By Scott Muri
As you are reading this, many of our staff and students are traveling back from Spring Break destinations. This was a well-deserved break from a very challenging school year. In fact, the past three years have presented us with some unprecedented challenges; from a mass shooting in our community, to COVID-19 closures, to returning to school in the midst of the pandemic. Personally, I have never experienced anything like this in my career. These circumstances required us to respond in new ways, forcing us to innovate and improve.
I prepared this article to inform you of the good work happening in ECISD on behalf of the children we serve.
On March 3, we hosted our first annual State of the District with several hundred people in attendance. One week later, the event aired in its entirety on our social media platforms where it remains for you to watch at any time. We hope you will, we are excited for you to see it.
The work we do is based upon our strategic plan (that can be found on our ectorcountyisd.org website) which has three themes: foundational excellence, talent development and the learning journey. Just a few of the highlights of our work:
- ECISD’s graduation rate is the highest it has been in 20 years.
- Kindergarten readiness has increased by 13 points in just one year due to the expansion of full-day PreK for our four-year-olds. The addition of three-year-old PK will pay similar dividends in the coming years.
- The percentage of our high school students ready for post-secondary success has increased by 7 points and is now higher than our region and equal to the state.
- Our SAT scores have increased by 40 points, which is 15 points above the state average.
- ECISD is setting the pace for internet connectivity in our community. From partnering with SpaceX to bring high-speed satellite broadband to rural families, to the creation of the ConnEctor Task Force focused on high-speed, affordable broadband for every resident of Ector County, we have been busy ensuring equity of internet access to our students and our community.
- The District now offers FREE breakfast and FREE lunch for EVERY student, EVERY day. We expect to serve 6.2 million meals this year.
- We have raised starting teacher pay $13,000, going from $44,000 to $57,000.
- Multiple strategic staffing models extend the reach of our most effective teachers allowing them to serve more students while also providing opportunities for them to coach, lead and earn more money. Today, more students have access to more effective teachers.
- ECISD has received more than $49.5 million in investments from our partners across the state and nation over the past 2 1/2 years enabling us to expand and improve opportunities for students and staff.
- Partnerships, including a generous grant from the Permian Strategic Partnership, have 56 of our teachers pursuing National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification, the gold standard in the teaching profession.
- ECISD is the first district in this region to be accepted into the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program and 119 of our teachers will receive TIA stipends of up to $20,000.
- In August 2019, ECISD had 356 teacher vacancies; currently there are 51 teacher vacancies.
- With various teacher incentives in place, we fully expect to have teachers who earn more than $100,000 this school year.
- We have created a series of staffing pipelines to identify, train, and retain our talented people, especially those right here in Odessa and West Texas
- The week before Spring Break, a group of our students traveled to Woods Hole, Massachusetts to study with scientists at the Marine Biological Lab. This is just one example of innovative partnerships we have with colleges and universities across the country that allow our students and staff to be citizen scientists in ongoing research.
There is more, but I will let you get to the March Madness scores!
We do not do this work alone. Team ECISD depends upon the support of our families and community to ensure the success of our children. When our schools open again tomorrow, there will be just ten weeks left in the school year and much work left to be done. Together, we will continue to improve opportunities for our children and prepare them for an exciting future. The state of our district is improving, and as your superintendent, I look forward to our continued partnership. Good things are happening.
Scott Muri is superintendent of the Ector County Independent School District.
