurisprudence from Ohio Northern University in 2006.

Between graduating from UH and going to law school, Feliz Abalos was the chair of the Ector County Democratic Party.

Neither Batch nor Romero have held elected office.

Abalos said her training as a lawyer would be an asset to the board. As someone born and reared in Precinct 2, she would approach the position of trustee with the mindset of a recent student, she said.

“I’ve only been out of the Ector District for 10 years now, so I do think that would be a perspective I would be able to add,” she said.

Feliz Abalos said students would be the priority in all her decisions, and she’d also advocate for teachers.

Batch has participated in the Volunteers in Public Schools program for about 10 years, she said, and has been with the PTA for just as long.

She has been involved in the PTA council for about six or seven years and was president of the council for two years.

“I have been attending school board meetings for several years, so I’m pretty familiar, or comfortable, I think, with the process of things,” Batch said.

She has been a member of the Tri-Ethnic Committee for about two years, a position she might have to resign if chosen as a trustee, she said.

Since her background is as a volunteer, Batch said, she is especially concerned with increasing parental involvement in public schools, at the elementary level and beyond.

Romero currently serves on the Odessa LINKS board, the OC Scholarship Foundation board and as chairman of the revenue committee for the March of Dimes. He added that his travels to 12 countries in three years also give him a broad outlook.

Romero said his experiences in Odessa as a teenage grocery bagger, construction worker and now bank manager enable him to connect with all kinds of people.

“I understand the community. I understand the school system. I understand Odessa,” he said.

Romero said the administration should be set up in a way that allows trustees to focus on students.

“There’s no way we can help our students if we don’t fix the administration first,” he said.

Trustees will appoint one of the three applicants to the seat or will for a special election Nov. 6. Either way, the Precinct 2 seat will be on the ballot in May 2008.

Abalos said if she became a trustee, she would probably run, but noted, “That’s a question for May.”

Batch said she hasn’t decided, if she becomes a trustee, whether she will run in May or not.

Romero said if he becomes trustee — “Sure” — he would run in May.

All three said they would try to learn as much as possible at first, rather than trying to make sweeping changes to schools right away.

“I’m interested in being part of the discussion, and I think that’s probably as good as it gets right now,” Batch said.