Ector County ISD’s increase in kindergarten readiness, industry-based certifications and postsecondary readiness were highlighted during Superintendent Scott Muri’s media call Wednesday.
The data points were revealed during the State of the District message March 7. Muri said it was an opportunity for leaders across the state and nation to get an update on “the work that’s happening in ECISD, the progress that we’re making in ECISD and a little peak into what’s coming next within our school district.”
In 2019, kindergarten readiness was 35 percent.
“That basically means that 35 percent of the kindergartners in ECISD were considered on grade level. Fast forward to today at the end of 2023, 54 percent of our kindergarteners were considered kindergarten ready and that’s a significant increase from where we were in 2019. Really that’s because of the investment that we are making in pre-k,” Muri said.
“We know that work with 3- and 4-year-olds is really driving this change. As evidence of that as we continue to unpack this data, we discovered that 66 percent of our students that are in kindergarten that are considered kindergarten ready participated in the ECISD prekindergarten program. Fifty-four (54) percent of our total kindergarten population is considered kindergarten ready,” but that number is now 66 percent, he added.
Muri said that combination of 3- and 4-year-old pre-k is making a drastic difference.
The state number is 49 percent.
He added that academically, ECISD has fully recovered from the pandemic. When the pandemic occurred, students missed a lot of school.
“Many students participated virtually and our kids really took a pretty significant academic hit. We are really pleased that we have now fully recovered from that. In fact we’ve recovered more than 5 percent,” Muri said.
From where ECISD was in 2019, this can be seen in results from all academic areas, he noted.
Muri congratulated teachers and leaders who are investing deeply in the performance of the students.
“(We are) well on the way to improving results prior to where we were in the pandemic,” Muri said.
He added that industry-based certifications have increased.
“High school students have an opportunity through our career and technical education program to earn what is called an industry-based certification. Basically that is a certification, such as welding, that is recognized by business and industry as they’ve participated in a preparation program in which they can literally walk in with that certificate and start the job immediately,” Muri said.
In 2019, the district had 111 students that graduated high school with industry-based certifications.
“But thanks to the really good work of our career and technical education teachers and leaders” that number in 2023 was 648 students that earned industry-based certifications, along with their high school diploma,” Muri said.
He added that there has also been a significant increase in the level of preparedness of our high school graduates to enter the postsecondary world.
“Back in 2019, 56 percent of the seniors in ECISD were considered postsecondary ready. Basically they are ready for that postsecondary world. When we fast forward to today, that number has increased by 17 percent and so we’re now at 73 percent of our students being considered postsecondary ready. Our high school folks get a lot of credit for that,” Muri said.
But the class of 2024 will “definitely surpass” those from 2023.
“In fact, we will have a number in the 80s as we think about postsecondary readiness,” Muri said.
He added that there is some really good work happening in the high schools.
On a separate item, ECISD operates a childcare facility primarily serving the children of staff members and some of the students.
In Texas, childcare facilities have an opportunity to be rated a Texas Rising Star. The highest rating you can receive is a four-star rating.
“We received notice that our own childcare program is now rated four star. The first time ever that our childcare program has received that rating. That makes them one of the best childcare facilities in the state of Texas,” Muri said.
As for school safety, ECISD has added intruder resistant film to the front glass areas of every school in ECISD.
During the State of the District, the public was introduced to four canine units.
“ECISD does have four dogs — two dogs that pay attention to narcotics and then two dogs that are focused on weapons and bombs,” Muri said. “We use those dogs on a regular basis at our middle schools and high schools just to add an additional layer of safety and security.”
The number of police officers has increased from 32 in 2019 to 42 today. Muri said that number continues to grow.
“Our goal is to have at least one officer in every school in ECISD and we are getting close to making sure that is indeed a reality within our own community,” he added.
He also provided an update on the bond noting that ECISD has installed 825 interactive panels.
“We spent a little over $3 million on those panels and that work continues in classrooms in and around ECISD,” Muri said.
If you would like to keep up with the bond projects, visit ecisdbond.com.
Muri said the 4,200 members of Team ECISD is having a significant impact on the community.
“We still as an organization have a lot of work to do, but a lot of really good data elements are in existence,” he added.
Several years back, a committee was formed to look at discipline discrepancies. Muri said they are really pleased with what has happened.
“We had multiple subgroups of students in years past that were being disproportionately disciplined and we’ve remedied most of that,” Muri said. “We have one category of student that we talked about last night (March 19) and that’s students of multi races. It’s about 60 students specifically identified as special ed. We have a little bit more work to do, but really pleased with the progress that we’ve made as we think about student discipline and ensuring that there’s equitable treatment of students in ECISD,” Muri said.
Next Monday, he will be participating in an artificial intelligence webinar as part of the Age of AI webinar series.
Digital Promise, with support from Siegel Family Endowment and the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, is hosting the Age of AI webinar series.
“We’ve been a part of some artificial intelligence work,” Muri said. “Of course, artificial intelligence has been around not only in our school system but in our society for quite a few years. It is right now getting a lot attention in our country because of significant advancements that have happened in the last several months,” Muri said.
The webinar will talk about AI in education.
“There will be a lot more of those opportunities not only as we explore and continue to embrace the technology and use it effectively within the organization, but as educators across the country we continue to explore new and exciting ways to leverage power and potential of artificial intelligence to help us more effectively do the work that we do with kids,” Muri said.
In line with recovering from the pandemic, Muri said attendance has not had the same bounce back as academics.
“Overall from last year to this year, we have seen improvement. We have not returned to the levels of attendance we had before the pandemic. We were averaging about 95.5 to 96 percent attendance pre-pandemic. Right now, we’re a little over 92 percent as an attendance rate,” Muri said.
“We have not recovered from an attendance perspective. We have fully recovered, and in fact increased, academically but we have not recovered from an attendance perspective. So still some work to do there,” he added.
Muri said there will be summer school this year, but it might be scaled down due to budget constraints.
“Much of our summer school money was budgeted in the ’23-24 school year so we know we will have a summer school,” he said.
