Ector County ISD’s student gains and its new Upward program were featured in Superintendent Scott Muri’s media call this week.
Projected enrollment this year is 33,500 and Muri said they have gained almost 2,000 students from last year to this year.
“That is really good news. It mirrors what we’re seeing around our community …,” Muri said Wednesday.
Of the 2,000 additional students, 750 are part of UTPB STEM Academy as that campus has become part of the district.
“We anticipated that additional 750, so the other 1,250 students come from increased growth within our community. We anticipate stabilizing around 33,500, but we’ll continue to, again, watch it throughout the rest of the year and then staff as appropriate,” Muri said.
Permian High School has gained more than 300 students pushing it over 4,000.
“… Our northeast corridor is growing, so that’s Buice, Jordan (both elementary schools); Wilson and Young (middle school) is over there. All of those schools are well over their projection of students. Our demographic study that we had conducted several years ago kind of identified that part our community as fast growth and we’re seeing that reflected in our schools,” Muri said.
The prekindergarten population of 3- and 4-year-olds also is growing.
“The YMCA that helps us serve 3-year-olds, their numbers have really increased from this year to last year. So that the prek population is returning to our community and into our schools once again, so that’s good news for our 3- and 4-year-old students,” Muri said.
COVID-19 kept some of the younger children away from school and now the word is spreading about the program. Muri added that in general parents are more comfortable sending their children to school now that COVID is subsiding a little bit.
“We’re happy to see all those 3- and 4-year-olds,” Muri said.
The Upward program was announced several weeks ago to staff members.
“We are working with UTPB. We have created a new program, it targets those employees in ECISD that do not have a bachelor’s degree yet. We’re targeting those individuals, getting them a flexible opportunity to earn that college degree, thanks to the partnership with UTPB,” Muri said. “Those employees travel throughout their degree program as a cohort. They will be provided support both from staff members within ECISD, as well as staff members at UTPB.”
He added that ECISD is grateful to UTPB for its flexibility and generosity in making this possible for district employees.
“Any of these employees will qualify for the new Falcon program at UTPB that provides students whose family earns less than $100,000 access to a degree program.
Many of these folks will qualify for that opportunity. UTPB is being very flexible from a scheduling perspective. These are employees that work full time and the courses will be offered face to face; they’ll be offered virtually; and they’ll be offered a time which will meet” their needs, Muri said.
They are recruiting now for the spring semester, so they’ll be starting in the spring semester.
Muri said there has been quite a bit of interest, but he’s not sure how many will wind up in the first cohort.
On a separate topic, ECISD was contacted by Brown University to conduct a research study on the virtual tutoring the district has been conducting with several tutoring companies.
“We had about 6,000 last year that participated in that program last year. We’ve had quite a bit of success with it. There’s not a big body of research that has looked specifically at virtual tutoring and the systems that made that effective for students, so we were pleased to be a part of this research study along with our tutoring companies and Brown University,” Muri said. “They will be researching the results from last year, but also as we continue that body of work in the coming years, continuing to follow progress … to better understand what needs to be in place in order for virtual tutoring to be effective in serving the needs of elementary, middle and high school students.”
The data will be kept private.
Friday Night Lights begins at 7 p.m. Friday with the kickoff of Odessa High School vs. Lubbock Monterrey at Ratliff Stadium.
Permian High School will be on the road this week. Visit the ECISD website, ectorcountyisd.org, to purchase tickets in advance.
