Ector County ISD’s annual State of the District is set for 7 p.m. March 7 at the Odessa High School Performing Arts Center.
A reception will be at 6:30 p.m.
During his media call Wednesday, Superintendent Scott Muri said the presentation will include a comprehensive update for the community on the progress the district has made organizationally.
“We’ll look at a lot of data, some data points that make sense … academic data, enrollment data, growth data; just some other elements so the public can see the improvements and the progress that we’re making as an organization. Then we’ll highlight some of the individuals and employees and students of ECISD during the presentation, as well,” Muri said.
The district has invited a number of leaders from the state, region and nation to the event.
It will not be broadcast live, but will be posted on the district website when the editing is complete.
On a separate subject, Muri said the ECISD Board of Trustees held a special meeting March 4 to make adjustments to the Travis and Zavala elementary school attendance zone starting in the 2024-25 school year, starting in August.
The students at Travis Elementary will attend Zavala Elementary.
“Zavala will be the primary school for students in that new attendance zone. Students attending Travis will now attend Zavala and that will be a pre-k through 5th grade school. That will start in August 2024,” Muri said. “We welcome all the Travis students to Zavala Elementary School.”
The board will consider ways to use the Travis Elementary school building with recommendations from a committee. That committee has not been formed yet, Muri said.
“We do not want that building to remain vacant … We recognize that not only within ECISD, but within our community there are some ways to leverage that facility so we will be working with a group of people to study the opportunities and then to bring a recommendation to the board of trustees in the coming months, so that building specifically will be kept functional and we’ll use it in some way to support the needs of the system and/or the community at large,” he added.
Muri said there are a quite a few needs in the community that the building could be used for. One of those is childcare.
“We’ll do a bit of a study, bring some folks together, engage in conversation and ultimately bring a recommendation to our board of trustees as to how we will use that facility, but it will not be used for k-5 students next year,” he said.
During the bond committee meetings, one of the things that was noted from data they analyzed was that although some elementary schools are “severely overcrowded” there are some, particularly in the City of Odessa “kind of centrally located, that are under enrolled.”
“In fact, when we decided to return Travis and Zavala to k-5 schools we noticed that the number of students that would be attending Travis was 180. We simply can’t afford to educate (that small a group of students) and so from an effectiveness and efficiency perspective it makes sense to merge those students with Zavala,” Muri said.
Zavala had a little over 400 students and it will have a little more than 600 next year.
“This will ensure that we can fully staff that school and ensure that the students have the type of opportunities that they need. When you have a school of 180 students, it is very difficult to provide all of the needs of the students that will be attending that school,” Muri said.
In addition, it will save ECISD money. The action at Travis will save approximately $566,000 next year and repurposing Burleson Elementary into a prekindergarten center will save $690,000.
“As our community is well aware, the state has not provided appropriate funding for public education in Texas and we have a $24 million budget deficit. This change in school boundaries will save ECISD a little over $560,000 at just this singular school alone so financially it makes sense and just from a school operations and an effectiveness perspective it makes sense,” Muri said.
Because of the recent attendance boundary changes, many families who applied for the magnet and choice school programs will be notified March 27.
“That official notification will come out on March 27 so all of our families will be notified on March 27 about the selection for the lottery. If your child was not selected for the lottery, or if you didn’t participate in the lottery, we’ll be reopening the lottery during the month of April for any available seats once those selections have been made,” Muri said.
