To help spread the word of what’s going on in Ector County ISD, the Education Foundation has purchased a truck that can be taken around the community to share everything from immunizations to innovations.
The Inspiration Station would be a way to showcase the great things that are happening within the district and it’s like a blank slate that can be tailored to whatever event is needed.
“If you’re going to have a STEM space and one time, at one event you can swap that out. Then you could put in another modular system that might be more tailored to nursing and ways that maybe you could do certifications through, or you could create an environment where you’re interviewing teachers in remote locations for opportunities to work within the system,” Education Foundation Board member Jason Osborne said. “It’s made to be very modular for any particular event or occasion.”
He added that it can showcase new innovations, share school choice opportunities, potentially being a STEM-like Makerspace environment. It would also provide engagement outside the truck. For example, there would be a large screen where the community can see videos of what’s happening within the vehicle.
“It could be a immunization clinic working with partners with the hospital, or with Texas Tech Health Sciences. The district could also showcase the astronomy and the planetarium and observatory at (Odessa High School) and have a mobile astronomy laboratory that can go anywhere. We have more access to go into remote locations, give students and parents more access to what’s available at Ector County ISD,” Osborne said.
Osborne said the district approached the foundation about the Inspiration Station. One of the ideas was to create a sound booth so you could do anything from podcasts to private interviews for positions within ECISD.
“I think it was a really neat idea,” he added.
Starting with a Ford F-550, which resembles a box truck, the truck will have the capacity for a variety of setups inside and out. Ultimately, they hope to go for a coach bus. It is being outfitted by Farber Specialty Vehicles in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Jason Osborne, an Education Foundation Board member, said it will take three to five months to create the modular system. It would be 450 days for a coach bus.
A used base model truck costs $150,000. Fully outfitted, it will be around $400,000, Osborne said. They are hoping to get it by mid-year.
“The foundation is looking to flip the cost annually to pick up the burden from the district and that includes hiring a … person to oversee and run the Inspiration Station, so all the logistics of the events, to making sure it’s on its maintenance schedule, working with community partners. … We’re estimating around $180,000 total cost each year. That’s all the consumables, staff, gas, etc.,” Osborne said.
A part-time driver would also be hired to take the vehicle around.
Osborne and other foundation board members as well as ECISD administration went to Reynoldsburg to see what the manufacturing process looked like.
“There are so many different things that go into the ceiling of the vehicle, to the electronics, to the capacity, the Wi-Fi structure, broadband structure to even the computer system …,” Osborne said. “We looked at lots of engineering logistics to come up with a potential solution and pitch it out to the public.”
Osborne said they want to dream big.
“This is the stepping stone. The district said that they would love to have a fleet of these eventually. That’s really exciting, but at the same time, we need to get funding and we are looking for folks that will partner with the foundation and the district to help support and fund — whether it’s the modular systems that go into the Inspiration Station — some of the vehicle cost. This is the … initial vehicle, but our dream is to expand into a larger coach that would have a lot more space and accessibility, as well as even more modular capacity,” he added.
Foundation Director Celeste Potter said discussions about Inspiration Station started even before COVID. Education advocate Lorraine Perryman shared that when she was a little girl, she would look forward to the book mobile coming around.
“She described the green shag carpet and all of the books, and the smell,” Potter said.
She added that Perryman thought it would be “really cool” if the Education Foundation could do something along those lines.
“Well, so they were like, well, why does it have to stop there with books? Why can’t it be for anything? Well, then COVID hit and we learned that there was a great need for some resource that could get out to like West Odessa, Pleasant Farms, even far north Odessa, to those areas where they don’t have great internet access. There’s not a lot of resources out there at all, so why couldn’t we use this vehicle to not just deliver books, but to actually take needed things, resources, to those communities. That’s kind of how the conversation got started and then it just evolved and grew,” Potter said.
She added that seeing the manufacturing facility for the vehicle is what made it real for her. Potter said having this vehicle would be a game changer in situations like COVID when they had to recruit volunteers to deliver meals to students.
“I think I’m most excited about partnering with other local nonprofits. Think about museums, Ellen Noël Art Museum, the Petroleum Museum. Think about taking those museum experiences out to those kids and their families who’ve never seen it in person. It really opens the door for them and shows that there is so much more out there and just partnering with Odessa College and UTPB of getting them excited about something sciency and then saying if this really excites you, there’s all these careers right here in the Permian Basin that you could do. You could go to Odessa College or UT Permian Basin to learn the skills to do this every day,” Potter said.
She added that it will be good for workforce development, education in general and the well-being of the entire community.
“I think we are all so excited and so ready for this to be here, we’re going to constantly have to keep each other in check to pump the brakes. We just need a slow implementation because we want to make sure that it’s done right. But the possibilities are endless,” Potter said.
Director of Research and Evaluation Kristin Whittenburg said the Inspiration Station was created through the work of a committee of Education Foundation members and a committee of ECISD staff. Whittenburg led the ECISD committee, which includes members from several different ECISD departments to bring a diverse set of ideas and input.
“Working together, the committees have identified areas where we felt the Inspiration Station could make a big impact on our community right out of the gate. One impact area that I am particularly excited about is in the area of health outreach. We anticipate the Inspiration Station can be a vehicle to connect our ECISD nursing staff with students and families to offer vaccinations, first aid training, and other health-related services,” Whittenburg said.
The Inspiration Station will be extremely flexible, with different modules that can be taken in and out of the bus quickly to maximize the number of events the bus can attend.
“Our next steps as a committee will be to start getting the equipment and supplies needed to build the first modules so that when the bus arrives in Odessa, we can get it on the road,” Whittenburg said in an email.
Osborne said they are grateful for St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colo., because they partnered with ECISD and let them look at their innovation vehicle, which is a coach, and learn about things that they love about their vehicle, but also what would they change now that they have built it.
“That really helps us decide what we want, or what we don’t want. There’s things that they put in their vehicle that they feel as though they don’t use it. So we don’t have to make that mistake when we are building out our vehicle. So we’re really, really grateful for their district and the help and the continued partnership that we have with them,” Osborne said.
