Following a short retirement after a varied educational career, Jessica Garrett is back to work as the coordinator of the Early Childhood Action Network.
ECAN is an offshoot of the Education Partnership of the Permian Basin, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting and improving the quality of education throughout the Permian Basin from cradle to career, its website said.
Garrett, who retired as an associate professor of educational leadership at University of Texas Permian Basin, has been in the coordinator’s spot for two weeks, as of the week of Feb. 14.
“I’m still drinking from the fire hose, literally,” she said.
Garrett replaces Mike Mills who was head of Educate Midland and then helmed ECAN after the organization unified with the Education Partnership. He has gone to work in the business community, but Education Partnership Executive Director Adrian Vega said he will stay involved with the leadership team.
A native Midlander, Garrett graduated from what is now Legacy High School and went to West Texas A&M University, formerly West Texas State University. She earned a bachelor’s in elementary education with a special education certification.
Returning to Midland, she taught school at what is now Bowie Elementary School, now Bowie Fine Arts Academy, and DeZavala Elementary.
While she was teaching, Garrett received a master’s degree in leadership administration from UTPB.
She was the assistant principal at Rusk Elementary for four years, then got her doctorate from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.
Garrett was a principal in Anderson, Shiro and Willis, Texas, before Sam Houston State pulled her into work in higher education.
She moved back to the Permian Basin 12 years ago. Garrett has two daughters.
She added that she was an early adopter of the collective impact model that the partnership and its action networks are based on.
Garrett met people with Educate Midland and worked with them into the unification.
The groups realized it was going to take everyone to solve the education issues in the Permian Basin, Garrett said.
“We like to call them wicked problems, because they’re not well defined. And we don’t really know how to fix them. They’re just big and they’re messy. And so we really see our role here more like a facilitation role. We’re a backbone organization. We get all the people together at the table who are equipped and have the capacity to look at what we call these wicked problems,” Garrett said.
“That’s a term. It’s a real thing. The great thing that we have found is how open and willing the community is to really dig in and do this work. That requires a level of trust that the two communities haven’t always had with each other. But we really feel like we have put together a phenomenal board. I can’t say enough wonderful things about our board, and then a really strong leadership team,” she added.
They are working with a firm called Boldly Go on their strategic plan.
“… The thing is one lever at a time. If you can can eliminate this barrier for this family and several other families, then you find other barriers, and you can remove those barriers, especially in the world of early childhood,” Garrett said.
She added that ECAN works closely with the Texas Workforce Solutions Permian Basin and has spoken to Patty Stewart there about early child care.
“… We really feel like that’s a win-win for everybody. If we get good, quality childcare, then we have more individuals for the workforce. We have children that go to school kindergarten ready. … We just feel like in this in this birth to 5 space, there are a lot of really good things that we can do and impact the community in some real ways,” Garrett said.
A lot lower-income parents may not send their children to child care or preschool because of the cost and the waiting lists.
COVID impacted a lot of child care providers and some shut down, Garrett said. If more child care was available, it could be more competitive and maybe the rates wouldn’t be as high.
She added that if a child is sent to school kindergarten ready they will be more successful.
“… Statistics show those are the ones that persist; those are the ones that graduate; those are the ones that go to college. If all you’ve done is struggled through school and feel mediocre at best, the likelihood that you’re going to continue to torture yourself (is) probably pretty slim. …,” Garrett said.
“We just really feel like we’re starting to identify some of those really critical levers.”
ECAN provides POWER Bags to hospitals and pediatricians’ offices. POWER stands for the power of early words and reading. The bags are provided to parents of newborns and include information about the importance of speaking, interacting and reading to the newborn.
Garrett said she was drawn to the ECAN post because it was a chance to make a difference. Her parents, Robert and Dianne Garrett, are very service oriented. Her brother, who lives in Stanton, also is very community oriented as are his sons.
“I think it’s just in the fabric of our family and who we are, and how we grew up. It’s where I’m happiest is serving others and making a difference in our community,” she added.
Garrett also is very involved in First Christian Church in Midland.
With Garrett’s level of experience and expertise, Vega said he is very excited to have Garrett on the team. He added that he’s confident she can hit the ground running.
“Obviously with any new position it’s a matter of getting acclimated. She’ll pick up what she needs to pick up without having to learn the world of education,” Vega said.
He added that her range of experience goes well with the work of the collective impact organization and she was already familiar with the concept of collective impact — organizations working together toward a common goal.
“… She already has personal, professional and life experience to bring to the table,” Vega said.
