The impact of lower attendance on Ector County ISD finances, the demographic study and an influx of new students were tackled by Superintendent Scott Muri during his media call Wednesday.
During the Feb. 21 board meeting, the board approved a $13 million budget adjustment.
“This is due in large part to attendance. Historically over the last five to 10 years, Ector County Independent School District (has) been operating with a 95 percent (attendance) rate. In other words, our students have been coming to school approximately 95 percent of the time,” Muri said.
When the pandemic hit, the attendance rate dropped to about 90 percent.
“But this year we fully anticipated our attendance rate to bounce back to 95 percent. We created a budget based upon that prediction. Unfortunately, our student attendance rate did not return to that level. In fact, the first semester our attendance rate was at 91.5 percent and what that resulted in is a $13 million budget adjustment. We had to reduce our budget by $13 million,” Muri said.
“In the state of Texas, the way we are funded is based on student attendance so every single day that a child attends school results in an amount of money flowing to the local school district, so children not attending school that affects directly our budget. We saw that last night. That’s the unfortunate news. The good news is over the last couple of years we’ve managed to save some money in anticipation of this type of emergency. However, last night we used that emergency fund. Next year this is not a situation that we’ll be able to take care of and so it is really important that our families and community understand that student attendance affects us from a financial perspective and it affects students from an academic perspective. We know that when students are not attending school regularly it does affect their academic progress,” Muri added.
He noted that there is a direct correlation between student attendance and student achievement. The more days a student misses, the lower the academic rate and achievement levels are for those students, so the district wants to ensure that students are attending school on a regular basis.
Muri said if families need assistance getting their children to school, the district has counselors, social workers and other community resources that can help.
“So moms and dads if you’re struggling with this opportunity I strongly encourage you to reach out to your child’s principal; connect with the school. We have lots of ways we can provide assistance to help you support your child in attending school on a regular basis,” he said.
Muri said teachers and principals are already trying to give students incentive to come to school.
“In fact, I see a lot of pictures and stories already of teachers that give a perfect attendance for the week or for the month. … Our teachers and principals are reaching out to families. We both have an automated call-out system and our own personnel are making calls to families. We’re also doing home visits. In fact many of our administrators and teachers are visiting homes to find out what the situation is; how can we help you as a family ensure that your children are attending school on a regular basis. We’ll continue to reach out to other members of our community — whether it be the chamber of commerce and our business community, our nonprofit community, our faith community but collectively we have to help our families ensure that they’re sending their children to school on a regular basis,” Muri said.
“Again, the pandemic has created potentially some bad habits in some areas and we want to help our families deal with whatever they may be dealing with so that their kids can return to school regularly. Our history says that as a community we have sent our kids to school and done that for many, many years. It’s just right now we’re having a hard time with that. We’ve got to return to healthy attendance. It makes a difference for our kids.”
The budget cut won’t affect this year because they had the money to cover it in the fund balance.
“We did some early work in the last couple of years anticipating because of the pandemic that we could experience an attendance issue, and sure enough we did. We had created enough space in our fund balance to take care of this problem,” Muri said.
“However, next year we will not have that space. Our attendance has to rebound or we have to think differently about how we use our money because we will not have $13 million in our fund balance next year to take care of this problem,” he added.
Trustees on Feb. 21 also approved the 2023-24 academic calendar, so Muri encouraged parents to visit the ECISD website at www.ectorcountyisd.org to find out more information about calendar.
The University of Virginia released a landscape study to school districts across the country with the goal of identifying best practices; and finding out what’s happening in public education today that is transformational.
“… Ector County ISD was highlighted as one of the school districts that was showcased in this recent report,” Muri said. “Specifically the areas that they showcased for ECISD related to our human capital work — everything from how is it that we’re able to be the highest paying district in the region to our teacher incentive allotment. We’re paying teachers (according to) the effectiveness of their work.”
“Also strategic staffing; thinking differently about the traditional role of the teacher and using our most effective teachers to effectively meet the needs of the greatest number of students,” Muri said.
ECISD operates its own educator preparation program so it is able to certify and license teachers. It is one of three districts in Texas that does this.
“… And finally our work with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards — the way that we are growing and developing our teacher corps so that they can become board certified,” Muri said.
On the virtual instructional coaching, during the pandemic it became more difficult to put more adults in classrooms.
“We began to look for virtual coaches. Is it possible to find academic coaches that could enter the classroom using technology? We kind of scoured the country and at that point couldn’t find any companies that provided that service,” Muri said.
“… Today, there are some companies that have developed a way of providing coaching for our teachers in a virtual format. Last night the board of trustees approved a contract that will allow us this spring to pilot an opportunity. We’re identifying some teachers in the ECISD schools (and) we will match them with a virtual coach. These coaches are typically National Board Certified Teachers, so among the best teachers in the country. They will access our teachers virtually. (They will) be a virtual presence in their classroom, watching the instruction and providing coaching to the teachers in the moment.
These very same coaches will come to the district and have a face-to-face experience with those teachers as well. So it’s a combination of virtual coaching and some live face-to-face coaching as well,” he added.
It will be piloted in three to five campuses this spring and about 20 teachers will be involved. The pilot will cost about $30,000.
If it’s effective, the district will operate at full scale next year.
“We’re going to target a group of schools that are among the most fragile schools that we have, places that need some additional supports. Many times we provide coaching for schools and individuals that need an additional layer of support to help them perform at a high level and those are the schools that will be targeting this spring,” Muri said.
He noted that when the item was presented to the board in January it was not clear.
“… We really created some confusion as we presented that item, so we clarified it with our trustees and then they approved it last night. It was poor communication on our part and now our trustees fully understand what it is we’re trying to do,” Muri said.
Muri also discussed an influx of students from Cuba and South America.
“We’ve seen an influx, again going back to the population demographic study, we’re seeing more kids come into our system and we have seen a large Cuban population continue to enter our community and our schools and certainly a little bit of a smaller population from South America. Our schools, pre-k through 12th grade, have talked about that. Our opportunity is to serve those children and their families to the very best of our ability,” Muri said.
“It does cause us to be flexible. Different countries have different cultures and so when we receive students from a different country they bring into our environment a different culture. We want to be very responsive in a protective manner to our kids whether they’re from Cuba, or Mexico, or any country that a child may be entering our school system and be responsive to them and help them with their needs and we’re doing that. It certainly has caused us to pivot and to shift, if you will. I won’t say that we’re overwhelmed by any means, but it does cause us to make sure that we have the right people in the right places with the right training to effectively meet the needs of a growing population in our school system wherever they may happen to come from,” Muri said.
He added that the priority is serving those students.
“… We need more bilingual teachers. Our English learner population continues to increase more and more of those students need those services, so we’re from a human capital perspective, focused on developing and cultivating more bilingual teachers so we can more effectively meet the needs of those students. Then from a facility perspective, as we’re growing and gaining more students we have to make sure we have schools in the right locations to meet the needs of students wherever they happen to be in our community,” he added.
