The Ector County ISD Board of Trustees was presented with a deficit budget at their meeting Tuesday night because the state legislature has not added any new funding for districts across the state, Superintendent Scott Muri said.
Muri noted that deficit budgets are rampant across the state.
“They have the money sitting there. It’s just a matter of making sure that the dollars from Austin (get) to the classroom,” Muri said during his media call Wednesday.
He added that they feel strongly that ECISD must continue to invest in the 33,000 students and 4,200 employees that it has. Muri said they presented the deficit budget with the full expectation that the Texas Legislature will at some point soon be called to a special session to specifically discuss school funding.
“We know that funding exists to provide additional supports for public education, not only in ECISD but across the state. Our budget is designed to rely heavily upon the state and decisions that they will make to continue to fund appropriately public education in Texas,” Muri said. “It is critical. We will continue to work with both the members of the House and the Senate to design a funding opportunity for public schools not only in ECISD, but across the state a funding package that makes sense; that allows us to invest deeply in the children that we serve each and every day.”
Muri noted that investing in talent is critically important to public education.
“The 4,200 members of team ECISD need to receive a healthy investment in order for them to continue their work, and on Tuesday night, the administration presented to our board of trustees exactly that — an investment in our employees that will keep us as a school system leading the way in our community and in our region for the employees that we serve every day,” Muri said.
Administration proposed a 3 percent raise for all ECISD employees and that the starting teacher salary be raised to $60,600 once approved by the board. The current starting salary is $58,750. Muri said teachers will see at least a $2,000 raise.
The board is scheduled to vote on the raises and the budget at its June 20 meeting.
Midland ISD recently raised its starting salary from $58,500 to $60,500.
“Those investments in our teachers, our leaders, our support staff members will ensure that ECISD continues to be a leader in our region in the area of compensation. We’re excited about that and we know that investing financially in the employees of ECISD makes a difference,” Muri said.
“While it is not the only factor that we use to recruit, attract and retain, it is a critical factor that helps us employ the very best individuals to meet the needs of the students that we serve each and every day,” he added.
Muri said the ECISD Board of Trustees will spend the summer deliberating a bond package for which recommendations were made Tuesday night.
The board must make a decision to call a November election by Aug. 21 by law, he said.
The bond committee included 130 people that spent hours studying data, having conversations about that information and generating a proposal through consensus. Information about the bond issue can be found on the ECISD website at ectorcountyisd.org. Click on the Bond 2023 button and it will show the information.
Asked about social media and talk about the bond issue, Muri stressed that trustees have not called an election yet.
“At this point, there’s nothing to get out in front of because they have yet to make a decision as to what they’re going to do. I have encouraged, and will continue to encourage, people to not speculate and not make up information but find out the facts. There has been no decision about anything. There isn’t a bond package right now. The board has yet to do that,” Muri said.
There is no location for a middle school or Career and Technical Education facility in the proposed package.
“The committee did not recommend a location. It is not their prerogative to do that. They don’t have the ability to identify locations. That is the board’s responsibility,” he said.
“… I would just caution people to be very thoughtful when they see things in social media. People can say anything that they want to. It doesn’t have to be the truth, so if people want to know what the truth is about a bond package I would encourage them to speak directly to the school system so that we can tell them that truth and respond to their questions whatever they may happen to be,” Muri said.
“… But at this point in the game, the place that we are, the bond committee has made a recommendation to the school board and the school board will spend the next two months deliberating that proposal and then they will make a recommendation on or before Aug. 21 about what to do next and there isn’t any truth beyond that. Those are the facts. People can certainly speculate all they want, but those are the facts,” he added.
Muri also reviewed results from middle of the year MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing where he said there was growth.
The test is used to follow the academic growth of ECISD students in mathematics and reading.
“We also took a look at science. That assessment is used to show us how our students are growing. There was a lot of really good news in that assessment that we reviewed. Our expectation is that a student in ECISD receives at least a year’s worth of growth in all of their academic content areas,” Muri said. “If a student is going to spend 180 days with us, they should grow by 180 days and so we set targets for each of our students at the beginning of the year and what we saw last night at that board meeting was that many of our students are growing well above and beyond that one year’s worth of expected growth. That makes us very happy for our kids.”
He added that it also shows their level of proficiency will continue to increase in reading, mathematics and science.
“We applaud the great work of our teachers that continue to invest heavily in our students; the great work of our campus leaders, our principals, to make sure that they are creating an environment that is conducive to learning and all the other individuals that support the learning processes in ECISD. That evidence indicates that the good work of this team continues to happen and we are growing beyond those expectations,” Muri said.
There was a drop off in sixth and seventh grade scores. Muri said you have to figure out what’s happening by school, classroom and down to the student level to see what’s happening in those areas and remedy that.
“But the bigger picture was there’s significant growth in most areas. Those areas that didn’t grow as much as we had hoped we have to fully understand and make sure that we’re investing appropriately in those areas,” he said.
He added that there is a direct correlation between the growth that occurs in the MAP assessment and the reality of the STAAR and end-of-course exams. Muri said they will not see results at the elementary and middle school levels until August at the earliest because this is a new version of the test.
“But we have started to see some preliminary results at the high school level and absolutely what we’re seeing on the MAP is absolutely panning out on those results; so pretty exciting results,” Muri said.
On the newly hired employees approved Tuesday night, ECISD picked up a couple of people from Midland ISD. There have been several people from ECISD who have gone to MISD in recent months.
“I’m excited for people to be promoted and seek opportunities. We don’t necessarily recruit from another district or another location. We’re looking for talent wherever that talent may happen to reside whether it’s in Texas or some other place. What we want our students to have access to is talent and so wherever we find talented people, we’re happy to do that. And then for our own people as we develop and cultivate great leaders and great teachers, if they have opportunities for promotion we’re excited about that for them. It’s a lot of fun to watch people that you have developed continue to grow and move into positions that allow them to spread their wings a little bit more, so those are exciting times,” Muri said.
