The ConnEctor Task Force, a group from Ector County looking at providing affordable, high-speed broadband to everyone in the county, had a chance to share the story of its efforts in Houston this week.
Ector County ISD Superintendent Scott Muri said in his media call Wednesday that they had a chance to present their work to the City of Houston and Harris County.
“As you may be aware the ConnEctor Task Force was started here in Ector County a little over a year ago as we look at providing a high-speed, affordable broadband solution to every family in Ector County that desires to have that,” Muri said.
“The ConnEctor Task Force is made up of 26 individuals that represent education, healthcare, our business community, our nonprofit community, both city and county leaders, all of us coming together for a single purpose of creating a broadband solution, again, that will provide high- speed, affordable broadband access to every family in Ector County that desires that,” Muri said.
“The community in Harris County, specifically the City of Houston, is interested in doing something similar and they had heard about the work that we’re doing in Ector County …,” he added.
The information was with other communities, so the task force was invited to present that work as Houston and Harris County begin to explore a solution to providing high-speed, affordable broadband to everyone in their communities.
“It was an honor to share our story, the Ector County story, along with our friends from the other side of our state and we hope that what we are learning here about this opportunity will certainly be a benefit not only to the folks in Houston but to other parts of our state, as well,” Muri added.
On a separate topic, Muri said the district received a clean audit, which was presented by the firm of Whitley Penn at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“… Our auditor was there and shared her findings with the board of trustees, so we’re very pleased to share with our community that we have once again a clean audit. That is on top of our state financial rating that the Texas Education Agency (which) gave ECISD a perfect score of 100 on our finances again this year.
“We congratulate our chief financial officer and her team that do exceptional work to make certain that we follow all the laws, rules and policies and that the way that our dollars are spent in ECISD follows all government accounting procedures. And again, we celebrate that with the state’s FIRST report and a perfect score of 100 and also a clean audit,” Muri said.
FIRST stands for Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas.
The district also was recognized at the board meeting by the United Way.
“The 4,200 members of ECISD this year raised over $77,000 for the United Way of Odessa. We presented them with that check recently, and last night, they came and recognized at our board of education meeting the work of ECISD, our employees, in raising that amount of money. ECISD has been a partner with the United Way of Odessa for many years and each of our schools —elementary, middle and high school — the employees that work at those schools take time each year to raise funding. We also do that at the central office level, and again, over $77,000 raised this year by the employees of ECISD in partnership with the United Way of Odessa. … We know that that money is used wisely to support various organizations within Ector County and we thank the 4,200 employees who contributed and made that donation possible,” Muri said.
More COVID vaccine clinics are planned, he said. There was one Thursday in partnership with the health department.
“We have found that our parents really appreciate that easy access and sometimes it can be out of their way to make their way to the health department, or to another place in our community that provides the vaccination for children,” 5-11 years old, Muri said.
“… We’ll continue to partner not only with the health department, but our hospitals have expressed interest as well in partnering with us in that effort,” he added.
Asked about whether school nurses are required to be vaccinated, Muri said they are not.
“Nurses in Ector County that work for Ector County ISD are … school district employees and we do not have a vaccination mandate in ECISD. A vaccination mandate would come from the Texas Education Agency and TEA has not made a decision or … said anything about a vaccination mandate for school employees in the state of Texas. At this time, our nurses because they are school district employees, would follow the same guidance that all employees follow within ECISD, which is, again, the same guidance that every school district employee follows in the state of Texas. Right now, there is no mandate for any school district employee,” Muri said.
