Ector County ISD this year graduated 1,670 students from five high schools last month.
During his media call Wednesday, Superintendent Scott Muri said 481 of those students received industry certifications prior to graduation such as various medical programs, welding, Microsoft and more.
“We had 168 students from the graduating class that earned their associate degree prior to graduation. That’s really thanks to our dual enrollment, dual credit program with Odessa College and UTPB. Kids have an opportunity at all five of our high schools to earn dual enrollment, dual credit courses,” Muri said.
From a scholarship perspective, so far, ECISD students have earned $15.5 million in scholarships or grants to attend college, which Muri said is exceptional.
“We expect that number to increase over the summer as more students find out about their college rewards,” he added.
“We also led the state and nation in the percentage of FAFSA completion,” Muri said.
FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. “Students have to complete that application in order to receive either grants or loans. Many scholarship organizations also use FAFSA, but we led the state and national averages for completion, so kudos to our counselors and our seniors this year for working together to complete that pretty important application. All of that will mean that more of our students have financial support for college,” Muri said.
State law requires students to fill out the FAFSA in order to graduate.
“… We weren’t the top district in the state, but we were ahead of the state and national average. The national average is not totally unexpected because not every state requires it, but in Texas it is. In fact, we received calls from other school districts wanting to know how in the world our percentage was so high. Even though it is required by every senior, still you have to credit our counselors for really encouraging our kids and their families to get it done this year, so kudos to all of our counselors; a huge task and it pays off for kids. It’s how they have access to money for postsecondary. It’s a big difference maker,” Muri said.
Summer learning starts Monday with opportunities for students from prekindergarten through 12th grade. It will be Monday through Thursday. Dates will be June 6 through July 20 for elementary and high school and June 6 through June 30 for middle school.
Elementary hours will be 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and middle school hours will be 9 a.m. to noon., the ECISD website said.
“We expect to have well over 5,000 kids this summer in summer learning. The program this year is a full day program, whereas last year it was a half-day program. … It is free of charge. There is no fee at all for any of our kids pre-k through 12th grade to attend our summer learning experience,” Muri said.
“We have a variety of things happening at every level — elementary, middle and high school,” Muri said.
They will include from science, technology, engineering, math, robotics and computer programming for example.
Arts activities also will be offered such as harp and drama.
“Our high school kids can earn accelerated credits, so if we have a high school student that is interested in getting ahead they can participate in the summer learning opportunity and take courses that would allow them to get ahead of where they normally would be. Sometimes our high school kids like to do that because they can create room in their schedule during the regular school year to pick up courses they may have not otherwise had an opportunity (to take). So that’s a good opportunity for our high school students,” Muri said.
For more information and to register, parents can visit the ECISD website, www.ectorcountyisd.org and to register.
Parents can also visit their child’s school during regular business hours Monday through Thursday.
Summer feeding will be aligned with summer learning.
“Not only will kids that attend our summer learning experience be provided breakfast and lunch, but students that are not attending but do qualify for free and reduced lunch will have an opportunity throughout the summer to pick up meals from a variety of different pick up locations. Summer feeding programs will be underway starting Monday and families can pick up meals and take those home if they wish,” he added.
Information about summer feeding also is available on the ECISD website.
Because summer learning is a full day this year, Muri said they are able to provide more options for students.
Summer learning offers many benefits, Muri said.
“There’s been a phenomenon in education for many years called the summer slide and it is not a playground activity. Summer slide is learning loss. We know that when we have students, and unfortunately many times it’s our students of poverty, they remain unengaged with school and with learning activities … throughout the summer. From the time a child leaves at the end of May until they return in August, if students are not actively engaged in learning they experience learning loss and we call that the summer slide,” Muri said.
“In fact in many situations, it’s August, September and finally October before kids literally catch up and regain what they lost over the summer,” he added.
“What we have learned is that when kids are actively engaged during the summer months, there is no summer slide because the brain continues to be stimulated. Kids continue to have learning experiences and they don’t lose the knowledge that they gain during the school year,” he said.
Assessments show that when students go through summer learning, they are right where they should be and are able to accelerate a little bit quicker than those who did not participate when they start school in August.
