Ector County ISD’s convocation to welcome everyone back from summer and pump them up for the upcoming school year is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Ratliff Stadium.
It’s a little different than previous years when the event was held in the morning at the Ector County Coliseum.
During his media call Wednesday, Superintendent Scott Muri said they will be celebrating ECISD’s success from last year and preparing for 2022-23.
“… There’s a lot of good news and a lot of good work happening,” Muri said. “We want to make sure that all 4,200 employees are well aware of what’s going on in our organization. Sometimes we work in a department, a division, or a school and we’re isolated from what’s happening in the larger organization. So we want to make sure that everybody is well aware of the progress we’re making, at the same time getting them ready for the upcoming school year. We’ll deliver some messages that will kind of prepare them for the opportunities that lie ahead.”
As for the start of school, Muri said the first group of students return Aug. 9 and the next group will come back Aug. 11.
“We learned during the pandemic that a phased-in start of school is really beneficial to our students. We will once again be doing that this year,” Muri said.
He added that parents should check the ECISD website for their child’s specific start date.
School supply lists also are on the website and at ECISD campuses.
Muri also encouraged parents to register their children for the upcoming school year. He said you can visit the district website or any campus in the district to sign up in person.
The new teacher welcome event, organized by the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 1 on the second floor of the Odessa Marriott Hotel & Conference Center.
Previous welcomes for Ector County ISD teachers have been breakfasts and tailgates.
Muri said more than 250 teachers have been hired over the summer. He noted that there are retirements, resignations, promotions and transfers every year that create open spots. At the end of last year, there were 50 unfilled vacancies.
Summer graduation is today at the Odessa High School Performing Arts Center.
“We call it a rainbow graduation because all five of our high schools will have students represented tomorrow night at this graduation,” Muri said Wednesday.
He added it is a “wonderful opportunity to celebrate the final edition, if you will, of the class of 2022.” Every year, Muri said, ECISD provides students with a chance to make up any courses they might be lacking and an opportunity to graduate during the summer.
On the testing front, Muri said the state is undergoing a redesign of the STAAR and end-of-course exams.
Next year, students will be taking a “refined version of the STAAR exam and the end-of-course exam.”
“I think a lot of stakes have been placed on exams such as the the STAAR and end-of-course exam. We as educators want to know how our students are doing, but having high-stakes exams can sometimes be detrimental to our kids. Many kids experience test anxiety and other complications that go along with those high-stakes (tests), so anything our state can do to remove the stakes of those assessments I think is certainly beneficial for our kids,” Muri said.
“But from an education perspective, we still need to make sure that we are assessing children to know what they’re learning and at what pace and rate of speed they’re learning those items, so clearly some work can be done to improve our testing and accountability system,” he added.
Muri was asked about ECISD graduates having to take remedial courses when they reach University of Texas Permian Basin because of reading and writing issues.
Muri said there has been added focus on those areas in recent years.
“The last three years, I’ll point to a lot of work on behalf of our teachers and administrators and our curriculum team to improve the reading, writing and science and social studies experiences of our kids. Our STAAR data, end-of-course data indicate that a lot of work has been done. Our SAT scores … they’re the highest ever. We improved by 40 points in just one year. The SAT measures both mathematics and writing and reading on the part of our students, so we are making changes because when a child graduates from high school they should be well equipped to be successful (in) a post secondary world. We don’t want our kids to be set up for failure in any way, regardless of what their choice may happen to be. We continue to improve as an organization to make sure our kids are set up for success whether it be UTPB, Odessa College, or any institution of higher learning that they choose to attend,” Muri said.
