Ector County ISD on Thursday announced they have received notice of a highly competitive $8.9 million federal grant that will up its efforts improve student performance in math and English language arts/reading.
A news conference announcing the grant was held in the first floor board room of the administration building.
The grant runs for three years and is aimed at developing and rewarding teachers, principals and campus leadership teams who improve student performance in those subjects.
Superintendent Scott Muri said only 29 educational entities in the U.S. earned one of these awards.
ECISD is calling the initiative LEAP — Leadership for Ector’s Accelerated Performance — and it will initially focus on 10 schools that have a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students. These schools serve 9,739 students with 556 teachers and 10 principals, a news release said.
They include Odessa High School, Bowie Middle School, Bonham Middle School, Blackshear Elementary School, Dowling Elementary, Downing Elementary, Goliad Elementary, Sam Houston Elementary, San Jacinto Elementary and West Elementary.
When Muri came on board, there were 350 teacher vacancies. This year, ECISD started the year with 36 teacher openings. He noted that the investments made over the last four years have had a significant impact on the quality and quantity of teacher and leaders within ECISD.
“Coupled with that, we’ve seen significant improvements in student achievement across the board — elementary, middle and high school — in all academic areas. We know that investment in talent makes a difference with the students that we serve …,” Muri said.
This will be a building year for the grant and implementation will start in 2024-25, he said.
The funds will come in over time, not all at once. As part of the grant submission process, ECISD submitted a budget so it has a budgeted dollar amount it will use every year.
Muri said there are other locations in Texas that received the grant, but also districts in other states and also states themselves.
“This particular grant mirrors our strategy, so it allows us to focus on our most effective teachers and leaders. It’s in alignment with the work that we needed to do. From a content perspective, it allows us to pay attention to reading and mathematics. It focuses on high-poverty schools. We’ve identified 10 of those in ECISD. … It’s in alignment with other strategies that we have — the Teacher Incentive Allotment and the Principal Incentive Allotment — so it just allows us to continue to stack on top of those options and make more dollars available for our teachers and leaders and make more professional development available for teachers and leaders,” Muri said.
The three years allows a window where ECISD can think about what happens after the grant ends.
“There are other opportunities for continuation, so again, successful implementation that yields results can yield additional investments. We also will be looking at our own compensation system. Are there … ways that we can think about the existing dollars that we have and perhaps begin to make some adjustments that can mirror this opportunity,” Muri said.
Permian Strategic Partnership President/CEO Tracee Bentley said this is another way ECISD is leading by example. PSP wasn’t directly involved in obtaining the grant, but their investments have gotten the district to this point.
“For the PSP, these smaller investments that we’ve made over the past four years have now paid off in a $9 million way and this is the exact kind of model that PSP looks for when we look to make investments,” Bentley said.
She noted that PSP is a very proud partner of ECISD and everything they’re doing.
“… We think that we have just scratched the surface and we know that there’s more to do. We’re very excited about the possibility of this community coming together to pass a bond, particularly for a CTE (Career and Technical Education) school, and we’re very excited to be able to participate in that, as well,” Bentley said.
Board of Trustees Vice President Delma Abalos mentioned that top leadership has been vital to ECISD’s success.
“When Dr. Muri first came to ECISD, one of the board members, Doyle Woodall, asked the question why can’t teachers make $100,000 or more. He said they can. He took that challenge and has run with it ever since. Because of that, our teachers are making that. More will be able to make $100,000-plus with this grant. It all comes from the leadership, the ideas the leader has that he passes on to his cabinet, and he’s got a great group of people working for him. As long as we have that kind of leadership, I think that we will continue to go in the right direction,” Abalos said.
LEAP provides professional development opportunities designed to sharpen the skills of teachers to be effective instructors and to strengthen the school’s instructional leadership teams. LEAP also aligns incentive pay to instructional priorities through a Performance-Based Compensation System that rewards educators who improve their instructional practice and increase student growth in English, language arts and math. It also rewards effective educators and principals who take on positions at high-need schools serving a diverse student population.
Executive Director of Human Resources Matthew Spivy said LEAP builds on the district’s existing compensation and staffing.
With the programs in place, teachers can earn over $100,000 each year for being truly highly effective leaders, Spivy said.
“Our most effective teachers could earn an additional $15,000 annually and our most effective principals up to $30,000 in additional compensation. And it serves high-need schools across our district,” Spivy said in a news release.
He added that the district is very specific in looking at improving its math and reading instruction.
“This grant is going to pair right along with that to make sure that we’re bolstering not only our learning as adults, but how we can transfer that learning to our students, as well,” Spivy said.
“The third thing it does is it ensures all of our students have access to truly effective teachers, specifically looking at our highly economically disadvantaged campuses, making sure they have the same access, if not greater access, to all of those highly effective teachers and principals to make sure that they’re able to succeed each and every day,” Spivy added.
“The last thing this does is it provides additional money as a pull to bring in highly effective teachers and principals to those campuses. Not only is it being able to look at current Ector County ISD staff members, those highly effective teachers and principals but looking beyond, being able to look across the state and even across the nation, making sure that we are truly compensating those highly effective teachers and leaders above and beyond what our neighbors and peers are dong across the state, so it’s truly an exciting time, not just for the compensation that we can … add, but specifically for the learning that our adults will do to be able to pass on and serve the students of Ector County ISD,” Spivy said.
Muri noted that research shows that the No. 1 factor that increases student achievement is the teacher and the No. 2 factor is the leader.
The Odessa Chamber of Commerce, along with the superintendent, school board and staff support LEAP.
