The current surge of COVID-19 cases has hit Ector County ISD hard.
During his media call Wednesday, Superintendent Scott Muri said the district has had more than 700 positive cases — adults and students — in the last three days.
Muri said he was the only one in his office Wednesday because everyone was out sick.
“We know that many of those cases are actually transmitted in our own community, so we really encourage our parents to make sure that they’re supporting their kids, helping them be as safe as they possibly can be, maintain distance, make sure that they are keeping their hands clean and certainly wearing masks when you’re around other people,” Muri said.
“When we do our part in our community it certainly helps the schools become a much better, safer place for our students. We’re also doing things as a school system to make sure that not only COVID-19 stays out of our campuses, but that our students are safe and staff members are safe,” he added.
Nurses districtwide are making testing available, so any student or staff member that shows symptoms during the day can get a rapid COVID-19 test in the nurse’s office.
If a child tests positive, parents get information about follow up and what they can do next to make sure their child stays healthy.
ECISD also is providing air purifiers in every classroom throughout the district.
“In fact, most of those air purifiers are now out. We are providing those as an additional way to keep kids safe while in the classroom. Our custodial staff continues to work diligently to make sure that areas remain sanitized, to make sure that high-touch areas are cleaned on a regular basis, (and) once again, to keep our kids as safe as we possibly can,” Muri said.
“We’re doing that same activity on buses. We require kids when they get on the bus to make sure they use hand sanitizer and then we sanitize those buses in between students …,” he added.
Students are transported in the morning and afternoon, he said.
At this time, Muri said, there are no plans to close any schools.
“The only reason we would do that is if we simply do not have enough staff members to safely monitor students on campus. Right now, while we do have a number of staff and student vacancies we do not have a campus that has enough vacancies to warrant closure due to safety considerations. So we will continue to remain open,” he said
“Parents, we know that’s important to you so that you can do what you need to do during the day to support your children,” Muri added.
He also asked for compassion from the community as the district is short of teachers, administrators, secretaries and custodians.
“… Every area of our system is short staffed, so we ask that you be patient with us. If you call a school and no one answers, it could be because the entire office staff is out sick at this time. And just be aware that the absences not only are affecting our students, but staff members as well and probably will continue to be that way for the next several months. So we just need to be thoughtful as we also deal with staffing shortages. It’s much like our business community and healthcare community dealing with those very same shortages,” Muri said.
He encouraged all staff members and students to wash their hands on a regular basis, use hand sanitizer and maintain as safe a distance as possible.
“We know that some of our schools are certainly crowded, but to the very best of your ability we ask our students to maintain a safe distance. And finally mask wearing. We know that helps and the more effective your mask, the safer you will be. …,” he said.
The district cannot close and go remote, but virtual school is available for students who qualify.
“They have to meet certain criteria to do that. It is full time. We do have students today that are in our virtual school and they’ve been there all year,” Muri said. “… The reason we would close building at this point is because we do not have enough adults to safely monitor the students. That’s why we would close a school.”
Muri said the district has never had the number of positive cases it has had in one day.
“… It’s an all-hands-on-deck opportunity. To work in a school at a minimum, you’ve got to have (a) background check to make sure you can safely work with children. … We appreciate and we need volunteers to help us maintain, but we have to run all of our volunteers through a process to make sure that they’re safe to work with children and be close to kids,” Muri said.
He added that there are people from central office working at schools and people on campuses doing double and triple duty.
On another topic, 521 seniors took the SAT during the district’s SAT day in October 2020 and 544 took it in October 2021.
Muri said seniors have increased their scores by 40 points from last year to this year.
“We’re absolutely ecstatic about that improvement. It is an anomaly in the middle of this pandemic. As we look across the country, many locations have declined but our students really rose to the occasion and demonstrated their aptitude; demonstrated their work ethic; and demonstrated their ability to achieve, so we applaud our seniors. We applaud the teachers that supported their work and are excited by that. So a 40-point increase from this year to last year and then also 15 points above the state of Texas. The state of Texas score is, again, 15 points below our score. …,” Muri said.
On Tuesday night, the ECISD bond committee presented its proposal to the board of trustees. Their proposal included four specific recommendations.
>> Build a comprehensive high school.
>> Build a career and technical education center.
>> Recommendation three was that ECISD take care of the maintenance and safety issues, not only in schools but other buildings throughout the district.
>> The fourth recommendation was that ECISD invest in technology to modernize classrooms, Muri said.
The committee also recommended that the total dollar amount remain below $400 million, and to hold the election in May 2022.
“From this point forward, the board at the next several meetings will consider the recommendation of the bond advisory committee and then make a determination as to whether to call an election. If they choose to call an election, the date the board would vote on that would be Feb. 15 and we would again be targeting the May of ‘22 election period,” Muri said.
Raise Your Hand Texas, an organization that advocates on behalf of educational organizations and public education throughout the state, has created a trustee advocacy program.
“They made that opportunity available to every school district in Texas. Eight school boards were selected to participate in this brand-new advocacy program and the board of trustees for Ector County was selected among the 1,200 school districts across the state, so we offer our congratulations to our board. They will engage for the next year and a half in this advocacy program, working with seven other school districts and their trustees across the state of Texas,” Muri said.
The board will develop their skills on how to more effectively advocate for public policy, specifically around the education area, working with state Senators and Representatives to discuss and support education opportunities throughout Texas, he said.
